on page seo question that's been bugging me for months

hi guys.

let's get to the point. i'm working on a few authority sites, i write my articles myself, and i normally outsource my off page seo. that way i can just focus on writing good marketing content and on page seo and leave the backlinking stuff to the experts.

here's the question:

let's say i have an article targeting a medium comp keyword. the keyword has like 5000 exact local searches/month and i want to make sure it's good quality

i go about writing the article and make it as useful as i can with the reader in mind. no thoughts to seo at all.

when i'm done this is what i end up with:

article length = 900+ words
main keyword appears 5 times
a variation of the main keyword appears 1 time

if we count the variation as the main keyword i end up with 6/900*100=0.66%

i do have other variations of the main niche keyword in general in the article but as for the keyword that i'm actually targeting, it seems rather low.

i've published the article, i've just started backlinking to it after letting it age for a while.

should i modify it to get it up to 1% at least? my gut says to just let it be in favour of the readers but some expert opinions would really put my mind at ease.

thanks for your help.

Read PHPbuilt's guide. It'll clear things up plus some good tips in there.

hth

jennym said:

Read PHPbuilt's guide. It'll clear things up plus some good tips in there.

hth

Click to expand...

thanks. i've read the whole guide and yup, it's awesome. i don't think i'm guilty of over-optimization at this level of keyword density.

my concern is whether my article would be under-optimized for the keyword and if so, what the next step would be.

PHPbuilt's thread was more on over-optimization and how to clean up on page seo. i could get the kw density to 2% and that would help with the seo because of the competitive nature of the kw, but i wouldn't be as readable as before.

i think i'll just leave it as it is and use backlinking to close the gap as far as seo is concerned.

There's no such thing as under-optimization.

I have sites ranked for competitive keywords from 1-10k monthly searches with the keyword once in my meta description. With all their keyword density and backlinking efforts, the "SEOs" are still pages behind.

Don't worry about your keyword densities one bit. I would say that getting the main keyword in your page title and H1 are important but other than that you are completely correct to just write for the user in mind.

If you have written naturally then you will likely have lots of LSI keywords that will naturally tell Google what you page is about.

If you are that worried, go and look at the top 10 results for each keyword and see what densities they have.

I was also writing articles like you. Believe it is really hard to rank with such a low density. Go for around 2% - 3%. Make sure it appears in the first paragraph, once in middle and once in the end. Search engines can't think like humans. so you have to tell them what your article is all about.

Great information.But we have to chose the valuable keyword and target the long tails this only will get more revenue.

giovanivalentin said:

Great information.But we have to chose the valuable keyword and target the long tails this only will get more revenue.

Click to expand...

Targeting long tails is quite easy on a visibility basis. Just use them on a title and they will be seen by google. You can check visibility first of course. I'd make sure to have long tail terms right after the main keyword in my visibility list if I cover them all on one page.

I will add these:

Write for the reader, at all times.

Use your main keyword, if you can do it naturally, in the URL, title, H1 tag.

When you compose, use the main keyword phrase in the very first sentence of the first paragraph on the page, somewhere in the last paragraph, I try to have it near the beginning of the last sentence in the page.

Use the keyword a few times across your page, so that when looking at the page vissually, your keyword appears naturally in the title, first paragraph, across the page, and in the ending. This helps your whole page be about the keyword.

Bring in LSI keywords with H2 headings, mention them in a heading, and once or twice on the page, but keep these under their h2 heading, not all across the page.

So now you have a page that has the main keywoprd spread all across it, and subordinate keywords on the page but in their own section where they will be surrounded by relevant text.

One way to approach writing with these rules is this:

1. Tell them what you are going to tell them
2. Then tell them want you said you were going to tell them
3. Then tell them what you just told them

1. Use an opening statement and tell the audience what the article is about. Use your main keyword near the beginning of this opening statement. use the <H1> tag for your main keyword, and drop a couple lsi's in the following <p> tags

2. Use the body of the article for the meat of the article, but remember keep lsi keywords under their heading, and spread your main keyword across this section. Use H2 and H3 tags here with LSI keywords in them. Keep discussion about these lsi's under this heading only, not elsewhere on the page.

3. Use a summary statement to reiterate what the article covers using your main keyword in the last sentence of the page.

These are guidelines, and when you can't follow them, default to the readability of the page for the audience. All doubts default to the user experience.



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