Question on On-Page SEO [Help]

Hi there fellow BHW members

I'm not sure how exactly I would target searching for a resolution for my certain question, so I apologize ahead of time if it's so simple to search up the answer that it bypassed me

On with the question using a strictly made up situation but still similar to mine:

Let's say that my KW phrase I'm targeting is "blue fancy widgets."
On my home page the KW densities are as follows:

• "blue" is 1%
• "fancy" 1.5%
• "widgets" 1.5%
• "blue fancy widgets" 1.5%

Am I already over optimized?
And also, my KW phrase does not appear in categories or the blog title.

I ask because I'm having trouble getting my homepage ranked for its targeted keyword. I'm paranoid that maybe I used the individual words of my keyword phrase too many times and that led to over optimization. Is that possible?

Thanks ahead of time for all your replies!
I'm sure some of you guys will help thanks!

For me that should be okay to start with !

This is a hard question to answer as on-page and off-page optimization go hand in hand. Apart from keyword density in your html, you also need to look at keywords in the anchor text of your back links, your URL and title. You want to optimize till you reach as high as you can get, but not over-optimize where you are thrown a couple of pages back in the SERPs. Check out this post by phpbuilt. It has got some awesome content on how to battle over optimization.

Usually 2% keyword density is ok,are you using yoast plugin?

Thanks for the replies guys!

I thought maybe there was some sort of addition of individual words of your keyword phrase that might lead to over optimization (1%+1.5%+1.5%+1.5%=5.5% KW density) but I take it that my paranoia was wrong.

I have PHPbuilt's guide book marked thanks for the tip!

Yoast plugin! I've actually been using All in one SEO; I've installed yoast and it gave me a few pointers to help with on page optimization. Thanks!

TheUnborn said:

Usually 2% keyword density is ok,are you using yoast plugin?

Click to expand...

nikita12 said:

This is a hard question to answer as on-page and off-page optimization go hand in hand. Apart from keyword density in your html, you also need to look at keywords in the anchor text of your back links, your URL and title. You want to optimize till you reach as high as you can get, but not over-optimize where you are thrown a couple of pages back in the SERPs. Check out this http://www.blackhatworld.com/blackhat-seo/black-hat-seo/631067-phpbuilts-idiot-proof-guide-authority-site-building.html. It has got some awesome content on how to battle over optimization.

Click to expand...

mindlesswizard said:

For me that should be okay to start with !

Click to expand...

I don't think you have over-optimized but I would still try to get the keyword somewhere in the Meta Title + Meta Description for that particular page.

I use website auditor for on page. working well for me

It is usually good to have density up to 2%.
P.S. It can't be "blue"1% and "blue fancy widgets"1.5% because the word "blue" is already in that phrase))

I dont think it is over optimised just make sure you will yoast also correctly

nikita12 said:

This is a hard question to answer as on-page and off-page optimization go hand in hand. Apart from keyword density in your html, you also need to look at keywords in the anchor text of your back links, your URL and title.

Click to expand...

THIS

Also, I wouldn't worry so much about exact percentages. It's more important to write NATURALLY. You'll find if you focus on doing that FIRST, your keyword density, especially for longer tail phrases, will just naturally be low. That being said, I do use a tool called SEOLyze that analyzes your WDF/IDF. THere's a "how-to" on their site that explains the process in detail.

If you don't go that route, I would say you want any term with 2+ words to be no more than 1%. I prefer the SEO Quake keyword density checker over Yoast though. I find it gives a more accurate number. Remember, if your keyword shows up any where (including your sidebar) it will count towards the on-page kw density

Hope that helps