While I often hear people talking about keyword density and writing original and relevant content, I don’t hear people speak about how important it is to be consistent. How many times have you come across a site where the content is targeted well for a particular key phrase, but there is little or no use of it in the title, description or keyword tags? How about sites that are using entirely different keywords in the Meta data?

The search engines are beginning to look at keyword and description Meta tags again thus making it very important to use them in a way that is going help improve the rankings for a particular site. Title tags have always been important. We have all seen people abuse these tags by keyword stuffing and other spamming techniques. This may have worked years ago, but as the algorithms continue to improve, these techniques are no longer effective. There are however, ways to use these tags to help surpass your competition in the rankings.

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Ask around; what is the best keyword density for a web page to rank well for a given term? Searching on the internet I found answers ranging from 2% to 12% and one as high as 20%. The interesting thing is they could all be right.

The one thing many people fail to take into consideration when looking for this magical number is the idea that it changes based on factors related to the page or search term. Additionally, its importance in the algorithm may also fluctuate based on external influences. Instead of hunting for that perfect density, it may help to better understand what part keywords play in getting a page ranked.

I shouldn’t have to say it, but unfortunately I do; a keyword or phrase needs to be on the page in order to rank well for the term. Can a page rank if the term is not on the page? Sure if it has inbound links using the terms, but it’s not going to rank very well on those alone. Using the keyword or phrase in a variety of ways throughout a page will greatly increase the chances of showing up higher in the rankings for that term.

Now back to density… Read the rest of this entry »

Recently I came across an article that caught my attention. It was an interesting read on creating content, and there was some good advice on writing original text. For example, keeping the copy relevant to the service or product offered on your site and writing an FAQ page, making sure to insert your key phrases. This is good honest advice that will work for the long run.

There was one part, however, that made the little hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Here’s a quote, “Bear in mind, authorities and experts in a given field are often seeking collateral exposure, which you can provide them. The exercise is to find an article published online that contains content related to your industry and ask for permission to “reprint” it on your site.”

I must strongly disagree; reprinting articles from other sites can cause problems with duplicate content. When the search engines determine that the content on two different pages are duplicate, one will be chosen seemingly at random by the “duplicate content filter” in the algorithm and sent to the supplemental index (otherwise known as Google Hell). You are better off writing original content that refers to the article and providing a link to it.

If you are having trouble coming up with original content, you could consider implementing a blog on your site and discussing the issues that come up on a daily or weekly basis. You can also encourage you customers to comment on these blogs, which helps to create user generated content. If you’re still having trouble, consider contracting a professional copywriter who is trained in creating original text.

I will leave you with this thought, be very careful when seeking out advice about increasing the rankings and the traffic of your site. Although the advice you find may be well intentioned, it may inadvertently harm you. Always check and double check any information you find regarding SEO.