Rank Magic
SEO for small and very small businesses.
Google’s Matt Cutts recently addressed a question about what the ideal keyword density is. He refers to the diminishing return of repeated keyword usage and the danger of keyword stuffing which can earn you an over-optimization penalty.
Matt says it best, so take a look at the video.
Increasingly employing variations on a keyword phrase rather than strict repetitions of a verbatim phrase seem to work best.
Long tail keywords don’t refer to monkeys, but to the typically longer keyword phrases that are very specific to what your website is selling and what people are looking for. They’re called “long tail” because on the bell curve of keyword search frequencies, these keywords are out at the edge. These are different from the shorter and more heavily-searched keywords referred to as “the head”.
For example:
| The Head | The Long Tail |
| mountain climbing | California mountain climbing tours |
| laundry detergent | environmentally safe laundry detergent |
| hardwood floors | recycled pine flooring |
| cribs | convertible wood baby cribs |
| car repair | fix Service Engine Soon light |
You need an appropriate mix of head keywords and long tail keywords. Long tail keywords have less competition from competing web sites, so it’s easier and quicker to get great rankings. But they have much less search volume than head keywords. People who find you with a long tail search are much more likely to convert into a paying customer, client, or patient, but there are fewer of those visitors to begin with. The trick is to select the long tail keywords that are most likely to convert for you.
Long tail keywords are most effectively used in PPC marketing, because you can make up for the low volume of searchers on any particular term with a large number of different keywords. It’s less effective in organic SEO, where you need to optimize for specific keywords. For organic SEO, we recommend a middle ground. Find a mix of keywords that are specific enough to convert well, but which are searched for often enough to make it worth your while.
One of the worst things to ever happen to web sites was the discovery of keyword density. According to copywriting expert Karon Thackton,
The mere introduction of this concept led to the mutilation and destruction of innocent copy all across the globe. Without any regard to flow or customer experience, website owners around the world began shoving keyphrases into their copy like wild men. The results have been disastrous! Otherwise wonderful content has been utterly destroyed.
One common mistake Karon points out is that many web site owners who’ve heard about keyword density replace every single instance of a generic key term with one of their chosen keyword phrases. In moderation, that’s OK, but often they get carried away with tragic results.
Here’s an example Karon cites:
Spanish Villas For Rent
If you are looking for Spanish villas vacations, search our site for the best deals in Spanish villas. No other Spanish villas site has the selection of premium Spanish villas with the most sought after locations that we have. View some of our Spanish villas pictures or take virtual tours of our Spanish villas today.
Looks like they want to get rankings for “Spanish villas”. Dontcha think? But copy like that will drive actual humans away immediately!
Top rankings in all the search engines do you no good at all if your web site turns people off and nobody buys from you. Writing interesting and compelling copy for your potential customer is far more important than slightly higher search engine rankings.
