Okay, maybe the title is a bit extreme, but I’ve seen too many people obsessing over keyword density when creating or buying content. Because of this, I want to rant a little bit about KW density. Ready? Great.

Basics of Keyword Density

If you don’t need a refresher or explanation, skip ahead. For the rest of you, keyword density is what it sounds like for the most part.

It is a percentage that represents how often a word or phrase is used in a text. Seems simple – and it is – but SEO people have been obsessing over a “magic number” to shoot for and have stopped looking at the big picture.

 Beyond Keyword Density

While back in the 1990s, in the early days of the Internet and SEO (before it was even branded, I believe), keyword density was probably one of the big signals used by search engines to find quality or relevance.

This changed somewhat when Google came in and introduced tracking links (as a measure of trust of a page or site), but keyword density remained one of the primary ways for search engines to find an “on-topic” page.

Over time, however, with latent semantic indexing and other technologies applied, keyword density alone became less and less important as a whole. Unfortunately, as often happens with SEO, many people hang onto the past by relying on things like a magic keyword density number to get their pages to rank well.

Tom Schmitz – at Portent – has a quick post on keyword density in the 21st century.  It’s a short post (and I’m not sure of the keyword density), but it has some nuggets when it comes to keyword density. “Today, Google and Bing care far more about natural language patterns,” he wrote and I agree.  He ended his post with a challenge, “If you’re unsure, run your own study. Perform any keyword search on Google then run the top 10 organic results through a keyword density tool. Let me know what happens.”

Without actually doing it, I can be pretty sure that the number is going to vary wildly from page to page. Still, there must be some guidelines for what keyword density boundaries should be on a particular page. Next we are going to take a look at the 1% thought on the matter – that one percent keyword density should be the goal but not a necessity. Sometimes you need more and sometimes you need less. (You don’t always get what you want, but sometimes you get what you need…)

One Percent Keyword Density Works for Me: EZA?

Is 1% the magic keyword density number? No. It’s a good place to start, though. Also, I would think that anything over 5% is stuffing. If you try to hit an exact number every single time, however, this is going to leave a “footprint” or sorts when Google realizes all your content has an exact keyword density. This is not good, of course.

So, the answer is that while there’s no magic number for KW density, there are general guidelines that you should use when editing content. During the creation part of the process, you shouldn’t think about keyword density at all – just let the words flow. Then, after a first draft, go over the content and begin to edit it. At this time, it can be a good idea to at least know the keyword density you have for the phrase you are targeting … for the user, of course, and not the search engines.

EzineArticles, of course, limits the keyword density of their articles at the submission process. When you try to submit an article that is higher than a certain percentage (bonus points, dear reader, if you leave a comment with the exact percentage), you are stopped and can’t submit. While this may be thought of as good or bad (depending on who you are and what your thoughts on the matter are at the this time) – it does show that there is some importance to keyword density still.

Final Thoughts About Keyword Density

However, when it comes down to it, the density of the keywords you use in an article or post online is just one of many, many factors that are used to rank a page in the SERPs. So, it’s important but not all important. As with any single SEO factor, you should never obsess over this. Before we close up, here are some other things to think about when it comes to keyword phrase density.

• Keyword Density is Important – Knowing the percentage your target keyword is used on a page when compared to the entire text is a good piece of information to have, but it should not shape your content too much. Stay between 1% and 4% according to many people.
• Keyword Density is NOT ALL Important – While density of keywords is important, it is not the be all and end all of SEO. It is important not too place too much importance on this or any other single factor when it comes to SEO.
• Holistic SEO – While the word holistic is usually used in medicine to refer to using many methods – attacking a problem from many angles – I think it can and should also be used for SEO (and Detective Agencies.)

If you have any questions or further information about keyword density that you would like to share with the world at large, leave a comment below and let us know your thoughts or questions. Please do not ask what the keyword density of this post is because it may be easy to find out, but I haven’t checked and don’t plan on going back to change it.

I would say Alex, but I don’t want to get sued. Still, Latent Semantic Indexing is a great topic that I want to go into a little more. While not as advanced as a $500 question/post, we are going to go a little beyond the basics that you have seen elsewhere. You should expect that from Lease a SEO, however.

 Basics of LSI for Content

In the past, to some, LSI is a myth (or even BS) when it comes to SEO, but to me it always made a lot of sense. As with any tool in the SEO’s arsenal, it can be overused or abused, of course, but it is a good way to get variations on content while staying on topic and theme.

LSI stands for latent semantic indexing. According to the Latent Semantic Analysis Project at the Colorado University Boulder website, “Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA) is a theory and method for extracting and representing the contextual-usage meaning of words by statistical computations applied to a large corpus of text.”

Basically, it is a way to compare documents (web pages) and see while are similar. The data can also be used by search engines to analyze and categorize web pages. Google used LSI for Adsense when it first appeared years ago. Since then, the debate over whether LSI is used or not for organic search results raged for a while in the blogosphere. Today, it’s known that it is used (at least in part) in creating Google and Bing SERPs.

Back to the Future for LSI

The thing is, LSI has been around for a while. In fact, even before the Internet we know today it was being bandied about as a means to categorize and access texts and documents on computers. While some say that LSI cannot scale to the size needed to use it on the Internet, if any company could pull it off it would be Google.

In 2009, it was announced that Google search was semantic.  Times were changing in the SEO world (as they always have), but the speed of changes began to leave some of the players (Internet marketers) unable to keep up. Additionally, many started to look at LSI as the magic key (along with keyword density of 1.24%), and this was a bad thing for them.

As you may or may not know, Google uses hundreds of “signals” to rate web pages and rank them in the SERPs. Additionally, they are constantly rolling out changes to their software and bots to stay one step ahead of the SEO crowd – all of them good and bad. Because of this, relying on just LSI as a magic bullet isn’t a good idea.

Related Words & LSI Technology

The Charlie Rose of SEO (Aaron Wall), has a great post on Latent Semantic Indexing. In it, he goes over the definition. He also shares some insight on how it applies to Google.  The post linked was from February of 2005, but it still contains a lot of good information that is relevant today. (This may be one reason that it is ranking so high for terms related to this topic.)

Also be sure to check out his Patterns in Unstructured Data, which is a very easy to read summary of Latent Semantic Indexing or LSI. Wall is very good at not holding back the punches when it comes to reporting about Google and what they are doing in the SEO world. At the same time, he knows what he is talking about and any research of latent semantic indexing should include him!

LSI silo structure

Over at Noble Samurai, they have a good write-up on LSI. They define LSI Silo Structure as, ” …categorising content in a logical keyword structure, and grouping content on similar topics together, in a way similar to what search engines expect to see.”

They also go into debunking myths about LSI. The thing is, even they’re not sure whether or not the big G uses LSI for finding the best organic search results. When it comes to the SERPs, Google has been pushing more and more organic space “below the fold,” making a top listing even more important for some.

This is why I think LSI is a good thing for your content and can help give a quality signal. However, it is not something that will work wonders all on its own.  Still, something like a LSI silo structure for a new site (or a site redesign) sounds like a great idea to me.

LSI in 2011, 2012, and Beyond…

If the world does not end in 2012 as the Mayan’s and others have predicted, there is a good chance that LSI will continue to play a role in SEO. While it may not be the holy grail that many seek, there is a good chance that using it will help make sure you are following other “good ideas” when you are putting together websites and also fine tuning them for better performance. Latent semantic indexing may not be the holy grail or magic bullet that some hope it will be, but it helps build a solid foundation for any website or long term SEO campaign. (Notice I said longterm SEO campaign. Spammers usually work hard to get a top spot but fall quickly as their method or technique becomes copied and loses its value…)

If you have any further questions about LSI or SEO in general, feel free to leave a comment below and we will get back to you with an answer or at least another way to look at the problem. Whether you have had success with LSI or still think it’s a myth, we’d love to hear from you. Drop your thoughts in the comment box down there and let us know.

Stay tuned for more…

Okay, maybe I don’t have that many. I do have some tips that you may not have thought of before. And as always, we encourage you to leave your own tips and suggestions about finding high value keywords – as opposed to low value or garbage keywords that may bring traffic but no revenue.

Good Keywords Defined

Before we begin, I think it is a good idea to come up with a definition of good keywords. The exact meaning will vary from person to person and niche to niche, of course, but there are some things that high value keywords have in common.

• Searches – The first thing you want to look at, of course, is the total number of searches. After this, knowing the number of local searches and “exact match” searches is important.
• Intention – Along with the number of searches, words that help show intent of the search in the keywords are important because this can be used to value a keyword that will convert into sales.
• Competition – Another aspect to consider is how much competition there is in the niche with the keyword. While you want to find something with low competition, it is also important to remember that a keyword may be low competition for a reason – i.e. it doesn’t make any money.

Online Tools and Software for Keyword Research

Here are some great tools you can use to both find and analyze keywords.

Finding Keywords

The first step is finding keywords. You can do this by starting with a niche or even a keyword or sets of keywords and phrases. The basic idea is to use these as a starting point to explore related keywords and then use another tool to sift through them to find the ones that are the most profitable – lots of traffic with little competition.

• KeywordCountry - This is a great suite of SEO tools that includes a lot of advanced keyword research tools that allow you to quickly spit out profitable keyword lists.
• Free Wordtracker – This is another classic keyword research tool. Not everyone uses Wordtracker these days, but it’s yet another source of information on keywords.
• Wordstream – A subscription is required, but some find the information so useful that they pay for it. You can quickly get groups of related keywords after typing your keywords in, making it a good tool to search for keywords.
• Experian Search Intelligence – If you want someone else to do the work for you, a service like this may a good idea. Note, however, that it can be pricey. Because of this, however, you’re going to have access to data that others cannot access, which can give you a leg up on your competition.
• Keyword Discovery – There’s a monthly charge for this tool, but it is very useful in early stages of keyword research. They do have a free trial so you can check them out before you buy.

Sifting Through and Analyzing Keywords

Once you have a large list of keywords, you want to narrow it down (if you haven’t done this already with tools like Keyword Country.

• Google Adwords Keyword Tool - This is a basic and a good place to start to learn more about specific keywords.
• Google Insights – When you have a small group of keywords you want to compare, this can give you some useful traffic information over a period of time.

Other Methods to Find High Value Keywords

In addition to the online tools we have talked about above, there are other ways to find high value keywords. We are going to take a look at a few simple methods you can use to hunt down these keywords.

• Questions / Answers – Whether it is ask.com or Yahoo Answers, looking at questions people are asking can be a good way to find new keywords and angles you might not have thought about before. These long tail phrases may or may not have a lot of traffic, but even if they do not, if the traffic converts, it could be worth going after it.
• eHow and Content Farms – By looking at what the “big boys” are doing when it comes to content, you can get an idea of what keywords and phrases (especially longtail) are converting and making money.
• Search Engines – Finding keywords can also be accomplished by going to the search engines or directories and getting information from them. SearchEnginez has a good list of data from search engines. A lot of these tools are dead, but Yahoo and Google both show hot search information from their respective databases.
• Internal Analytics / Logs – Whether you use Google Analytics or another statistics package that reads your physical webserver log files, you want to be able to look at what keywords people are using to find your website. With a little digging, you can find out which pages have a high bounce rate and you can work to improve those individual pages to make sure people stick around longer. There are actually many other ways internal statistics can be used, but we will save this for a future post.
• PPC / Adwords – Another source of possible high value keywords can be found by spying on your competition’s ads in Google and other PPC ad networks. There are many online tools and downloadable software that you can use to keep track of what your competitor’s are doing with keywords and text ads. If you see an ad running for a long time for a keyword, you can be sure that it is going to be converting and very profitable.

If you have any other tips or suggestions for finding great keywords, leave a comment below and share with the rest of us. Stay tuned as we offer even more great content this week. Next up we’re going to be talking a little bit about LSI – Latent Semantic Indexing.

Mixing two cult classic movie references? Will that get your attention, dear reader!? Small smile.

I want to talk today a bit about keywords. Whether you are new to SEO or are a seasoned veteran, you surely must know that keywords are important. As with all other aspects of SEO – IMHO – keywords are not the be all and end all of ranking better, but they are important for many reasons. Just as some people obsess over Pagerank or link acquisition, there are also those who obsess over keywords and forget the other elements of SEO that – when mixed in – will offer true, long term success.

(Note to reader: Hi, wanted to talk to you even more personally for a moment, so I’m making this italic! In all seriousness, I am going to try to make these posts more targeted and really go into detail on this or that topic. To do this, however, I am going to need your help. Leave a comment below and let us know what we should cover. This is the Bueller part of the title – I want to see if you’re in class listening or you’re taking a day off! ‘K, Thanks.)

Keyword Basics Refresher

Even if you are a veteran level 154 SEO Ninja / Pirate, a reminder of the basics of keywords is not a bad thing, especially in these Post-Panda days. (For example, EMDs – exact match domains – have been devalued quite a bit, which is directly related to keywords. The change in the SERPs for EMDs has affected a lot of people – large and small.) Here are some of the basics to remember when thinking about keywords for SEO purposes.

• Value – High traffic keywords are nice, but if all that traffic does not convert (or doesn’t convert very well), you’re just spending for server resources to handle the traffic without making any money. This is not good. So, you need to find high value keywords. What is the definition of a keyword with high value? Stay tuned for a future blog post going into this more.
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• Tracking – After you target some keywords (plural), you want a way to easily track where your websites rank for all the various keywords – perhaps even across different data centers (DCs) for Google or the other search engines. We will save the juiciest info on tracking keywords for a future post. We have some great tools and tips that can help you, so stay tuned.
• LSI – Another thing to think about when talking keywords is latent semantic indexing. If you do not know what this, go Google it or wait a bit while we finish up a great post detailing LSI and how to use it to positively affect your SEO efforts.
• Keyword Density – This is not as important as you might think but it may also be more important than you realize. Because this is such an interesting topic, we are going to go into it in more depth in a later post. Rest assured that post will have the magic keyword density percentage.
• Finding Keywords – Once you have determined a niche, you need to find the high value keywords. Being able to know how to value keywords is important for finding the ones that are going to be most useful for you. There are quite a few tools online and off that will help you find great keywords for various uses. We are going to go into this further below.

Remembering the basics of keywords and how they are used in SEO is important.

Finding Valuable Keywords

It is going to help once you know how to identify valuable keywords, but here are some of the tools that are going to be used in the process.

• Market Samurai – Kind of clunky depending on your machine because of Adobe Air, it is still somewhat useful for finding keywords.
• Scrapebox – This is good for scraping keyword lists and finding related keywords that can then be imported into other programs to be analyzed.
• Keyword Country – This is a great piece of software that does a lot of things, but it was built first and foremost for keyword research and it does that well.

There are many other tools – pay and free – out there and we will go into them more in future posts. For now, though, you should start to look around on your own and begin to use these types of tools for yourself so you can see how they work.

Keywords: Thinking Outside the Box

While individual keywords are sometimes high traffic, those that have buy signals attached to them are more valuable because those searches are going to convert into sales more often. The problem is that everyone has access to the same tools – for the most part. To combat this, you really need to think outside the box when trying to find and use keywords.  Here is an idea to get your juices flowing…

 Questions and Answers

Looking at Yahoo Answers and other sources for keyword phrases that are questions is a great way to find what people in your niche are looking for when it comes to information. The trick is to actually answer the damn question! There is nothing worse than a thin question and answer site. Less is more valuable when the information is complete and the questions are answered. Going through this data – automatically if you can use cURL or uBot or another method to scrape and store – you can study the patterns and learn more about your audience which is good for your SEO efforts. These are long tail keywords, but they are valuable in a lot of ways even if you do not monetize all of them individually.

If you have any thoughts or questions about keywords for SEO, leave a comment below. We will not mock you. Please no SPAM. Thanks.