On-page Optimization - Is an A grade absolutely necessary?

[PeteW]

It is commonly stated that three exact keyword mentions on a page is best practice for SEO. Recently, however, I have noticed a few articles that have hinted against it. matt @highonseo briefly mentioned the subject here: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/going-beyond-moz-metrics-to-answer-why-is-this-site-outranking-me

Also, one our clients competitors is ranking above them with only one exact mention of the keyword in the page title with no exact mentions in page copy. I know other factors can make a difference, but this is does raise questions of our on-site strategy.

I haven’t found any literature that specifically recommends using one exact match of a keyword, so any opinion would be very useful!

Thanks

[PeteW]

I think that the page titles, URLS, and H1 tags are best for exact keyword placements. Using them in the page copy can often look out of place.

For example, your keyword might be “Car Repair London”. Inserting this as an exact form into the page copy could read something like “With 30 years of experience, our Car Repair London”.

Google is looking for user experience at the end of the day. What are your thoughts on making the page look as natural as possible?

@James Scaggs Do you have an example of this tactic?

Thanks

[TakeshiYoung]

It is still an SEO best practice to use the exact match keyword on your page.

What Matt is talking about in the article is keyword stuffing, which is overusing a keyword on a page in an unnatural way, which can get you penalized. Including 2-3 mentions of your keyword on your page will help not hurt you and can help increase the relevance of the page in Google's eyes.

[jws8118]

I recommend targeting themes of keywords rather than one exact match keyword.  I typically choose the top 2-3 keywords per theme to target based on highest search volume and lowest competition.