WordPress SEO Tips Part IX
This is part of our continue WordPress SEO Tips Series. You can follow along by visiting our WordPress SEO Tips category to see all of the previous articles.
WordPress SEO Tips Part IX – Keyword Saturation Levels
The last WordPress SEO tip I covered with Using Keywords In Your Titles, and I said that targeted keywords in your title is the single most effective strategy for SEO with WordPress. Today, I’m going to talk about using keywords throughout your posts, which is a very close second to using keywords in your titles.
When someone types a search into Google and hits enter, typically the top search results are ones that have an exact match in the titles of the webpage.
However, the pages that have exact matches in the titles might be very few, so the next place the search engine is looking is the text throughout the page itself. This is where “keyword saturation” throughout your article becomes important.
Effective Keyword Saturation Strategy
Highly effective bloggers are typically masters of finding just the right keyword saturation level for their articles. For example, let’s say you’re writing about credit card debt. Of course, you’ve already used that phrase in your title, but now you need to write the rest of your article.
As your write your article, effective keyword saturation is:
a) knowing that you need to use the keyword phrase credit card debt throughout the article, but
b) you don’t want to use the keyword phrase so much that it takes away, or distracts, people as they read your content.
It will be obvious to people, and to search engines, that you’re trying to in essence spam the search results by having a very high saturation level of your keyword phrase in your article.
If you use your keyword phrase too much, not only would you be defeating your purpose with your readers by frustrating them, and causing them to probably never come back to your site again, but you’re also giving red flags to search engines that your site might a “spamming” site, which in turn can work against your rankings.
The best strategy for achieving effective keyword saturation levels is this:
1) As you write your article, find different phrases, uses, spellings, and other syntax for your targeted keyword phrases, and blend those in naturally throughout your article. It’s takes a lot of practice to do this effectively, but the more you write about your specific niche, the more effective you’ll become with this strategy.
2) Proof read your articles before publishing. As you read through your article, if you notice that your keyword phrase keeps popping up to the point of distraction, then you’ve probably over saturated your article. Go back through and find different words to use to replace your targeted keyword phrase so that you strike a more natural balance throughout your article.
3) Use your keywords in sub-titles and even occasionally in bold throughout your article. Subtitles are a great way for you to increase the saturation level of your keyword phrase in very natural way. Plus, subtitles look best when in bold, so it’s another opportunity to make your keyword phrase stand out. Plus, using subtitles in bold throughout your article helps readers scan through your article and find the most important points you are trying to make.
Again, achieving effective keyword saturation levels in your articles is not easy at first, but the more you write, the better you’ll get. As you write, you’ll get better at identifying when you’ve overused your keywords, and how to find different variations and syntax that can replace you main keyword phrase.
And ultimately, proof reading your articles will ultimately tell you if you’ve overused, or even under utilized, your keyword phrase. You want your article to sound natural and genuine, yet have enough presence of your keywords that search engines attribute authority to your article based on your targeted keywords.
It’s a fine balance – but it’s one that can be achieved with practice and making a conscious effort as you write each article.