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**bobibnoxx** · 06-28-2012, 01:44 PM

We hear different things about using keywords to target our blog posts. Do you use one keyword three times? Several keywords one time? How many is enough, and how many is too much? SEO's look at a silly metric called keyword density. As the metric suggests, it's the percentage that a keyword appears on the page. The general rule of thumb is less than 5%. Exceed 5% and that's too much. Mention it at the end of a blog post as an afterthought is probably too little.

The reason why the metric even exists is because of a black hat technique called keyword stuffing (click for more details). Repetitive words, or just downright having words that have nothing to do with your content are considered keyword stuffing. Gone are the days where search engines used to weigh meta tags and keyword count for search results.

A lot of my tested "best practices" have basically become "theories" since Google makes up to 500 many algorithmic changes a year.

But in general:
Your most important keyword phrase in the title.
Your secondary keyword phrases/variants(i.e. different tenses) in the starting paragraph or <h2> titles.
Write for readability - reading the same keyword phrase over and over is not just a writing practice but also a bad SEO one.
Use synonyms - this strengthens the keyword you're targetting.

Oh, here's a link to some of the worst keyword stuffing you can do courtesy of Matt Cutts.

06-28-2012, 01:44 PM	#2
bobibnoxx Join Date Oct 2005 Posts 670 Senior Member	We hear different things about using keywords to target our blog posts. Do you use one keyword three times? Several keywords one time? How many is enough, and how many is too much? SEO's look at a silly metric called keyword density. As the metric suggests, it's the percentage that a keyword appears on the page. The general rule of thumb is less than 5%. Exceed 5% and that's too much. Mention it at the end of a blog post as an afterthought is probably too little. The reason why the metric even exists is because of a black hat technique called keyword stuffing (click for more details). Repetitive words, or just downright having words that have nothing to do with your content are considered keyword stuffing. Gone are the days where search engines used to weigh meta tags and keyword count for search results. A lot of my tested "best practices" have basically become "theories" since Google makes up to 500 many algorithmic changes a year. But in general: Your most important keyword phrase in the title. Your secondary keyword phrases/variants(i.e. different tenses) in the starting paragraph or <h2> titles. Write for readability - reading the same keyword phrase over and over is not just a writing practice but also a bad SEO one. Use synonyms - this strengthens the keyword you're targetting. Oh, here's a link to some of the worst keyword stuffing you can do courtesy of Matt Cutts.
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