Writing content for SEO purposes has changed drastically over time due to Google algorithm changes such as Panda and Penguin.
In the past, keyword stuffing was highly effective but now, it can get you into some deep trouble with big G. Writing content for search engines is more of an art than a science as it previously was. It requires you use keywords with finesse along with text coloring such as bolding, italicizing and underlining.
Keyword Density Isn’t a Big Deal
A lot of emphasis by many SEO experts is put on keyword density.
They often formulate the exact amount of keywords to percentages often around the three to five percent range. Let’s first go over the whole point of keyword density.
The point of keyword density is to allow Google to know what your article is about and therefore help ranking it for the appropriate keyword.
Google is smarter than a lot of marketers make them out to be. For example, Google does not need you to enter your keyword 10 times for them to know what your article is about.
Generally, as long as the main keyword is in the article two or three times you should be good. Consider adding in long tail keywords if you want to improve incoming traffic. In most cases, having the keyword in there twice is enough for Google to figure out your article is related to the query.
However, if you have internal linking, using your keywords as anchor text is important. Just make sure you have a lot of diversity. For example one page on car repair could have several links from different blog posts over time such as “car repair, repairing cars, how to repair cars, company car repair, do it yourself car repair” and so on.
Headers Are Hot
Having the keyword one time in the header in a way that is readable will do wonders.
Using the H1 tag is your primary goal since Google shows a lot of respect for the tag. Also filling out proper Meta titles for your post also is extremely helpful.
Don’t worry about Meta keywords too much as they seem to have less weight compared to the actual Meta title. For subsections of your content don’t use bold, use H2, H3 and H4 tags to improve content optimization. Besides, with a nice style sheet this usually looks better in the long run anyway.
Bold, Italic, and Underlined
Bold, italic and underlines are a great way to emphasize your keywords to search engines. So if you have your keyword a couple times in your article go ahead and highlight them with either bold, italic or underlines.
Since you will not be stuffing your content full of keywords this will look good to readers as well.
Don’t Write Content That Sucks
Quality content matters, even to search engines. Don’t believe for a minute that spun content will benefit you in the long run. Even spun content that is readable is still not that difficult for computers to decipher.
If your spins read “This website is {awesome|great|amazing} and {you’ll|You will|You might} {like it|think it’s great}, do you really think Google can’t figure out that its rewritten crap?
Make sure your content is original and includes keyword optimized photos and videos consistently. Besides, writing content people care about is going to reward you in the long run with real traffic and natural linking.
Be Shareable
If your content is correctly optimized you will benefit greatly from tons of back links and social sharing. For example, if your title and anchor text is optimized the right way your social sharing will already target them for you.
It’s a win-win situation and once your website is popular enough you can really downscale your own back linking efforts.
Have a question? Feel free to ask in the comments below.
Photo credit: longhorndave
