Keyword density and it's impact?

[activitysuper]

How beneficial is properly optimised text on your website?

I have been reading copy blogger and they seem to think it's almost the foundations and can have a massive impact -  thus their software for improving optimised text.

So... The way I see it, content can fit into 3 areas:

1. Over optimised - keyword stuffed

2. Produced without the keyword in mind and then small changes, maybe the keyword used once or twice within 500 words, slotted into the h1 tag.

3. Optimised - At the front of the h1 tag, density of roughly 3-4%, emphasised with bold and italic.

What kind of impact can number 3 really have on rankings? If your position 7/8 could it be possible to see position movement from content changes?

Cheers

[DarinPirkey]

Let me explain a little more here. When someone goes to your page they want a questions answered, what we call their "query".  If they are looking for kosher hotdogs then your page needs to be exclusively about kosher hotdogs. (not sausage, hamburgers, metz or brauts....kosher hotdogs) Sure, it can have links to mustard, ketchup or places to get hotdogs but the user intent for this query is to find something about kosher hotdogs.  Your job as a website is to answer that query.

With that being said, yes, I try to make each page we create exclusive for one keyword.  For instance, let's say you are a dentist office and you want to rank for the keyword phrase "Dental implants".  The entire page needs to be SEO'd for the phrase "dental implants".

Step by Step: (I don't work with any dentist, and never have, but this is what I would do)

Try really hard to have the URL have the keyword in it.  For example:  www.mylocaldentist.com/dental-implants

Let's go ahead and set up rel=canonical to make sure we don't create duplicate content on accident.

Use the keyword in your Title tag and

tag near the beginning of them (I generally keep these two texts the same depending on how your site is built.)  Title Tag <title>Dental Implants</title>

Dental Implants

(Don't think they need to be the same or different.  I personally believe they can be the same and rank well.  You'll get different opinions on this but from my experience they can be the same)

Now write great content....actually don't write content....talk to me.....Show me that you know all about dental implants and the benefits, pros and cons, ways your company can help me get them if I decide to get them and how to get more information.

Now that you have your "content" lets do a little SEO...

Your keyword will naturally be in the "content" but lets go to the all the incidents it is used and bold it by using dental implants

I like to link to an off-page authority (as well as internal pages that are helpful, ie. Contact Us, Locations, financing, etc) to help with my rankings.  For example, you could say that "we use the finest dental implants from 3m, Anew, etc" and have the link point to the ADA site like I did.

Add a photo of dental implants (that your company has taken) and add the title and alt tag as "Dental Implants"

Let's make sure that the our Meta description has the keyword in it (not actually an SEO thing but when someone searches it in Google you want them to see it in your Meta Description)

After you have done this then run your on-page report from SEOmoz to make sure that everything looks good.......

That was lengthy but I think that everything on a given page should be to answer a given query.  That simple!

Darin.

I am adding this part below because I just realized you asked a question about two separate keywords "cheap red paint" and "red paint"

I would look up the two keywords and use [red paint] and [cheap red paint] (that is exact match) and you'll find that one is much better than the other.  (I know this is just an example but one has 880 searches vs. <10) If for instance both did have pretty good results, I would use the more searched one as my keyword and link to it both ways but optimize for your main keyword first and rank it.  For example.  If you use www.paintstore.com/red-paint and I would do a link campaign to link to the page as "red paint" (mix it up though.  don't get hit by penguin!)   I wouldn't start worrying about "cheap red paint" until I started ranking for "red paint".  Once you start ranking for "red paint" you can start to add to that document a few instances of "cheap red paint" and link to the page that way.  Basically what I am saying is that you don't need two pages for these keywords because they are variants of one another.  Until you have good domain authority, stick to one keyword and focus in on it per page.

Hope this helps.  Sorry it was so long.  If you have any questions feel free to ask.

[activitysuper]

When you say 'stick to one keyword per page until you start ranking for it' are you talking about only on-page copy or all the SEO?

For example if you launch a new page targeting the term 'cheap red paint' but would like to rank for 'cheap red paint' AND 'red paint' are you saying really you should only focus on one term as a starter?

Basically, can you explain on 'stick to one keyword per page until you start ranking for it' and what you mean by it.

Thanks to everyone for the replies as well, all very helpful.

[gmk1567]

Keywords placed closer to start of H1 and Title will help to have better SEO value.

Matt Cutts says as we can go with any density as long as the content reads natural. Also the recent Google Penguin update penalizes sites for keyword stuffing. So it is advisable to use keywords only at appropriate places.

[MikeRoberts]

Personally, I would say I see the best returns from a mixture of #2 & 3.

Produce your page with the keyword(s) in mind, make sure your important relevant terms appear in places such as the title, body and/or the H1(h2, h3...) as is necessary and natural, use your keyword(s) in the copy where it makes sense without repeating them stupidly (I've found Thesaurus.com will keep me from using the same word 14 times because I can't think of a better way to say it that day), keyword density percentages are not something we should be worrying so much about because there is no magic density percentage that the algorithms see & pat you on the back for achieving, and bold/italic words as is necessary and reasonable on the page for emphasis but if you're just highlighting a single term/phrase repeatedly on the page because you want Google to notice it then I think you're just asking them to ignore it because you're trying too hard (and possibly missing out on other really great avenues because you've become to concerned over one thing).

Honestly, I don't think Google cares that you've decided what your important core term is, used it the "perfect" X% density and then highlighted it repeatedly so they can see it better... Google will rank you where it sees fit and for what it sees fit. We do our best to help them understand what our pages are about so that they get indexed and appear in the SERPs but more often it feels that diversifying leads to better returns organically than hyper-targeting.

[DarinPirkey]

A mix between 2 and 3 is best but I'll answer your question "What kind of impact can number 3 really have on rankings? If your position 7/8 could it be possible to see position movement from content changes?"

I generally don't write content with Search Engines in mind first.  That is a secondary thing.  I try to write quality content and THEN use the keyword in the URL, Title Tag, H1 and atleast twice on the page (once bold using ) and in Alt tags (I've seen really good results with this).   If the topic you are trying to rank for is your keyword then naturally you will have the keyword in the page.  I have pages that rank for a keyword that isn't even on my page anywhere (We're #9 in Google for it)

The big thing is try to stick to one keyword per page until you start ranking for it.  I've seen a strong correlation in rankings when I do this for new or low domain authority sites.  A good start would be to look at the On-Page Reports that we have here at SEOmoz. Don't worry with keyword density to much.  It needs to be on the page but I don't think there is a magical number/percentage at all.  I haven't seen much correlation between having it a certain density. I also want to stress that User Experience (UX) is really key.  It won't help you rank right away but I can tell you from experience that it will keep people coming back and down the road help your domain and page authority.  Write good content first, make some seo tweaks second and you'll be fine.