Simple on-site SEO - bet practice for keywords in content
-
Hello,
The Moz on-page grader will give a grade of A if the keyword appears exactly in the content at least one time.
If there are 500 words and a lot of it is about the main keyword, what have you found to be important to look for beyond the on-page grader - beyond the one exact instance of the keyword? I'm specifically talking just about keywords in the content.
My guess is that it needs to occur 3 or 4 times in different forms and at least once exactly, but the on-page grader doesn't require it.
What have you found?
-
Try not just focusing on the exact keyword but also closely related keywords. If the article is well written and picks up good social traction , you might end up ranking for different closely related keywords, not just the main keyword.
-
Interesting! Is this a hummingbird thing where it only need to be mentioned directly once as long as the content is on topic?
-
Matt is correct. Keyword density is no longer a thing that helps positively with ranks, in my opinion. It can hurt you if it is overused though.
If you're worried about content being naturally over-stuffed, that's a valid concern. If your client is in the pizza industry, how do you not use the word "pizza" all the time? The answer is: creatively. It'll be different with every industry, like with pizza, focus on toppings, dough, cheese, sauce, etc. to dilute the density.
Don't force it in, make it look natural, keep it in the H1, title, URL, and other best practices, but try to mention it only when required in the content to reduce mentions. Anything above one mention in the body isn't required, but sometimes quality of content requires it to be mentioned more.
-
We've found that "keyword density", as it used to be, isn't really a positive ranking factor any more. Like meta keywords, our testing shows that 1, 2, 3 times ... that's fine. 15, 20, 30 - that leads to problems. Anything else really doesn't matter. You can use it - don't overuse it. It's one of those things ... not really positive, just don't kill it to death. (We had a client put in a keyword over 500 times on one page. And didn't rank. SHOCKING.)
-
I usually try and have them in the Meta Title, Main Title ( preferably in H1 ), Sub titles as well. ( as long it makes sense to include them there )
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Best practices for publishing sponsored content
Hello, Our website hosts sponsored content from different brands. Should we be listing the sponsor either on the frontend and/or through markup? - Would either way have any sort of an impact? The content itself is already clearly marked as 'sponsored content' but we were more interested in listing the specific sponsor. Also, we’re assuming the outbound links would need to be marked rel="sponsored" but are there any other best practices we should be implementing? Any insight would be appreciated.
On-Page Optimization | | Ben-R
Thank you in advance.
Best,0 -
Question about creating content pages for keywords
Good morning, We are trying to rank our India based company which provides the following services
On-Page Optimization | | harshal.khatavkar
Engineering Design Services
Architectural Design Services
MEP Design Services Our target audiences are in the US and UK. Offcource, we are targetting above services keywords on most of our main pages and created dedicated services pages too. But lately, we found out that we are ranking well for keywords like Outsourcing Engineering Design Services, Outsourcing Architectural Design Services, etc... which are actually very very good keywords in terms of closing the leads/inquiries as people are actually looking out for outsourcing but the search count for those keywords is low. (though we closed 2 inquiries from those keywords). These pages we created in past just to increase the content of the website. I really want to give it a try to target those keywords by creating more pages, blog posts, backlinks, etc... My question is if we create more and more pages around those keywords then will it affect the rankings of the pages which are already ranking for those keywords or will the new pages compete against those pages or the new pages will help to boost current pages? We can write good content and blog posts on the outsourcing topic but not sure if we should create new pages or increase the length of the existing pages. Can you guys please help with some directions on this as I really don't want to take the wrong route. Look forward! Regards0 -
Changing posts that target same keyword to target SIMILAR keywords
Hello, I'm new to SEO and until the last year I was not aware that creating content that target same keywords would make Google choose only one to rank better. Can I leave the best page (highest ranked one) as it is and change the rest that target the same keyword to target similar keywords ? Just a simple example: I have two pages targeting "best supplements to muscle gain" Leave the best one targeting that keyword and now I change the content of the other to target "best supplements for muscle size" This is the smartest move or I'm missing something here and will make things worse ? Ex: maybe some of tthose pages with same keyword arent ranking for the keyword I want but are ranking for another one that I dont know. I'm really insecure about making changes and end up getting worse results.. Thank you (sorry for my bad english)
On-Page Optimization | | Glinski1 -
Creating a .cn site with the existing site content
Hi all, I'm planning to create a .cn site. If I simply translate the existing content on my site (.com.au) into Chinese, do you think Google will see the .cn site as a duplicate of the main site? Will this cause any duplicate content issues? Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | QuantumWeb620 -
Your opinion on "Keyword | Keyword 2 | Keyword 3 - Sitename" Meta Title
While I'm personally against It I have seen it used. I would think that Google might see this as some degree of keyword stuffing, rather than a 'natural' title, which may hinder ranking. What are your thoughts?
On-Page Optimization | | azu250 -
Content Optimization - Multiple Keywords or One?
I have three web pages I'm trying to increase traffic to (and thus conversions). I've carefully researched and selected 15 keywords. There's about 3-5 keyword groupings that are similar enough so I can optimize each page with all of them (for example - autobody, dent repair, scratch repair). I see a couple ways to approach optimizing the pages: select one main keyword to put in the header and support it with the other 2-4 keywords in the content body select 3-5 keywords and evenly optimize the page for each (several headers and sections about each) pick one keyword per page I'm constrained to three web pages since it's a clients website. Otherwise I'm guessing the best method would be to create content for each keyword in something like a blog. I basically see the pros and cons as this: including multiple closely related keywords on a page will bring more traffic and thus overal conversions; however it will take longer to rank for those keywords. Focusing the content on one keyword will increase conversion rate and take a shorter time to rank that page since it's more focused, but less overall traffic and conversions. With the page number constraint and increasing conversions being the goal of optimization, what are your thoughts on the pros and cons of each choice?
On-Page Optimization | | reidsteven750 -
Broad keyword usage vs appropriate keyword usage
May I ask what is the difference between "broad keyword usage" and "appropriate keyword usage" that is included on the on-page reports? thank you!
On-Page Optimization | | karalyte0 -
What are the benefits of targeting one keyword phrase per page vs. multiple keywords per page
What are the benefits of optimizing a page for one keyword phrase versus a group of similar keywords, like this one that Rand posted on another blog entry http://bit.ly/7LzTxY: Ted Baker Ted Baker London Ted Baker Clothing Ted Baker Mens Ted Baker Mens Clothing Ted Baker Mens Collection
On-Page Optimization | | EricVallee340