How often should you use keywords in a text to rank well in search engines? The question often comes up in web writing.
Too many recurrences of your keywords and Google catalogs your article as spam, too few, and SEO bots ignore you.
But beware, if the frequency of keywords is important, it is not the only lever to consider seeing your editorial content climb the SERP steps!
What frequency of keywords to use for SEO?
Keyword frequency is the total number of times your keywords are repeated and when expressed as a percentage, it is referred to as keyword density.
For a long time, for web content to be referenced, you had to integrate your keyword as much as possible. It was an essential SEO criterion, and it resulted in unreadable articles or product sheets.
Google rules have changed and keyword stuffing is now considered spam.
Of course, keyword frequency is still important, but not essential. There are no clearly defined rules, but in SEO practice, we consider that including a keyword every 100 words is a good ratio to avoid over-optimization.
You can also start from the density calculation of the keyword, which is therefore calculated from the number of occurrences of this one. For natural referencing, an index between 2 and 6% is sufficient for good text optimization. You will find many free online tools to calculate your density index, like SEO Tools, for example.
7 SEO best practices keywords
Today, if you want to see your content prancing at the top of search results, bet on quality content. Do not write your texts for robots, but for your readers above all.
1. Write for your target
For your SEO strategy to be a success, make a relevant study of your target reader, or your persona. Create textual content based on the research intentions of your readership and provide them with added value and information.
Respond to the needs and issues that your targets encounter by providing them with concrete solutions.
2. Create thematic clusters
To generate traffic to your website and improve your positioning, a suitable solution is to create thematic clusters where your content will be organized into pillar pages with their associated pages. The aim is to deal with all of your themes and thus boost the authority of your site in the eyes of Google.
3. Feed Google's algorithms
Search engine algorithms increasingly understand internet users' query intentions, which is changing the way you should optimize your editorial content.
More important than keyword frequency, now think about semantic fields and long tail keyword variants to increase your organic traffic. 1.fr is a very good optimization tool to help you in your quest. From your main keyword, the website will provide you with a complete list of words to naturally place in your text.
4. Avoid the most competitive keywords
For a small business, it is going to be difficult to place yourself at the top of the search engines on a competitive keyword against the big brands. If the search volume is very high on the targeted keyword, work your article on a long tail keyword instead .
5. Generate quality backlinks
The external links of quality are essential to your SEO positioning. The more links there are pointing to your article, the more Google will consider your website as a benchmark in your industry. It's good for your notoriety and your ranking!
6. Correctly structure your content
In SEO technique, the structure of your article is essential. Work on your title tags, your meta description tag, and prioritize your content. The H1 tag is systematically followed by the H2 tag, then H3, etc.
Then, in your editorial content, always insert your keyword on the H1 tag and in the chaps and at least on an H2 tag. Bold your keywords and important information, and don't forget to optimize your page urn, meta description, and image alt tags .
7. Boost your SEO with the right number of words keywords
In SEO, the length of your blog post is important. There's no ideal length, but count an average of 800 words to engage Google and maximizing social media shares. For more in-depth articles, aim for over 1,500 words to be classified as an expert.
Our advice
As you will have understood, keyword frequency is far from being the only good SEO practice. Always remember that the most important thing is that you write for humans above all else, which means quality content that is relevant, fun to read and informative.
If you think about user experience first, your SEO will follow. And if you are looking for professional web copywriters to improve the visibility of your website, you will find them on Tech Explorist!.