21 replies to this topic

[JamesW]

Hey,

I've been reading a fair amount of posts and information that state you need x amount of keyword density, without looking unreadable and engineered so.

However, some keyphrases appear difficult to integrate into normal copy without looking like they've been blatantly inserted for SEO purposes.

Bearing this in mind, is there any benefit (and if so, how much) in just including the words from your keyphrases in your text, despite the fact they will probably not be adjacent to each other?

Cheers,

James

[dzinerbear]

This happens to me all of the time, and what I've noticed is that if I'm optimizing a page for "apple pie" I'll get good rankings for "apple pie" and mediocre rankings for "apple" or "pie."

So the search engines are still picking up the individual words, but the ranking will depend largely on how popular a word they were.

As well, sometimes I just target more complex keywords because perhaps "apple pie" is just going to be too difficult to get good rankings for. But I'll notice that a lot of people are still searching for "baked apple pie" and I'll go after that. So rather than worry about the 10,000 people a month looking for "apple pie" I concentrate on the 4,000 people looking for "baked apple pie."

Good Luck
Dzinerbear

[Jill]

James, there is definitely some benefit in having the individual words within your copy, even if they are not there in the form of the phrase. But it won't help much if the phrase is competitive and others are using it a lot within their copy.

If you can use the phrase itself within your Title tag and Meta description tag, that can be a big help.

Jill

[qwerty]

To mess around with dzinerbear's example, optimizing for "baked apple pie" will also get you recognized for baked pie (without quotes), but you won't rank as well as a page that, all other elements being equal, has those two words right next to each other.

[compar]

Bearing this in mind, is there any benefit (and if so, how much) in just including the words from your keyphrases in your text, despite the fact they will probably not be adjacent to each other?

James you have raised a very interesting point. I believe the answer depends in part on how people search.

Lets say your keyword phrase is 'buy apple pie online'. If a searcher types this phrase into Google they will get all the pages that contain these words and not necessarily in the same order. Will the site that optimized for the phrase and kept the phrase contiguous in their text be listed above the sites that have all the words but not in the same order and/or adjacent to each other. Not in my experience.

Now if the searcher types in the phrase enclosed in " " then I believe that the site that kept the words in that exact oder will get a higher ranking in the SERP. The problem with that model is that many "experts" on this forum claim that the average searcher rarely does this type of search.

So it seems to me we are almost back at the old claim that there are no keyword phrases. There are only single keywords. This idea is further reinforced by Googles toolbar. If you select a site from the buy apple pie online search, and then ask the tool bar to highlight the keywords the toolbar will highlight every occurence of each individual word regardless of their place in the text. In fact even if the words are adjacent Google will highlight each one in a different color and place a break between them indicating to me that they really only see individual words.

So the real value of keyword phrases is that these are things people are searching on. But unless the searcher encloses them in " " then I'm not sure there is any real advantage in having them together or in the exact order in your text. It may be just as benificial simply to have them all in the text. I certainly don't see anything wrong with doing both things and it should make incorporating the words easier and more natural.

[qwerty]

But unless the searcher encloses them in " " then I'm not sure there is any real advantage in having them together or in the exact order in your text.

There is an advantage to that; it's just not as strong as it would be if the user put the query in quotes. The proximity of words is definitely something G takes into account.

[Jill]

Bob, could you show us some examples where the words NOT together as a phrase are ranking more highly than those pages that use it a number of times in phrase form?

Certainly, there are hundreds of factors that contribute to which pages will rank highly for any given phrase. But those pages that use the exact phrase a number time within the copy, will generally rank higher than those that don't use it as an exact phrase.

Longer phrases that real people aren't actually searching on could certainly be an exception. But I see no reason to optimize for those types of phrases anyway.

Always optimize for 2 and 3 word phrases people are actually searching for, and always use them in phrase form. The exact way you want to rank highly with them, for best results. Pretty much common sense.

Jill

[compar]

There is an advantage to that; it's just not as strong as it would be if the user put the query in quotes. The proximity of words is definitely something G takes into account.

Proximity or exact order?

The question was about exact order. It is possible and probable that they will be in close proximity even if the order is broken up for easier and more natural copywriting.

[JamesW]

All,

I suppose I'll have to do the best I can in integrating keyphrases into my copy. And if I'm unable to do this for some of the keyphrases, then it'll have to be keywords.

Thanks all,

James

[compar]

Bob, could you show us some examples where the words NOT together as a phrase are ranking more highly than those pages that use it a number of times in phrase form? 

Certainly, there are hundreds of factors that contribute to which pages will rank highly for any given phrase.  But those pages that use the exact phrase a number time within the copy, will generally rank higher than those that don't use it as an exact phrase. 

The first problem with this discussion is that you are correct there are 100 of things that effect a pages place in the index. But having said this do a search on 'order prescription medication' -- no quotes. The page I am involved with yourfriendlypharmacy.com comes up #6. This page is optimized for this particular phrase as you will see if you turn your toolbar highlighter on before the search.

But the pages that come up in 3rd and 4th place don't seem to have these words in exact order anywhere on their sites.

Now repeat the search with the phrase in " " and my page moves to 4th and the two pages without the complete phrase disappear.

[Jill]

Yes, the other pages would have to disappear with the quotes on, because you're only searching for pages that have the phrase with the exact order on the page.

Thanks for that example. I would hazard a guess that the other pages may have links pointing to them that use the phrase in the exact order in the links. And/or they simply have so many more links in general that they are deemed more popular.

Jill

[qwerty]

Bob, could you show us some examples where the words NOT together as a phrase are ranking more highly than those pages that use it a number of times in phrase form?

Um... was that request made to qwerty/Bob or compar/Bob? My point was not that having the keywords in close proximity (all other elements being equal) would rank higher than pages using them together in a phrase; just that it would show up in the search results, and would likely do better than pages having all the words but further apart.

[compar]

Yes, the other pages would have to disappear with the quotes on, because you're only searching for pages that have the phrase with the exact order on the page. 

Thanks for that example.  I would hazard a guess that the other pages may have links pointing to them that use the phrase in the exact order in the links.  And/or they simply have so many more links in general that they are deemed more popular.

Which of course proves the point that there are many factors. But does not disprove my contention that all the individual words within a keyword phrase still have value on a page even if not in exact order.

[BrianR]

James - here's my tuppence worth...

When I've got three or more keyphrases that I want to include in text, I sometimes resort to the following trick for the opening para on the page:

"Call it what you will: search engine optimisation (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM), SEO consultancy - the bottom line is improving your search engine rankings"

It might prove difficult to work all of the keyphrases into the balance of the page text two or three times each, but at least the above approach gets them all mentioned in that all-important first paragraph of text.

Hope this helps.

BrianR

[compar]

James - here's my tuppence worth...

When I've got three or more keyphrases that I want to include in text, I sometimes resort to the following trick for the opening para on the page:

"Call it what you will: search engine optimisation (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM), SEO consultancy - the bottom line is improving your search engine rankings"

They don't have tuppence anymore.

What I would probably do with that is put a header on the paragraph that said"

<h2>"Is it search engine optimisation (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM), SEO consultancy?"</h2>