News flash: Keyword density hasn’t been important for about 3-5 years. But I’d agree, it’s becoming much less important.
Keyword Density Defined
What is keyword density? This is the practice of ensuring that your online content contains the right amount of keywords based on the number of words in your content overall. It is usually expressed in a percentage. For instance, if you have 100 words of content and you are optimizing that content for the keyword phrase “goat milk” then using that phrase 5 times will result in a 5% keyword density. Search engine optimizers used to teach that 1%-7% keyword density was optimal.
That used to be true. Back in 2001. But by 2003, things had begun to change. Google, by that time, had already started using Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) as a ranking algorithm factor. However, they weren’t that adept at ranking pages on that basis then so keyword density still had some sway.
By 2005, Google had introduced so many new ranking factors and was constantly tweaking the ones they considered important that keyword density was all but a bygone fancy. Other search engines started to give up on it too. By 2007, keyword density was so unimportant that newer search engines didn’t even bother with keywords – they just went right to the LSI.
Sure, you can still count keywords today and do fairly well in some search niches. But counting keywords has not been important since 2005 and certainly not after 2007. If you’re still counting keywords today then you are likely getting a reputation as a spammer.
Why Latent Semantic Indexing Is Misleading
After totally being late on the keyword density discussion, Rebecca Appleton goes on to say that LSI makes search engine optimization – or Web writing – even easier. Not so fast! I think what she meant to say is it makes Web writing appear easier. Here is it is in her own words:
While the complexities of LSI may lead you to believe that content writing just got harder, actually the opposite is true. Trying to write web copy based on the concept of keyword density as an important ranking factor is difficult because you are forced to write against your natural instinct of not repeating a keyword again and again and again. It makes the task of writing tedious and difficult as you’re forced to forcefully include a particular word a set amount of times, regardless of what would otherwise be the natural progression of the text. Writing based on a belief in LSI is much easier as you’re free to write naturally, without trying to keyword stuff. The search engine can see through the use of synonyms to extract meaning from a text, allowing for a more creative and interesting use of language. Invariably, without a tedious keyword repetition, the content you create will be of more interest and read better to a search user – aiding the user experience.
OK, while I concede that writing keyword density content is difficult because it isn’t natural, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that writing content that is natural (LSI content, in other words) isn’t much easier. It might be easier if you’re a writer, but you still have to have some writing ability.
Writing Web content is still pretty much direct marketing content. The only exception is when you are writing relationship marketing content. But website content doesn’t really fall into that category, and that’s the content that you want optimized for search engines.
I still think keywords are important. They probably always will be. Google still shows you a list of ten websites that rank for a search term whenever you enter a search query. You’ll be hard pressed to find web pages that do not contain your search term in them somewhere. So that tells me that keywords still rank. But you don’t have to measure densities. It’s important to know where and how to use keywords to get your content ranked, but it’s also important to know how to write naturally. You can do both. And, yes, it is hard. But not impossible.
Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz has a great video on the process of finding content writers when you are ready to outsource. But let me say that outsourcing may not always be your best option. If you can find an in-house writer who can do what you need then you have some advantages that you won’t have through an outsourced writer. On the other hand, an in-house writer might cost you more in the long run. You’ll have to make sure you give them enough work to keep them around. Otherwise, they’ll leave and you’re back to planning your content again.
So if you’ve decided that you want your website to grow and you don’t have a budget for a full-time in-house writer but you know that you need content then outsourcing could be the way to go. Rand breaks the process down into four easy and useful steps.
Requirements Gathering – Take some time to outline your goals. Know what you need before you hire someone to provide it. Otherwise, you’ll end up going north when you want to go south.
Locate potential resources – I like his idea of chasing long tail bloggers. And I agree that you could end up with a less expensive and higher quality content on your website by seeking out those sources. I’ve been successful finding writers through freelance sites like Guru. Just be sure you get samples first and get a writer who can take feedback and make adjustments.
Research writing quality and voice match – It’s very important that you get a writer who can create content in a style that is similar to yours. If a writer can’t match your voice, particularly if they’re taking over content that you’ve been writing yourself, then there’s a good chance that the experience will be bad for both of you.
Scale, evaluate and track – You want to make sure you’re staying on target.
I would add one thing to these. Treat your writers as a part of your team. The more you can make your content creators feel like they are producing something of value then the more value you can expect from them. Be sure you communicate your needs clearly.
I agree with Rand’s statement at the end:
(Source) Remember, from both an SEO and from a human perspective, writing is about quality over quantity. Having one great article that engages readers and earns links far outweighs 100 poorly written articles.
Quality is more important than quantity, but if you can achieve both then you’ll reach the pinnacle of content creation.
Scan the headlines and read the writing of major content gurus – the A-list – and you’ll soon discover that you are expected to be every bit as popular as they are. Just listen to the advice they give:
Be THE authority in your niche
Create anticipation among your audience
Answer the most pressing questions of your readers
Are they expecting too much?
Let’s face it. There is only room for so many superstars. Not everyone can be Michael Jordan or Babe Ruth. If we were all that extraordinary then being extraordinary wouldn’t be so – well, extraordinary. Would it?
Here’s the key to marketing, whether online or off line. Be yourself and do it well.
You don’t really have to be a superstar to be good at what you do. Maybe you’ll achieve superstar status in your own neck of the woods, but should you shoot for it? I say don’t shoot for superstar status. Just shoot for excellent in all you do and be yourself. If you are true to you then you’ll be true to your audience and your audience will be more likely to want to connect with you.
That’s what content marketing is. It isn’t about seeking a status.
I’m not saying there isn’t a place for formal writing. Clearly, there is. But if you read a lot of business blogs online you’ll find that the tone is generally less stuffy and formal. It may still be professional, but the “stuffy” marketing schlock is all gone.
Online, people read for interest as much as anything else. And if you aren’t keeping their interest they’re going to leave you.
Keep your sentences short. Even punchy.
Your paragraphs too.
This causes people to read faster as they can scan your lines rather than feel like they are reading a chapter of Moby Dick.
Use humor. Make your content interesting and unique. But informative.
If you can do these things with your online content then you can build and audience and keep it. They will return and return to read what you have to say and send their friends by too. Develop a relationship with your readers and they’ll become customers. Drop the formalities, Madam.
It can be easy to get sidetracked and forget about the really important stuff – or even what the important stuff really is. No matter whether you are marketing your business online or off line, you’ll need to consider two very important aspects to every marketing campaign: Copywriting and Graphic Design. Which is more important?
First, it’s important to understand the goals of each. The purpose for copywriting is to get the prospect to take action. If your copy isn’t moving your prospect toward some meaningful action that you want them to take then it isn’t effective. Plain and simple, copy persuades.
Graphic design’s job is to support the copy. Does that mean it is less important? Not at all. It is equally important, but it isn’t the primary goal. If you have pretty graphics and no copy then no one is going to take action. That’s art, not marketing.
It’s important that you focus on the needs and desires of the consumer. Write great copy that persuades and enhance your message with great graphics. You’ll close sales in no time.
Writing for business has changed a little since the advent of the Internet, but not much. It used be, back in the days of off line marketing when companies would put together a slick brochure or television commercial, that marketing and PR departments would brainstorm for a catchy motto or slogan and build an advertising campaign around it. The idea was to “push” the product or service being marketed onto an unsuspecting public we all called prospects, or “the target market”. Well, happily, we don’t do it quite that way any more.
The new business writing, while it is still focused on sales, isn’t quite so stuffy. Rather, it’s more personal and based mostly on “pull” marketing – the idea that we will entice those interested in our product or service into finding us. In some ways, this is better marketing.
You might think it involves less work because we don’t have to chase the targets until we catch them. Actually, it’s harder work because now we have to think up ways to get the “target” to chase us. That’s a bit more of a challenge. But if you can do it well then you’ll be chased a lot.
Business writing may not have changed it complete focus – sales, conversions, driving traffic – but it has changed the way it engages the customer and directs toward the goal. But it’s still business writing. Just a little more creative.
Copyblogger has a good guide on how to write titles that can hook your readers. It’s a good guide and well worth reading. Good titles help to attract readers. Whether it is a bookmark or an RSS feed, sometimes the only information available to a prospective reader is that title so you have to make it count. This is particularly true if you want to attract new visitors, and who doesn’t.
Don’t be fooled by some of the hype surrounding page titles. They are important and they do provide the hook that brings visitors in. However, you have to deliver when it comes to content and that content has to be written in the voice that is suited to the occasion.
What is important is that your title offers the reader something. Sometimes titles don’t offer anything, in fact they tell the whole story. The heading to this post could have been – Hook Readers With Titles That Promise – Then Deliver. You would not be reading this line now if I had – the whole story was in the title.
Provide a reason for someone to come visiting, then satisfy that reason. If they visitors leaves thinking, that was worth the visit – they will return. If they leave thinking the visit was a waste of time – they won’t return. Your catchy title may get them once, you might event get them twice, but if your content doesn’t deliver, don’t expect to get them a third time.
At the heart of every piece of copy that sells is one thing, and trust me when I say it isn’t good writing. That one thing, if you copy has it, will do more to sell your product or service than all the great writing in the world. Do you know what it is? Well, do you?
It’s real simple. The answer is (drumroll) …
Rapport.
That’s it. Simple. Right?
The most important part of your copywriting is to build rapport with your readers, but not just any reader. You’ve got to build rapport with the right reader. The right reader for your product or service.
Let’s say you are building a website that sells green widgets and you know the only people in the world who would have any use for green widgets are red midgets. If you write your content to sell green widgets to anybody other than red midgets, you can have the best copy in the world and it won’t matter. You might make a few sales, but you’re targeting the wrong audience. On the other hand, write mediocre content that connects with red midgets – I mean content that really appeals to their deepest need – and you’ll sell a lot of those green widgets.
Think about that the next time you write a web page. Appeal to the right audience and build rapport. It’s the most important thing to remember about good copywriting.
Business writing is different to other types of writing. Even between technical and non-technical types of writing, there are some differences. Writing marketing content for businesses requires a special eye and ear. You have to know what makes people tick, what motivates them. What kind of words trigger an emotional response, and what can you do to elicit the type of response that you want from your readers.
Those are all special kinds of knowledge. If you know what motivates people to act a certain way and you can create the circumstances to get them to act that way then you have power. And that’s the kind of power that anyone who writes for business should have.
One special kind of business writing is blogging. When you write a blog post, you are not writing a technical document. It’s a special type of “conversational marketing”. But it is business writing.
Online writing, or marketing, has several different methods of conversational marketing. This kind of business writing is unique in that it isn’t stuffy or overly sophisticated. It’s conversational. And it connects with people because readers get a sense that a real person – someone just like themselves – are writing it. If you write content that makes you sound like an average, run-of-the-mill person who wants to do business with someone and build their trust then you write for business online. It just takes a little discipline.
Should small business owners use copywriters? In the past, too many small businesses shunned the use of copywriters because they couldn’t justify the expense. But you don’t have to do that any more. In fact, I’d say you should spend the money. A good copywriter is worth the investment.
Copywriters today do more than just write press releases and marketing brochures. They also write website content and perform other online marketing tasks. They can write articles and blog content or assist you with your social media campaigns. Today’s copywriters are much more versatile and even go so far as to learn search engine optimization in order to remain competitive.
And the best part is that global competition has driven the price of copywriting way down. You used to be have to pay hundreds of dollars for a copywriter worth his weight in grain, but because the Internet has stiffened the competition among copywriters you can get a decent one now for about half the price of what you’d have paid 20 years ago.
You cannot afford to let your business be represented by amateurs. Your website and online marketing content will be alive forever. You want it to be golden, to be professional, and a good copywriter can help you with that.
