Where and when to use keywords can be confusing. There is so much information online about the importance of using keywords to boost your SEO presence. And, if you are not an internet marketer, SEO professional or writer it can be difficult to try to figure out what to do. And, it doesn’t help that small business owners and anyone with a website are increasingly fearful that anything they do online could get their website banished from Google’s good books.

A Few Simple to Follow Rules for Keyword Integration

The good news is that once you have your list of targeted keywords or keyword phrases, integrating them into your online content is not as difficult as you think. There is no magic formula, just a few simple to follow rules that will help you add keywords to your site in a natural way that will help search engines index your website pages. To simplify the process, the rest of this article has been divided into a few common questions about naturally integrating keywords into your online content:

Where Am I Supposed to Use Keywords?

Stuffing keywords everywhere possible on your website or blog is not an effective way to approach onsite SEO. You will not only be wasting your time adding keywords to areas that are irrelevant, you could also be penalized by Google. Plus, websites that are smeared randomly with keywords also look unprofessional and make you look like an amateur.

Here are the most important places to add keywords to your website:

  • Page title tag
  • First paragraph of text
  • Article/blog topic title
  • Meta description tag
  • Anchor Text

How Often Should I Use Keywords?

More does not equal better. Adding a keyword 50 times on a page will not increase your search ranking. In fact, it will likely do the opposite and it’s a classic amateur blogging mistake. Keyword stuffing is a thing of the past. Forcing keywords into content and using them when they are grammatically incorrect will get you in trouble with Google. Plus, it will lower the quality of your content.

As a general rule, your keyword density should fall in the 2 – 3% range. This means that for every 100 words that you write your keyword should appear about 2 – 3 times. But, this doesn’t mean that you have to include the keyword this often.

It is more important for your keyword to appear naturally within your content. This means that you should use keywords as a natural part of the conversation. Don’t try to force it into a sentence if it does make sense or is not relevant to what you are writing about.

Keywords also need to be grammatically correct. For example, the phrase “email marketing Los Angeles” will often need to be modified to fit into a sentence in a grammatically correct way. Therefore, it is better to use the phrase “email marketing in Los Angeles” or simply remove the location modifier altogether.

Don’t forget that people will be reading the content and if it sounds awkward, you could lose credibility and lose a potential client because of low quality content.

How Much Content Should I Have per Page?

This is a common question that gets asked all the time. While there is no perfect amount of text, as a general rule you should have at least 300 words of content per page. If you want to add more content, great. But, don’t just add content for the sake of adding content.

Make sure that all content you add to your website or blog is:

  • Original
  • Fresh
  • Timely
  • Engaging
  • Relevant to the main topic of the page.

Bottom Line

Focus on writing the content as if keywords don’t exist. Try to avoid writing with the frame of mind that you need to include keywords. Include them as they fit naturally into your content.