Is Keyword Density Important for an SEO Content Writer?

Keyword density is a term that gets bandied about a lot in SEO circles. Some say it's the key, others that it's bunk. So, what's the truth? Is it important for an SEO content writer?

Wait... what's keyword density, and why should an SEO content writer care?

First, let's be clear about what it means. Keyword density refers to the ratio of a given keyword to the total amount of text in its article. For example, if the keyword phrase "Victorian architecture" appeared four times in a one-hundred word article, the ratio would be 4:100, or 4%. That's its density.

There was a time when putting the same keyword a zillion times on a page would send the page straight to the top of the search engines. But that hasn't been the case since the dinosaur days. Search engines have gotten smart, and nowadays they are sure to penalize you for doing that. It's called "keyword stuffing", and you should absolutely avoid it.

Those who say keyword density is important generally recommend a density of around 4-8%. Some say as much as 20%. You can find tools online that will analyze your density for you and make recommendations.

However...

Many veteran SEO professionals ignore keyword density completely.

Why do they disavow density? Well, they either believe it's not a very important metric used by search engines anymore, or that it was a myth from the start. The only thing it has going for it is that it's a pretty straightforward concept, which means your non-expert clients can easily wrap their heads around it.

So if keyword density isn't important, than what is?

In place of density, think in terms of the following three concepts: keyword presence, keyword placement, and term weight.

Keyword presence

First, does the keyword actually appear somewhere in the article? That's all keyword presence means. It may seem like a no-brainer, but you'd be surprised how easily you can write your masterpiece and completely miss your keyword. It does have to be in there somewhere.

Keyword placement

Second, where does the keyword show up? Keyword placement refers to the locations of the keyword. Search engines scan your article starting at the top of its structure: the title. It also looks at section headers, and body text starting from the beginning. The earlier the keyword appears in that process, the better. So definitely, definitely, definitely put the keyword in the title. Put it in your section headers too, and put it in your body text - the earlier the better.

Term weight

Finally, is the keyword common or uncommon? Term weight indicates how common the term is. The less common it is, the heavier the weight, and the easier your article will rise to the top of the search engine results. Why? Because there's less competition for an uncommon term.

As an SEO content writer, you probably won't be choosing your keywords; rather, your client will give them to you. So there's not much you can do in your article to affect term weight. However, it will dictate how strategic you'll have to be in order to get the same results. The lower the term weight, the more clever you'll have to be.

So... important or not?

So, is keyword density important? Maybe. Maybe not. You'd do best to concentrate instead on keyword presence, keyword placement, and term weight. With these three, your writing will get the upper hand.

B. T. Newberg is an author, editor, and freelance SEO content writer. Learn more SEO secrets at BTNewberg.com.

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Increasing the Traffic to the Website in the Simplest Way Possible: LSI Keyword Articles

By definition, LSI otherwise known as latent semantic index is an algorithm that makes use of synonyms and other related keywords in order to establish the pertinence of a webpage or documents to a determined search.

Currently, the LSI keyword article is a SEO method often employed for attaining more traffic on a website and hence, a higher rank in the SERP. The reason for this is quite simple: instead of respecting a certain keyword density that will not make the search engine bots consider the website spam and still show up in the search results, using relevant synonyms makes the content easier to read.

The process of gathering appropriate synonyms to include in the LSI keyword articles always begins with finding the appropriate terms on the adequate keyword research tools. While it is true that there are several free keyword research tools available, the most important synonyms that will get you the best results are usually the ones provided by the Google AdWords tool.

Another set of relevant terms that you should prioritize and use in the content for a website are the ones that typically get more searches over extended periods. However, take note that it is futile to optimize a keyword or phrase that normally gets millions of hits. The correct approach implies selecting 10 or 15 terms that you combine in phrases found in the research.

Besides the actual search for the synonyms that are to be included in the LSI keyword articles, webmasters should also pay attention to the way they integrate them in the content. A natural introduction means that you are not to repeat the same keyword throughout the text, but replace it regularly with similar terms. Essentially, the idea of using relevant terms is to pick the ones that will fall naturally within the content of the website. Nonetheless, it is worth pointing out that in order to show up in users' searches and search engines bots indexing, the keywords must be included in the titles of the articles as well as in the first 100 words of the texts.

While using synonyms is one of the best methods to getting quality content on the website that will appeal to the target audience, a certain keyword density is still required. If the key phrases you selected do not show up as often as you see fit, then it is important to increase their incidence in the content. When the main keyword does not quite fit in a sentence of phrase, the best course of action is to use a close relevant term as provided by the search engine.

At the same time, make sure that the keyword density does not exceed 5%, as according to Google standards for instance, the optimal density is between 3% and 5%, while higher values are considered spam. Both the main keyword and the synonyms enter the 5% recommended keyword density.

For quality content, you should also make sure that the non-keywords are not repeated too often as well. While you do not have to bother with words such as "the" or "your, it is important to find relevant terms for words that are figuring too highly.

For the best way of using LSI keyword articles to propel your website to success, make sure that you engage the help of a reputable online content writer to craft these important articles for you.

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Keyword Research Tips For An Online Business!

When starting an online business, many business owners may struggle with finding the right niche. There can be a number of reasons why it is difficult to establish a successful online business; however, one of the most critical reasons is failure to research and identify the right niche. The internet is saturated with various business ideas; therefore it is important that an online business owner take the time to research and find a niche that will produce positive results.

One may question how a business owner finds the perfect niche. Well, one of the first crucial steps is to invest some time in Keyword Research. Due to the array of business ideas available online, it is important to narrow your options and find the niche that will generate a high traffic volume that can potentially lead to earning income. One of the goals should be to work hard and smart to find the perfect, relevant keywords that will draw customers to your website. You don't want to waste value time and energy on a niche idea that is already highly competitive. Thus, finding unique keywords for niches that will produce a high search engine ranking for your website should be a primary focus for a successful business.

To implement the process of finding a successful business niche, consider following the suggested steps listed below:

1. Research and identify the niche of interest.

2. Find unique keywords for your niche. It is important to find strong keywords that can produce high traffic volume and low competition. Discovering long-tail keywords can prove to be more beneficial than short, generic keywords.

3. Compile a list of strong keywords and use the keywords to write articles, blogs and/or create videos to drive traffic to your website.

How do you discover strong, keywords for a specific niche.

Keyword research can be a challenge if you don't have the right tools. Using tools such as Keyword Evolution can help to expedite the process. Keyword Evolution has a simple and quick method that enables you to identify strong keywords in a minimal amount of time. The method involves using the traffic light color system to help you determine if you should move forward with a specific keyword. If your light is green after you input the traffic and competition figures, then that is an indication that you have found a strong keyword.

Whichever tool you decide to use the main idea is to generate a list of relevant keywords that will help to promote your online business. I cannot emphasize enough the importance of keyword research. As I stated earlier, you don't want to waste your time and energy in an area that will not produce positive results if your goal is to establish a successful online business and earn income.

So, I challenge you to begin your keyword research journey the right way and use a tool such as Keyword Evolution that will assist you in finding the strong, unique keywords that will help boost your business to a high search engine ranking and thus increase your website traffic.

For detailed information, free training, free education, and a free income generating website, visit http://www.internetbusiness4entrepreneurs.com/ today.

Quote: "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure..." by Marianne Williamson

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Using Traffic Statistics For Keyword Ideas

I am going to make a couple of assumptions in this article. Firstly, I will assume that you keep statistics of your traffic activity and secondly, that you understand the importance of creating website content around targeted keywords.

On the first point, it is imperative for you to monitor where your website traffic is coming from and moreover, if it is coming from search engines, you should monitor what keywords people are searching for in order to discover your site. This can give you some great keyword ideas. For example, last week I noticed that a couple of people had found my site based on a keyword that was appearing at number 14 on SERPs. It was not a keyword I was targeting and in truth, I was ranked by chance.

Upon further investigation I discovered that this was actually quite a popular search term. However, if people visited the current page on my site that was connected to that search term, they would have been disappointed because it was not a good match for what they were searching for. The natural solution was to create a page focused around that search term so that it was a good match and of course, I tagged it with that same search term before getting it indexed by the search engines.

Within just a few days this new page was ranked at number 4 on the search results for that keyword search term. Now that the page was genuinely relevant, people visiting my site for that search term were sticking around. And there were plenty of visitors coming my way.

This brings me to my second assumption that I made at the start of this article; the importance of creating content around targeted keywords. The page that I created around the search term had zero backlinks pointing to it and within just a few days of it being indexed by the search engines it was prominent on the first page of the search results.

Increasingly, search engines are ranking website pages on content relevance and quality. That is, if your content is genuinely built around targeted keywords and it is of sufficient quality that people arriving at your site from that search term end up staying for a while, your website will be regarded as a good match for those keywords. This tells me that backlinks are becoming less important whereas good keyword research and targeted content creation are becoming more important from an SEO perspective.

Hopefully, in this article I have demonstrated how monitoring your traffic statistics is one method that you can use to help you fine tune your keyword research. There are other methods of course which I will be covering in future articles.

Simon runs the Global Affiliates website that is aimed at helping people build a successful affiliate marketing business and he also writes the DIY SEO blog that focuses on how people can handle the search engine optimization for their own websites.

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Why Do Long Tail Keyword Research?

Why do long tail keyword research? First we have to define what that is. Most everyone in Internet marketing understands the importance of keywords. We know that in some mysterious way Google, Yahoo, Bing and Ask.com and the other search engines use key words in indexing your site, a process tied to a methodology known as Search Engine Optimization, or SEO. What SEO means to the Internet marketer is that when someone searches Google or one of the other search engines, your site not only comes up on the first page, it comes up in one of the first three positions on that first page. Ask yourself when the last time was that you even went to the second page on a Google search, or for that matter, lower than the fourth or fifth entry on the first page. Of course you don't. Nobody does.

If keyword research is so important, what is long tail keyword research, and why is it so important that we do it? To understand this important SEO concept we need to look back at the early days of Google, Yahoo and the other search engines. Some of us can remember a time when searches had to be an exact match. A misspelling or an extraneous word would render a search useless.

Long tail keyword research is built on the fact that Google, Yahoo, Bing, Ask.com and the other search engines now go to great lengths to match the intention of the searcher with the correct information offering. This process is often referred to as a funnel. In the same way a physical funnel widens the opening of a container so a substance, usually a liquid, can end up in its intended receptacle, this keyword funnel gives the Internet search the widest initial opening to insure it has the best chance of reaching the site containing the information being sought.

Long tail keyword research starts where the searcher is. The primary reason people come to the Internet is to find information. If they are seeking information to solve a problem, they may not have a clearly defined search in mind. The somewhat rambling search phrase they enter into Google, Bing, Yahoo, Ask.com or any other search engine forms the basis for a long tail keyword. Research on what phrases are being entered into search engines will tell the Internet marketer what keywords or long tail keywords to use in articles, blogs or other information posted on the Internet. This can be a key to success in Internet marketing.

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