We all know writing content based on keyword research is important. But, once you have your desired keyword, how should it be used in your content? Here’s how to optimize keyword placement in content.
Don’t Optimize Too Many Keywords
First, don’t try to optimize several terms on one page. You want to have a primary keyword to focus on. You can have secondary keywords but they should be natural variants or related to the primary. To find out more about secondary keywords and the ideal number of keywords you can view the guide on how many SEO keywords to use. The important thing to remember for the following advice is you want to focus on one primary keyword when optimizing for SEO.
Add the Primary Keyword to Title, H1, and First Paragraph
Go through the on-page optimization checklist and make sure your primary keyword appears in the key text elements of the page. This includes the title tag, the H1 tag, and the first paragraph. The earlier the keyword appears in the tags the better, but it’s important to make sure it’s optimized in a way that makes sense to the reader. You never want to compromise usability to improve SEO.
Write in a Natural Voice
It’s important to write in a natural language. Use your own voice and tone. Write in a way that will resonate with your audience. Keywords shouldn’t play a role here. If the content is about the keyword you’ve chosen, it will naturally come up. The word or phrase and it’s variant will appear in your writing if that is what the article is about. You don’t have to put extra effort in including them in the article.
So, there isn’t a firm number of times you’ve used your keyword to determine if it’s too much or too little. If you feel you need to figure out if your keyword appears enough, here are some guidelines.
Your keyword may appear too often if:
- The content isn’t enjoyable to read
- The content doesn’t make sense
- The same phrase appears in every other sentence
- The wrong tenses are being used throughout the article
All of these issues can occur when the writer is determined to use the one primary keyphrase exactly letter for letter in every possible instance of the article.
Your keyword may NOT appear often enough if:
- Your keyword is not in any of the headings on the page
- Your keyword is not in any of the paragraphs on the page
Although these issues listed could indicate you need to use the keyword more, it’s also possible you are okay. If the exact keyword wouldn’t be as meaningful to the reader it’s okay to use synonyms and close variants.
You need to use your judgement. Make sure the content makes sense for the reader and worry less about how many times the exact keyword appears in the article.
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