SEO Keywords and Phrases
Today, as a guest blogger for Kevin, I would like to touch on Search engine keywords and phrases. As a freelance writer and ghostwriter, I write an average of sixty to eighty SEO (Search Engine Optimization) articles and/or blogs each week, sometimes more, depending on which companies have hired me and for what purpose.
Often, the articles are to promote the company that hired me through SEO keywords and phrases, which are then placed in article directories and/or e-zines, while other times the SEO content is written in the form of short articles, generally one hundred words or less, and is placed on blog sites to promote products, or specific people.
Today, a new trend is developing where companies are hiring ghostwriters, like me, to write brief SEO articles and place them on a website set up specifically to incorporate this type of content. Because blogs are perceived to have “real” value, by the various search engines, these SEO articles are indexed highly.
Although SEO articles can be used for many purposes, the main reason for their use is to draw hits to the company website or product webpage from search engines like Google and Yahoo.
Blogs are a great SEO tool, even if everyone is passing on reading the article written, Google never does. Now, with that being said, one also needs to note that although Google never passes the articles by and continually indexes keywords found in the articles, companies still believe that the articles written need to contain good content.
So, when you are preparing your blog with SEO keywords and phrases imbedded, it is always pertinent to remember that the article should read naturally. The SEO keywords or phrases should fit into the content seamlessly, and not diminish the article.
As a person who does this type of work on a daily basis, I have found that there are a few things you can do to ensure this.
1. Use the keywords in page titles and post titles
2. Use the keywords in the page URL
3. Use the keywords in the beginning few sentences of your text, and then spread the keywords throughout the rest of the article.
4. Use the keywords in your meta tags, as some search engines rely on this.
Another tip I have found that works well, to make your keywords and phrase appear natural, is to add the keywords and phrases at the beginning of the sentence or at the very end of the sentence. People have a tendency to like each sentence to have an identifier when they are reading and by doing it this way; you conform to their natural tendencies and stay within their comfort zone.
After much reading, I understand that most SEO experts recommend that your keyword content should be between five to twenty percent. Personally I think it should range somewhere around five to ten percent, as when the SEO content begins to overshadow the article content, you have defeated the purpose of the blog or the article. It is important to remember that your reader matters, as much as your SEO content.
In closing, I would like to thank Kevin for having me as a guest blogger today. You will note, that this article contains “absolutely” no SEO content – no keywords and no phrases….but rest assured, the next thirty contracted articles, on my scheduled for today, will.
Yours,
Trish
Written by Trish MacQueen from The ShoppePosted on March 31st, 2009 and filed under Search Engine Optimisation
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9 Responses to “SEO Keywords and Phrases”
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Thanks a lot. Very useful advices.
There are blogs written by people who know about the topic they are writing about. There are also blogs written by the bloggers who are paid per article. The first ones, written by passionate experts have returning visitors, subscribers, and quite a few pages browsed on each session. The blogs written by people who are not knowledgeable enough about their topics, have an average 1.4 pages visited in a session and 69% new visitors. No subscribers.
So who do you pay to blog for you then?
This is a great article, concise but relevant. I appreciate the information about what percentage of your copy should actually be keywords, and the explanation of what companies want SEO for.
This is extreamly helpful info. Thanks so much for the inside look at ‘SEO Keywords and Phrases’.
SEO in my experience, can be, if not managed correctly, a dangerous tool for a web site. If you are not careful Google and other search engines can read what you are doing as spam and black list your site altogether. Initially, it should take no longer than 3months to get Google listing your site. obviously any national or global keywords used take longer to get onto page 1 and ranking high.
Your piece, Trisha, had a couple of good takeaways in it for me. The first was where to place your keywords (although I’ve read that before) and the second was about keyword density. I write for my employer http://www.taxsmile.com. I write web content, blogs etc. Of course, it goes through several rounds of iteration and finally often looks different from my original input (!) but that’s okay. I take tips from pros like you so that fewer iterations are required.
Thanks!
Ok, I will shake things up a bit and have to disagree on certain points.
Firstly, keywords in meta tags are a thing of the past in SEO.
Secondly, the same goes to keyword density in content.
Search engines no longer simply look for the keywords in content anymore, but much more for the related terms to those keywords instead. That is, a post optimized around “computer” should not have computer everywhere anymore, but instead using terms like “HP”, “Dell”, “Graphic Cards”, etc…
The relevancy of the content is defined by all those additional terms expected to be found alongside the keyword, bringing relevancy not only through the keyword, and the content, but also the entire site and now linking network.
Beside that, I have to admit still that you some good tips and it’s an interesting reading.