Broad keyword usage vs appropriate keyword usage
-
May I ask what is the difference between "broad keyword usage" and "appropriate keyword usage" that is included on the on-page reports? thank you!
-
As with most of our Crawl Diagnostics recommendations, using the keyword around 4 times is like the Pirate's Code: It's more of a guideline than a rule. That's, in part, why we chose to call it "appropriate" keyword usage rather than "correct." In general my rule of thumb is "use the keyword when it makes sense to use it, without so much that it sounds crazy" which in a standard-size web document of 300 words or more is going to be around 4 times. Including synonyms and other semantically related terms is also good to do, and should be pretty easy if you've chosen a good topic for your keyword. I hope that helps!
-
Does the 4 keyword usage still apply considering the Google Penguin update? I've read that you can now actually get penalised for doing so and that's it's better to include niche keywords (synonyms) that all relate to the subject matter rather than repetitive keywords/phrases.
-
Thanks Miranda, Liked that last tenni shoe paragraph, very interesting.
-
Hello! Sorry about the confusion here.
Essentially, the "broad" factor tells you if you've used the keyword in the document text at least once and the "appropriate" factor tells you how many times out of four that you've used the keyword (we recommend using it at least four times in the document text).
As you can tell, these are a bit redundant at the moment, but this is so that they can be broken out by importance. Using the keyword at least once in the document text is a critical factor. Using it four times isn't quite critical, but its still pretty important.
As far as the difference between "exact keyword usage in document" and "broad keyword usage in document", this refers to broad and exact in a way similar to how adwords thinks of a broad match and exact match for keywords.
So if your keyword was "tennis shoes", we'd say you satisfied the broad match requirement by using the word "shoes" and "tennis" in the document text within five words of each other. You would only satisfy the exact match requirement by using the words "tennis shoes" together in the document text.
I hope that answers your question. Thanks!
Miranda
-
Egle,
I think you may be on to something
-
Thanks Robert!
Yes, it seems that "broad" refers to a generic usage of the keywords throughout the page (document elements & body text).
And for "appropriate" and "exact", here is what I was able to figure out so far, not sure if it is true yet
The "appropriate" refers to keyword usage (not in exact fashion as the keyword phrase) within the document elements such as H1, page title, etc
And "exact keywords" refers to exact keyword usage within the body text.
-
Egle
As it is used within the on-page report card, it is a bit confusing. I looked at the use of Broad for Page Title, Document, and then the various uses of Appropriate. Interestingly, every time appropriate is used, there is a number associated with it. So appropriate/document - use it at least 4 times, H1 - 2 or less, title tag length - 66 char. Only for Characters in URL did appropriate not have a number.
For Broad, it appears the word is being used globally(the whole page) to point to a specific place: Broad usage - Document, broad usage - title tag. Appropriate seems to define a number range as it is used here. (I do not think it is an appropriate use of the word.)
I can't wait to see the mozzanswer.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Optimizing images on website. Is it bad to use the same alt names and keywords?
I have a webpage that I have 6 separate images showing step by step instructions of how to use our product with a sentence describing instruction inside image. I took screenshots of the instructions from the products App and uploaded them to webpage because they provide a great visual. I want to make sure I optimize correctly, can I use the same keywords for all the image names?
On-Page Optimization | | artscube.biz0 -
Breadcrumbs keyword repeats
Hi I have a client project who's developers platform is populating the category part of the breadcrumbs with the header tag. Since these include the pages primary target keywords/phrase they are being repeated in the breadcrumbs increasing the keyword/phrase count on the page as well as repeating/duplicating the sentence. Can this cause problems ? or not because Google knows its not part of the page content/body copy (because its a breadcrumb) ? Cheers Dan
On-Page Optimization | | Dan-Lawrence0 -
The word "in" between 2 keywords influence on SEO
Does anybody know when you have the word "in" between two keywords has this a negative influence in Google? For example: "Holiday Home Germany" is the search term in Google
On-Page Optimization | | Bram76
"Holiday Home in Germany" as h1 on our website or do we have to use "Holiday Home Germany" on our website?0 -
Keyword Cannibalization/stuffing on an ecommerce category page
Hi, Whats the best way to tackle e-commerce category pages? If you have, say, a category showing 30 pairs of socks, and each of the sock products in the lists has a 'view more' link, a link from the product name and a link from the thumbnail. Naturally each of those links should be the product name - sprinkled with a slight variation, a preceding 'View more on [product name]' or superseded with the shop name, so you dont end up with complete duplicate link titles, you get the idea. But you suddenly end up with 90 instances of links with title tags containing 'socks', which ultimately lead to keyword stuffing/cannibalization - especially as you then move to another category with, say, sports socks showing 40 products and therefore 120 link titles also with the word 'socks' Thought on a postcard please? Thanks Tom
On-Page Optimization | | pretige120 -
Using fathead page keywords for directories and as a red herring to competitors
I'm fairly new to SEO and I have been reading a lot on here and the SEOmoz guides over the last few days, finding it very interesting. I am wondering about page keywords, I read that the engines no longer use them. In this thread they say they still use them because of directories. http://www.seomoz.org/ugc/why-i-still-use-meta-keywords#new-comment So I was wondering, because directories are always smaller scale than search engines would keywords that are normally high competition have more clout in them? If so then using them could be misleading to competition if they think they are the actual keywords? or might this contradict between your actual chosen keywords in the directories backlink anchor text or something?
On-Page Optimization | | Zoolander0 -
Keyword stuffing ?
howdy people, I had a quick question about keyword stuffing. I am creating a page on my website and on the page i am going to have multiple links, around 15 or so. they all have the word "pickup line" which will be hyperlinked to the respected page. this page is going to serve as a sort of directory to all the various pick up lines, "cheesy", "funny", "dirty" etc. I have written some content on this page as well. I wanted to know that since the keyword "pickup" line will be showing up a lot ( in hyper link form) will this be considered keyword stuffing? for this page
On-Page Optimization | | david3050 -
Need help with fluctuating ranking for a specific keyword
my website www.totalmanagement.com fluctuates for the search term: web based property management software I have been using SEO Moz for a few months now and have managed to get to the top 5 and jump around between 3 and 5. Does anyone have any suggestions to assist me? Long term goal is also to really target: Property Management Software But I am still very new at this. Thanks in advance for the help!
On-Page Optimization | | dgruhin0 -
Is there a report in SEOMoz that will show me what keywords each page ranks for on my site?
I would like to find all of the keywords not just the keywords that I specified in the tracking section.
On-Page Optimization | | Court_H0