An entire SEO industry is among the individual answers and views about this question, but still looking for the proper answers, isn’t it? After Algorithm updates like Google Hummingbird and Penguin the whole concept about keyword optimization has changed.
I will take you through the whole conception and speculation about optimization of the keywords which I believed in the post below. It’s all about search engine exposure when it comes to the keyword optimization, correct? This is one of the methodologies which consider the most essential for search engine optimization since the early era of search engines.
Getting through the Keyword Analysis / research is like choosing the right bridge
The reason I mention the choosing the right bridge is why because it takes you to the objective and the goals that you have set. It’s like you need to discover bridges with more reach and strength and to avoid bridges with more reach but less strength and also bridges with more strength but less reach.
In the SEO words it called as Keyword search volume and Keyword competition where you should always try to find the keywords with good search volume and less competition. With no surprise most optimizer’s trust the Google Keyword tool for the keyword research and analysis. Keyword research needs to be done in diversity of possible areas from which it gives more options to collect the sets keywords for one particular chosen category.
99% of people go wrong when it comes to keyword selection
Yes, I wonder if you still think that this can be elaborate in the proof but I would like to give you the reasons for this. The most successful websites does get the advantage and reach their goals at their estimated time by using the proper keyword selection, where the reason for the failure to get the results in the given estimated time is most of the time because of the wrong keyword. Hence, this process is still holds the key factor in terms of setting the goals and calculates estimated time for it.
Every search engine optimizer wanted to know the answer for these limitations of keyword optimization which is the vital step in the process, where as Google web spam team works harder and harder to minimize the spam out of the search engine result pages, along with filters and algorithms which has affected websites all over the world.
Keyword optimization can be done in two parts as one with on page and another is off page of the website. I will try to explain optimization limits in both cases with “too much” & “ideal” for the website as follow.
On Page keyword optimization:
Search engine crawler /spider looks for the content on the website, as they crawl website page by page. Hence first thing to express your important to the key phrase is by inclusion of the targeted keywords in the website content, where as Keyword research / analysis and selection needs to be done before adding the keywords to the website.
Ideal:
There are some factors to look out when you do on page keyword optimization for the website such as keyword density, proximity and anchor text. A webmaster needs to look for each factor and include the keywords in the content.
There is no genuine percentage of the keyword density which we can be trusted while adding into the content. Though, just in case of curiosity the ideal Keyword density consider 1-3 % by many SEO experts. You can calculate your keyword density by using formula “Density=(Nkr/Tkn)*100” where as Nkr is the number of times the targeted keyword used and Tkn is the number of total words in the content.
Meta tags are one of the important areas where optimizer’s can tell search engines that what the webpage is all about. Though the keyword inclusion in the Meta tags has been the case since late 90’s and optimizer’s has used keywords in the Meta title, Meta description and Meta keywords as the Keyword density was the important factor to get ranked in search engine. As of now search engines are giving significance to the other factors than the keyword density.
It does not end if your keyword density is very much balanced as it also depends on how you placed the targeted keywords in the context of body. This termed as keyword proximity and need to be done rightly by the content publisher to avoid the keyword spam. Some little things like image alt tags and title attributes are considered the factors where usage of keywords can be useful.
Interlinking with anchor text using targeted keyword to the proper landing page helps to improve importance of the page linked. If you are using header tags like H1, H2 and H3 in the webpage then including the targeted keywords in the headings gives search engine to understand the importance of the selected keyword to the web page.
Use of the technique like LSI (Latent symantic Indexing) to your Web Pages can be very effective to reduce the keyword usage and make the content more user friendly. This is mainly based on the words used in the body of the content with the similar meaning. Use of this technique to create new content will help establish the connection for the key phrases with the similar meaning and gives out the theoretical content.
Too much:
If you think you can trick Google these days and get you on the top of the search result pages then it’s time to change your approach. Most of the black hat techniques involves tricking Google in many ways in which targeted keyword gets the good ranking in the SERP’s, though it’s not the case right now as Google has started penalizing websites who try techniques like Keyword stuffing in hidden content, tiny text.
Keyword usage on a web page determines its value and it has to be with certain extent where as you don’t want to get penalize or get filtered from SERP’s by the Google filters and algorithms. Apart from black hat techniques that can help you penalize there are also traditional methods like stuffing of excess keywords in Header tags, Meta tags, web page URL, anchor text links and content of the body.
Search engines are getting smarter to filter out the results with any over optimized pages from the SERP’s. This can be calculated on the usage of the keywords in the web page input areas or the combination of the input areas. Remember that too much use of the keyword in the above any on page activity or the combination of these activities can lead to over optimization.
Off Page Keyword Optimization:
Does it look good when a page got ranked for a certain keyword and only optimized for that particular keyword which gives nothing to the user? Of course Not, Google want to get all the great and right information for their users and not the one which are optimized to get rank. Most optimizer’s build the links using the targeted keywords hence, where off page optimization helps to rank a web page in the search results.
Ideal:
“Content is King” whether it’s on the page or off the page but do you think keyword usage is also mattered when optimizing the off the website? Absolutely yes! Though it does not mean that the over usage of the keywords in the off page activities will help completely.
Google filters and algorithm also keep eye on the off page activities done for the keywords to top the search results. As we know that to rank for a key phrase in the search engines it has to be linked to a website as an anchor text and this has been the link building culture which has started when webmasters use keywords in the anchor text and linking to a corresponding link.
Google has launch an update called Google Penguin on 24th April 2012 which has filtered and penalized websites which was over optimized with anchor text. Hence, going with the culture is not the case for now. Smart use of keyword in the anchor text can save the website to get filtered from the Google algorithms.
The question is that how and how much we can use anchor text using keywords for all link building? It’s all about keeping the proportion right to the percentage between exact match keyword used as anchor text and its variation.
There is no genuine percentage for the exact match keyword usage as an anchor text but you can determine it by choosing the best top 10 competitor ranking in Google in your category with their keyword usage in their outbound links. It is also important that keeping the ratio less than what your best competitors are using.
I usually keep it less than 10% for the exact match keywords. Though it also depends on what type of the links you are using to add the exact match keyword as anchor text. Get social media links and shares to make your link packs look natural and be more social when link build with other activities.
Too Much:
Getting as many links to your website is always beneficial but it has to look natural and links with the same anchor text using keywords make the whole link pack look un-natural. Links from the websites with only anchor text as targeted keywords certainly looks doubtful from the search engine prospective.
Too many links with the same anchor text can create threat to the website as it can get filter from SERP’s. It also seems that over optimized website uses few pages with targeted keywords for optimization and collect link only to those few pages with exact match keyword as an anchor text are the first to get penalize.
Google updates has affected many websites which got filtered from the SERP’s and also provides the reconsideration request form for webmasters to get review their website manually as they are being hit by update. Google also provide a Disavow tool from which a webmaster can disallow the bad links to his website from Google’s prospective.
Most of the times pages are optimized with the keywords which are not relevant to the context of the body, which ultimately devalues the webpage and decreases the importance in the Google search engine ranking.
It’s time to change the way of traditional keyword optimization and get smart to get on the top of the search engine results.
