Last time you learned how to include your keywords in your article at a keyword density rate of about 1% to 3%. However, here’s the thing: the search engines want more from you.
You see, it didn’t take long for spammers to figure out that all they had to do is throw some gibberish content up, and it would rank well as long as it included their longtail keywords. So the spammers used content-creation and spinning tools to churn out thousands of “articles” in less time than it takes you to write one.
But the search engines got smart. The bots wanted to see more than just keywords. The bots also wanted to see content that was clearly related to those keywords. That’s when they started using LSA (latent semantic analysis) to discover whether the keywords were related to the rest of the content.
It’s easiest for you to understand this concept by looking at an example.
Let’s say you have an article about housebreaking a puppy. Indeed, let’s imagine that “housebreaking a puppy” is the keyword you’re trying to rank well for in the search engines. If your article really is about housebreaking a puppy, then we’d expect to find these sorts of words in your article:
- Housetraining
- Puppies
- Dog
- Dogs
- Kennel
- Accidents
- Urine
- Outside
And so on.
Indeed, the search engines expect to find those words too. And if your article doesn’t have at least some of those words, the search engines may possibly view your content with a suspicious eye. In other words, your article may not get ranked as well as you hoped.
Now, in most cases you’re naturally going to use these sorts of related words when you write an article. However, it doesn’t hurt to purposely include related words in your content at a greater rate than normal. Typically, this means using synonyms of your main keyword.
Look back at the previous example of “housebreaking a puppy.” The word “housetraining” is a top synonym for housebreaking. And using the word “dog” is a good replacement for puppy.
So here’s what you do:
- Include your main keyword (housebreaking a puppy) at a 1% density rate.
- Include your synonym (housetraining a puppy) at a 1% keyword density rate.
- Include the word dog (e.g., housebreaking a dog) at a 1% keyword density rate.
- As you write your article, be sure to include related words such as kennel, accident, urine, etc.
Now, this tactic raises the question: How do you know which words to use?
Some of it is common sense. If you’ve been working in the niche long enough, you’ll know what types of words your market uses. For example, if you’re trying to rank for a keyword phrase that includes the words “online marketing,” you may also include “web marketing” and “internet marketing.”
You can also use keyword tools to help you uncover these related words. Many tools have a feature where you can click on “synonyms” or “related words” to uncover still more keywords. For example, if you’re searching for “weight loss,” the related-words feature will give you words like “lose weight” and “burn fat.”
Now here’s another benefit of including related keywords: You can rank well for those words, too, especially if they’re longtail keywords. As such, you should look for longtail keywords when you’re looking to insert related words into your content.
That’s it for now. Next time, in the final article in this series, you’ll learn how to create the most important part of your article.
For earlier articles in my Article Marketing introductory series you can click here (introduction), here (establishing your expertise), here (building your list), here (selling products), here (building back-links), here (traffic from SEO – part 1) and here (traffic from SEO – part 2).
Now you can use simple articles to get more traffic, more customers and more cash. Fast. And you don’t need to be a world class writer to do it. Sound interesting? http://www.writenowforprofit.com/