Last week, I walked you through how to do keyword research and explained the value of finding the right keyword. But how do you use it correctly for maximum impact? Never fear, I’m going to go through that with you today.
With your keyword/keyword phrase in mind, just write your post. If there’s a way when writing this first draft to use your keyword in the copy then do so, but don’t worry too much about getting it all perfect straight away. That’s what editing is for!
When you’ve created your masterpiece you need to focus on these factors:
• Keyword density (how often the keyword appears in the post)
• Related keywords which are variations.
• Keyword locations (where it appears in the post)
Keyword density
This is the % of the overall word count of the post that the keywords take up. Yoast likes posts to be over 1.5% keyword dense to get the green light.
Related keywords
These can often be called keywords variations and they are words or phrases that relate to your main SEO keyword phrase.
In reality this helps us to create copy that sounds normal and not like a robot. So, if my keyword phrase was ‘become a brand ambassador’ I wouldn’t always have to write that exact phrase, I could use variations in some instances to help make the copy flow more.
Keyword location
I’m sure you know by now that you’re meant to use your SEO keyword phrase numerous times throughout your post, which is true. However, you have to pay special attention to making sure you use it;
- In your post URL.
- The title of your post, ideally at the start.
- Within the first 100 words of text (which is why you shouldn’t start a post with a picture, as the code of the image will count towards some of the first 100 words).
- In at least one heading (h1, h2 etc)
When you’re editing the post, are there occasions when you could have used the keyword phrase or a variation? If so, pop it in. Change up the headers to make sure the phrase is in some of them. Focus on the first 100 words or so and double check that your keywords phrase is there. Make sure your introduction is going to hook the reader into wanting to read on. Can you add any related keywords in at this stage? This will help signal to Google what the content is about and so it would help the overall post SEO.
Make sure however, that you don’t become too SEO keyword focused at the expense of the quality of your content. People want to read real people’s words and so keep the ‘you’ in your posts.
Do you now feel confident about using SEO keywords? How to make sure you are actually using those fab keywords you found last week in the correct way in your posts? Bring on the traffic!
