KW density and idiot clients. HELP!!!!
-
I have a client who insists on using KW1 @ a 3% rate in a 600-word piece, aka 18 references to KW1 in a two page piece. I upped the KW1 count to 18, but in doing so, added 100 words of text, getting the piece to 700 words. Now the client wants 21 KW1 appearances to maintain that 3% density. If I add 3 more KW1's, I'll up the word count again, requiring more KW1's to hit the 3% mark. Any suggestions for solving the never-ending problem of KW density and idiot clients? Thanks in advance. Paul
-
Thanks for the assist, all.
@Matt: If the client is an idiot, someone should tell her.
Though you're right. I shouldn't point this particular client to this thread.
I love this site. Very generous mozzers.
Best,
Paul
-
RTM.
-
Show them this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rk4qgQdp2UA
If you mention it once, good. If you mention it twice, ok, you're about this. If you mention it 3 times, ok ... getting less helpful. By the 4th, 5th, 18th time you mention it, it's not really helping. And if you overdo it it does hurt.
I've found (and YMMV) that keyword consistency is more important than density. If my article is about flowers and I mention roses and daisies, sunflowers and tulips - that's more important than saying "I like flowers because flowers smell nice and flowers are pretty flowers and you can give your wife flowers on Valentine's Day, a flowers holiday."
Also as far as consistency, use the main keywords in the title & description but don't spam them in there 3 or 4 times. Then use those keywords and the related set of keywords (types of flowers, potting, plant, garden) on the page. That's more helpful, I think.
(I'd suggest you could show your client a forum topic where a bunch of professional SEOs say keyword density doesn't matter but I'd really avoid using the word "idiot" when talking about the people who pay you if you want them to continue to do so.)
-
Show them high-ranking content for the KW's and I can almost guarantee that it doesn't follow the criteria that your client is suggesting.
-
Show him blog posts and white board Fridays that say to not be crazy about kw density.
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
-
Help with structure for optimizing Photography Website SEO
Hey guys , I am building a photography website and currently I have it setup the following way for my image galleries : https://ricfrancophotography.com/portfolio/norway-landscape-photography/#!gallery6618-6577 This provides me with an individual link for each of the images in my photography gallery but as a gallery these have obviously no content and I figured the best way would be to add the images I want to work my SEO for to individual blog posts . So here is what I did so far : - Added a link to the caption of each image inside the lightbox that is linking to the individual blog post - In order to not break the navigation I made the post with the content for each image open in a modal popup (it changes the link in the top bar but once closed it goes back to the gallery) . - I made the image inside the post link back to the fullsize image in the lightbox gallery when clicked instead of linking to the .jpg in wp-content/uploads. Now, I have some questions regarding whether this is a good practice in terms of SEO and if the fact of having duplicate images or this structure is going to hurt my SEO any way . Although both images are in different urls they ultimately link to each other this way : Blog Image --> Gallery Image url --> wp-content/uploads/file.jpg Is there a better approach for this ? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ricfranco0 -
Same server for different client sites?
Hi everyone - I have a question about whether it's OK for us to host several of our client's websites on the same dedicated web server, without this causing problems in SEO. I know the issues with duplicate content etc., but for background - we provide website services to a particular sector (antiques/auctions). All our clients are distinct, and have written their own copy etc., but because they're all in the same sector, their websites will - largely - talk about the same types of things - so the content is not duplicated, but it's similar in topic, I guess. Does anyone feel it would cause a problem if we were to put several (say about 😎 of our client's websites on the same dedicated web server, or would we be better spreading the sites over different shared servers? Come to think about it, if we are spreading those same 8 sites across 4 virtual servers - but all hosted by the same company - presumably Google would know that too? Thanks in advance for your thoughts on this! Nikki
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Go-Auction0 -
Unexplained Drop In Ranking and Traffic-HELP!
I operate a real estate web site in New York City (www.nyc-officespace-leader.com). It was hit by Penguin in April 2012, with search volume falling from 6,800 per month in March 2012 to 3,300 by June 2012. After refreshing content and changing the theme, volume recovered to 4,300 per month in October 2013. There was a big improvement in early October 2013, perhaps tied to a Panda update. In November 2013 I hired an SEO company. They are reputable; on MOZ's recommended list. After following all their suggestions (searching and removing duplicate content, disavowing toxic links, improving the site structure to make it easier for Google to index listings, re-writing ten key landing pages, improving the design of the user interface) ranking and traffic started to decline in April of 2014 and crashed in June 2014 after an upgraded design with improved user interface was launched. Search volume is went from 4700 in March to around 3800 in June. However ranking on the keywords that generate conversions has really declined, and clicks from those terms are down at least 65%. My online business is severely compromised after I have spent almost double the anticipated budget to improve ranking and conversion. A few questions: 1. Could a drop in the number of domains lining to our site have led to this decline? About 30 domains that had toxic links to us agreed to remove them. We had another 70 domains disavowed in late April. We only have 78 domains pointing to our domain now, far less than before (see attached AHREFs image). It seems there is a correlation in the timeline between the number of domains pointing to us and ranking performance. The number of domains pointing to us has never been this low. Could this be causing the drop? My SEO firm believes that the quality of these links are very low and the fact that many are gone is in fact a plus. 2. The number of indexed pages has jumped to 851 from 675 in early June (see attached image from Google Webmaster tools), right after a site upgrade. The number of pages in the site map is around 650. Could the indexation of the extra 175 page somehow have diluted the quality of the site in Google's eyes? We have filed removal request for these pages in Mid June and again last week with Google but they still appear. In 2013 we also launched an upgrade and Google indexed an extra 500 pages (canonical tags were not set up correctly) and search volume and ranking collapsed. Oddly enough when the number of pages indexed by Google fell, ranking improved. I wonder if something similar has occurred. 3. May 2014 Panda update. Many of our URLs are product URLs of listings. They have less than 100 words. Could Google suddenly be penalizing us for that? It is very difficult to write descriptions of hundreds of words for products that change quickly. I would think the Google takes this into account. If someone could present some insight into this issue I would be very, very grateful. I have spent over $25,000 on SEO reports, wireframe design and coding and now find myself in a worse position than when I started. My SEO provider is now requesting that I purchase even more reports for several thousand dollars and I can't afford it, nor can I justify it after such poor results. I wish they would take it upon themselves to identify what went wrong. In any case, if anyone has any suggestions I would really appreciate it. I am very suspicious that this drop started in earnest at the time of link removal and the disavow and accelerated at the time of the launch of the upgrade. Thanks, Alan XjSCiIdAwWgU2ps e5DerSo tYqemUO
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kingalan10 -
Robots.txt help
Hi Moz Community, Google is indexing some developer pages from a previous website where I currently work: ddcblog.dev.examplewebsite.com/categories/sub-categories Was wondering how I include these in a robots.txt file so they no longer appear on Google. Can I do it under our homepage GWT account or do I have to have a separate account set up for these URL types? As always, your expertise is greatly appreciated, -Reed
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | IceIcebaby0 -
Best Practice For Company/Client Logo Endorsement
Article: http://searchengineland.com/homepage-sliders-are-bad-for-seo-usability-163496 I came across the following article and somewhat agree with the authors summary.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Mark_Ch
I find sliders a distraction to B2B users and overall offers no SEO benefits. Scenario
As a service provider, over time I have worked with many high profile blue chip comnpanies. As part of my site redesign, I'm looking to show users my client achievements. My initial thoughts are to carry out the following: On the home page I'm looking to incorporate some high profile company logos (similar to http://www.semrush.com) with a hyperlink "more customers" to the right of logo caption. The link will take the user to a dedicated page (www.mydomain.co.uk/customer) showing a comprehensive list of company logos. Questions
#1 Is the above practice good or bad.
#2 Is there a better way to achieve the above Any other practical advise on user experience, social engagement, website speed, etc would be much appreciated. Thanks Mark0 -
Do I use a .org or .co.uk domain to help UK rankings?
Hi Guys, I own to good domains one with a .ORG and the other .CO.UK Can anyone advise which one is best to use to help UK rankings? Or does it not make much difference?? Thanks guys Gareth
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | GAZ090 -
A potential client who got busted !
We had a call this week from a company who have been using a SEO company providing link building services. The back links they have been generating are seriously dodgy back links ! www.jumpforfun.co.uk Here are some examples of the back links - http://www.utc.fr/interactions/?FORUM-DEBAT-quel-s-role-s-pour-les http://mad.blogtv.uol.com.br/2010/03/12/homenagens-ao-grande-cartunista-glauco http://medical.gate2finance.com/node/67 Yes a seriously dodgy back link profile ! He received the following email from google via webmaster tools - Dear site owner or webmaster of http://www.jumpforfun.co.uk/, We've detected that some of your site's pages may be using techniques that are outside Google's Webmaster Guidelines. Specifically, look for possibly artificial or unnatural links pointing to your site that could be intended to manipulate PageRank. Examples of unnatural linking could include buying links to pass PageRank or participating in link schemes. We encourage you to make changes to your site so that it meets our quality guidelines. Once you've made these changes, please submit your site for reconsideration in Google's search results. If you find unnatural links to your site that you are unable to control or remove, please provide the details in your reconsideration request. If you have any questions about how to resolve this issue, please see our Webmaster Help Forum for support. Sincerely, Google Search Quality Team I mentioned to the client I would speak to the community on SEO moz to the owner of the site and see what opinions other SEO's would have on solving this issue.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | onlinemediadirect0 -
Help Needed - 301 a .co.uk to a .com Serp Questions
Hey, really need some help deciding what to do... I have a .co.uk site, its my oldest and best site of my network and accounts for maybe 30-40% of my income. Although its a .co.uk site, it actually makes most of its from from USA traffic and targets many terms for the US market - but the problem is that due to it being a .co.uk it doesnt rank as well in G .com and over the last few years Google has defiantly widened the gap as such for the ability for a .co.uk to rank in G .com. Many terms that I used to be #1 for in G .com, I now rank position 5-10 only, but in G .co.uk I'm #1 and often with a duo listing so I wouldnt put the loss of rankings in G .com down to just losing rankings naturally. Now many of my key pages are gradually losing rankings in G .com which is not good and really frustrating Feedback Needed So my dilemma is do I risk my best site and 301 it to a .com hosted in the US for potential at a guess 50% increase in revenues and more future potential (If the 301 worked well and got some US rankings back - Im sure longtail would increase lots too) ? If people with experience with 301ing sites to a new domain could let me know how they did or if you're an SEO and have done this many times, how many times on average has Serps remained stable / unchanged ? Trying to work out the reward to risk ratio, like on average if the transition is seamless 90% of the time it would seem worth the gamble, but if its 50% then I would say its not worth it.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | goody2shoes0