by Marty | Feb 16, 2010 | Work Tools
OK, let’s start this with my personal thoughts on keyword density. That’s what we all came here for, right?
Keyword density is typically represented as a percentage. It a measure of the occurrences of a keyphrase relative to a body of text, typically a complete webpage. If a keyword happens 7 times in 350 words, its density is 2% (7/350).
Keyword density is a measure of SEO that has seen its ups and downs. There was a time years and years ago, where you could cram a ton of meaningless keywords into any page and get it to rank. These days the search engines are much better at what they do, so this is not such an effective tactic. In fact, it simply won’t work like that anymore.
When this keyword free-for-all was happening, the on-page keyword density definitely carried a little more weight. However, because it was easy for anyone to cram keywords all over the place, the search engines quickly learned to spot and filter over-stuffed pages.
And while many SEOs were saying “OK, the party’s over” and looked for other tactics, there were MANY who still believed in the power of keyword density. Personally, I have worked on projects for very well-known brands where the highly paid agency insisted on a specific (really high, actually) density per-page as the primary measure of success. Readability, tone, and even conversion were afterthoughts. Sigh.
Get On With It
…which brings us crashing into today.
Keyword density is still an SEO measure. Yep, sure is. And some people still believe it is a necessary part of a good plan in optimizing your site. I would not agree. But just like that agency I worked for, I know that everyone has their reasons and motivations…experiences vary. If you think (or know) it is important, go ahead and triple-check it.
If you ask me (as you should), it remains a very low level concern if you are trying to improve the pull of your page. There are usually MANY things you should be doing to improve your SEO before you start worrying about tweaking your keyword density. Many things.
I have made pages rank without having the keyword in the visible text once. Density, on its own, is just a silly measure of page strength in SEO. Don’t be silly – there is work to do.
But Wait…
Let me suggest another use for measuring keyword density, one that is much more valuable to today’s search engine algorithms, IMHO: Using density checkers in determining over-optimization.
Another by-product of the keyword-frenzied days of yesteryear, is that there seems to be a filter in Google for over-optimizing your pages. I am not referring to a site that gets completely whacked because they have crossed the line, but rather, an otherwise solid site that seems to hit a ceiling for ranking for targeted keywords.
What you might find, is that you may have inadvertently been a bit too focused on improving your keywords, and now you have gone a bit overboard and entered a gray area. Google likes most of your site, but thinks you are trying a little too hard so they put a “soft” filter on you – like your site will never get beyond #6 or something like that. (that is my own observation and not supported by a focused, data-enriched case study or anything).
Call it the SEO filter. Google doesn’t like SEOs, so if a page looks to be manhandled by one, it could get this SEO filter applied. What it would do, is force an SEO to spin his or her tires in the sand trying different techniques to improve. But if this filter is real, they won’t see improvements until they start un-optimizing their site a little.
In this case, you can use a keyword density checker (per page) and start, very carefully, dialing it back a little. You can look at the density on each page, and work out variations that tone down the optimization efforts.
So which density is the right one? Sorry, it’s just not that easy. Good SEO does not offer simple “Do it X number of times, and you’ll win,” kind of strategies. Too many variables.
Disclaimer aside, it is more often a range you are looking for, like between 3-7%, or something like that. I will say around 7% usually reads pretty spammy no matter what you do, and 2-3% might be a little on the softer side.
If you have a reading that is climbing over 7, 10, 12% or more, it may be very likely over-optimization might be an issue for you. Maybe not. Keep testing to figure out what works best for your site – it is not the same for everybody.
Links to Free Keyword Density Tools
Allright – with all that fanfare, it’s time to see what you can do.
First, you have online options. There are literally hundreds of sites offering web-based keyword density checkers. In these tools, you just enter in a URL, enter in your keywords, and get a report in seconds. The depth, accuracy and filters available will depend on the tool you use.
Here’s a Google Search that will show you tons of free keyword density checkers. Go have fun. The math is simple and consistent, so it is the interface, speed and features that will make a difference to you in finding the best one. The numbers should be the same between them all.
Here is another tool that is a personal favorite of mine – it has been there for years. http://www.live-keyword-analysis.com/ The big difference you’ll see in this tool, is it is not based on URLs – it is based on text you input into the text field. This gives you an ability to enter your text and tweak it – seeing the density effects on-the-fly. With three possible keyphrases, it has been a great little tool when I need it.
Bottom line is don’t think too hard on keyword density…it is simply not worth the effort as a page-strength building tactic. In today’s websites, you are much more likely to have an over-optimizing issue that a keyword density tool can help you find than you will a weak page that is bettered through a density analysis.
by Marty | Feb 13, 2010 | Freelance SEO Copywriting Tips
Call me a snob, but SEO Copywriting is an art. If absolutely anyone could successfully add keywords into general ideas and make it work, there would be no such thing as freelance SEO writing because we’d all be too busy tending our wheelbarrows full of money.
No, weaving contextually important keywords and phrases into a naturally flowing and effective page of content is not something that tends to just “happen.” But there are some simple ways you can focus SEO copywriting efforts to make each project more successful.
My simple SEO copywriting tip today: research the potential visitor impact of your keywords to help focus your project.
Two Common Scenarios
In a very general sense, SEO copywriting gigs will usually be one of two types. Either the client gives you a list of potential keywords (or perhaps products) and you build a page for each; or, you receive a subject matter for which you are asked to write something appropriately engaging and you’d provide insight into the keywords to use to bring in the greatest audience.
In both cases, a little research before you start can help you to make your finished product more powerful.
The key is to look very specifically at the search volume and trends of all the targeted keywords. Running your potential keywords through a couple of SEO tools can help you do this quickly and easily.
One of my favorite ways is to take a potential keyword and drop it into SEOBook’s free Keyword Research Tool. This tool will show you the potential search volumes that keywords (and variations) are receiving every month. It is a pretty solid snapshot to give you a look at the surrounding keyphrases, search trends, and patterns associated with your entry. Plus, this specific tool is set up so there are links to data offered by AdWords, Yahoo!, Google Trends and more. Dig deeper with just a click.
What to See In the Data
Let’s say you have a scenario where the client gives you a list of keywords and wants pages built. On the list, is the term “business loan” and you are supposed to build a page that makes “business loan” carry weight on the client’s site.
By popping the term into the Keyword Research Tool, you see business loan as well as a variety of longer phrases associated with this term. Click on the screen capture below and you’ll see part of the display for this search.
Now looking at this image, you might notice that “business loan” is not even showing. That is because it is found further down the page. The results are sorted by estimated daily searches. The exact match had 305 est. daily searches, less than the variations seen here.
Which is precisely the point I want to make.
How to Interpret the Data
First is a reminder to never take these tools as something that is “truth” or gospel or anything more than what they are. Tools offer you insight and suggest strategy by collecting larger data sets than you can get on your own. But remember to take them for what they are, and don’t get lost in analysis paralysis…you have work to do.
That said, there is gold in them thar hills when you read these reports with an eye trained on strategy.
Referring back to the example, I can use this single search to see some of the long tail opportunities, the differences in singular versus plurals, the effect of regional modifiers, and applying other modifiers to the targeted keyword.
This can help me to select secondary or tertiary keywords for a page, or maybe suggest alternatives to the main keyword I was originally looking at. Many times, I have used data like this to explain to the client that a strategy toward a more powerful keyphrase makes sense.
How you use the data you dig up is at this point is based on the project…there are millions of ways to exploit the data found through keyword research. Think of each entry as new starting points, and you can see how limitless it becomes.
When Do You Apply It?
One of the most crucial aspects of keyword research (as it pertains to SEO copywriting) is the timing. Knowing potential search volumes after you have written something is far less effective than knowing this information before you start drafting.
If you are performing research after you have already drafted a page, you are looking for ways to blend targeted keyphrases into existing content. Epic fail for most everybody.
Adding keywords to existing content is hard for me to do, and I have been doing this for almost a decade. It is hard to make keywords that were not in an original page to suddenly be there in a natural manner. Not impossible by any means, but not typically the best way to approach this.
Doing keyword research before you begin drafting gives you the strategic edge needed to bring real value to your SEO copywriting clients. It creates a measurable direction. The client can supply general keywords or suggestions, and you can offer researched data to push their thoughts, budget and efforts toward the best online strategy.
Progress can be measured by setting a baseline: usually, traffic analysis on the incoming keywords before you start. Measure the impact of incoming visits driven by the new keywords after you add your efforts. Simple, but effective job security.
Word of Caution
If doing research on search volume, do not be blinded by the highest number. We’re not in Vegas.
If your client wants to go after “St. Louis Business Loan Provider” and you say, “No, ‘small business loans’ has a MUCH higher estimated daily search volume,” you may be stating the facts, but more times than not, you’d be giving bad advice.
Why? Because a smaller business is going to find “small business loans” almost impenetrable, but a tightly focused regional phrase would be pretty easy to overtake. Use additional research to understand the competitive landscape before you bite off more than you can chew.
This is not to say don’t go after the bigger keywords – just that strategically, for most businesses it makes sense to start smaller and build toward the bigger pay-off.
So my SEO copywriter tip for you today is before you draft word one, to use the estimated search volumes to look at a range of potential keyword variations that can be seamlessly incorporated into your page content. Part of your value as an experienced SEO copywriter is in knowing which phrases might be the easiest ones to take over.
The value of SEO copywriting is quickly apparent to people trying to gain positioning in the SERPs. The real value found through professional SEO copywriting takes years and hopefully a couple wheelbarrows to properly measure.
by Marty | Feb 12, 2010 | General Pearls of Wisdom
I have the unfortunate experience to have a lot of domains hosted in GoDaddy.
There are many reasons I don’t really like using them, but the fact remains I have a lot of domains there.
But I have seen one thing they do that I want to warn everyone about – beware of GoDaddy scamming your domain.
Here’s What Happens
Let’s say you have a domain registered in GoDaddy, and want to set up a blog in Blogger. Cool – Blogger gives you instructions on how to change the C record and the A record to make it work.
So this is what I did. And when I looked at my site an hour later, it looked like this, which was good:
Everything cool. The blog worked, the domain seemed ok and the instructions from Blogger seemed to do the trick.
So I thought, anyway.
What I found a few weeks later when I was getting ready to return to this site was pretty shocking.
You see, I wanted to go to the site but I forgot to type in the www. Simple mistake. And usually, if I am setting up a site in normal situations (not using Blogger), I set both the www and non-www to work seamlessly.
But no – I saw this – and if you don’t know what this is, it is a PPC page. This means it is something GoDaddy set up to run on my domain.
What it does, is display ads that other people pay to have displayed on certain keywords. The domain I had concerned small business money, so look at how it matches the subject matter.
Needless to say, I was pretty shocked. This was not a parked domain mind you – it was live. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, but figured it must have been my fault somewhere in the settings – I was not terribly used to Blogger, so I could have missed something.
Nope.
The GoDaddy Sham Deepens
There was something wrong with the canonical set-up, but I had it set up correctly, as you can see to the left here. Blogger makes it so you can correct any canonical errors – meaning, the www and non-www versions of the site would be the same.
This made me more concerned. If I had this set up correctly, and my A and C records were properly set up, why was this happening?
I looked at the source code and found: 
Now I realize most people don’t read code, so this means that GoDaddy placed an AdWord campaign directly on my domain, targeting relevant keywords in a broad match manner. Since my domain was about business money, the ads were about business money-so my competitors can suddenly get clicks from MY DOMAIN. GoDaddy gets paid for every click.
Keep in mind too – I bought “myDomain.com” not the www version. GoDaddy was using the domain I bought and set up as my blog.
The GoDaddy Response (or Lack Thereof)
So by now, I am pissed. I write an email to my rep – and I have an executive rep over there because I have so many domains. I kinda feel sorry for him really – he is new to my account, and this was really our second interaction.
But since I was mad, I write the email and let it sit for 4 days. I had all the same images I have here – just not blurred out – and basically, but very directly, asked for an explanation.
I send it, and wait for my response. And wait. And wait.
A week later, I re-forward my original complaint and demand a response.
Finally get a one-line email saying I need to go into the account and delete the C and A record settings and forward the domain to the www to make it work. My original complaint asked about whether or not I now needed to check my other 100+ live sites to make sure this is not happening everywhere – crickets.
Every bit of my complaint ignored – handled by this one-line response. Pathetic.
Why This is So Shady
The reason this chaps me so much, is not for my own situation but what it represents. GoDaddy is a huge registrar…and they do more aggressive advertising than any other. So they’ll attract people who know nothing about the web, but want to get started.
I know what I am doing more than a lot of business owners would, and still did not catch this canonical error. By the time I did, this scam had been running for months. When I looked for help, I was ignored. I had to demand a fix.
GoDaddy was paid for my domain. They then hijacked it, and profited further by sending potential leads I might have received to my competitors.
Shameless.
It makes you wonder how many sites are unassumingly being compromised and swallowed by GoDaddy’s greed?
by Marty | Feb 8, 2010 | Freelance SEO Copywriting Tips
I am a big fan of the Showtime Original series, “Dexter.” If you haven’t seen it, it is a show where the main character is a forensics blood-spatter expert by day, serial killer by night.
In the first season, Dexter manages his balance between these two extremes by rigidly following “the Code” which is a set of rules his father Harry established to protect Dexter. Harry’s Code acknowledges Dexter’s need to kill, and sets forth a rigid set of rules that MUST be followed, or else Dexter increases his risks of getting caught. Learning Harry’s Code is what enables Dexter to find and begin to practice his “art.”
However, as the seasons of this show progress, the audience sees Dexter questioning the need of Harry’s Code, and he looks to find his own answers. Amazingly, if you watch a season or two you’ll find yourself rooting for a serial killer to find himself, and achieve his murders without being caught. Really fun stuff, and wonderfully addicting.
I want to suggest that in writing corporate communications, Dexter makes a killer metaphoric role model.
- Harry’s Code: Think of grammar rules as the Harry’s Code of corporate writing. There is a fixed set of rigid rules to follow that guarantee safety. Like Dexter, if a writer follows the Code (rules of grammar) religiously, chances are pretty good they will always find safety. Learning and understanding the Code is a necessity to enter into the life we choose. Like Dexter, the Code needs to become intrinsic to your very being, so a violation of the Code immediately sends up a distress signal. As Dexter’s character grows, he starts to question the code, and test it. He knows the details of Harry’s Code as if it were twisted in his DNA, but he starts to use experience and desire to carve out his own set of rules. The results are not always good, but they start to establish Dexter as a character that is separate from Harry’s influence – or in metaphor-speak, a writer with a uniquely competitive edge. Kick your grammar lessons to the curb and see what happens. Breaking away from the codes and traditions that get us to where we are is not easy – but it is often necessary to achieve the unique character that keeps us successful season after season.
- Research the Kill for greatest impact. On the show, Dexter’s success comes from the fact that he is a very methodical serial killer. He does extensive research on each target, and understands and prepares the situation as well as he can before he engages. His planning is framed on his understanding of Harry’s Code and his own experiences. There is nothing casual or random in how things unfold: Dexter intimately learns the personal habits of the target and he uses the environments to carefully plan every detail so it goes without a hitch. He does not force his ways blindly onto every situation, but instead, he uses experience and patience to ensure he will strike only when he gets the strongest return. Many times, if all the elements do not align, he will wait for better circumstances to more effectively manage his risk. There is an eye fixed on the end result and passion drives the process, but only restraint, control, and discipline allow him to be at the top of his game. When things do line-up, which they always do in time, Dexter goes in (very precisely) for the kill. Passion inspires him to find what he needs. Research and attention to detail are what he uses to uncover opportunity, which in a sense, his passions are constantly proactively creating. Dexter is very plugged-in to his art and builds on each experience to become more effective. Every kill has purpose, he is always striving to be better. Even when he seems to be simply catering to his “needs,” he is perfecting his art by testing and tightening the routines, validating the power of Harry’s Code by either using it, or deliberately choosing not to. As writers, the metaphoric lessons Dexter’s carved out for us here are clear.
- Don’t be afraid to change. One reason the series continues to be so successful (in my opinion), is that Dexter’s character is growing and changing. As the world around him morphs, he adapts. He is trying new things, and his character is allowed to become deeper. At his core, the things we loved about Dexter remain: he is a killer conflicted by his immenent “dark passenger” – the need to kill – and what it does to him. His story unfolds in the very elaborate efforts to ensure a guise of normalcy while keeping the dark passenger entertained. After we are introduced to the safety offered by rigid attention to the details of Harry’s Code, we see Dexter shed it to find his own meaning. His quest seems to always bring him close to the magic elixir, but he has yet to find his perfect balance and complete his hero’s journey. We see him try and fail but try again, and all the while he is changing, growing and evolving. Writers need to be like this, and find the work that excites them enough to change. Test the limits created by of your own version of “Harry’s Code” (grammar rules, using slang, etc.) and see where it lands you. Pitch the rules, and start over. Let the past shape you, let the rules point you in the right direction, but don’t allow convention to dictate every step of your path.
Ok, so maybe a serial killer is not the best role model.
But in corporate communications, people talk all the time about “killer copy” and headlines that kill it. I argue that this is only possible when like Dexter, you understand enough to avoid normalcy. You must embrace the Code long enough to earn the right to use experience to discard it at will. And above all else, you must be willing to adapt, change and grow to keep the audience engaged.
Work with me, people.
by Marty | Feb 5, 2010 | Freelance SEO Copywriting Tips
Pretty sexy title, huh?
Better still, my advice is to ignore them.
Actually, you won’t find this provocative post here – it was a guest post that I did last week for SEORabbit, a friend up in Connecticut, who is an expert on local search.
Give it a good eyeballing here: http://www.seorabbit.com/the-best-way-to-attract-search-engines-to-your-copy
OK, let’s start this with my personal thoughts on keyword density. That’s what we all came here for, right? 
