A Few Simple to Follow Rules for Keyword Integration
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.