The Key Word of the Day is: Keywords!

Search engine optimization (SEO) is all about trying to get on the front page of search results for specific search phrases so isn’t it a little strange that over using—or over thinking—your core keywords will usually backfire?

Keyword placement is more effective than keyword density.

You already knew that, but this bit of common knowledge is commonly misunderstood.

If you’ve been counting the number of times each target search phrase is used compared to the overall word count of an article and making sure that each primary keyword is also used in the Title, each subheader, alt tags, and (of course) in the Meta Title & Description… you are still doing it wrong.

Quality is more important than keywords, period.

The top ranking blogs aren’t based around keywords. They rank well because people enjoy reading the articles. People share the articles. People comment on and engage with the articles. People subscribe to the blogs.

The top ranking blogs might—gasp—not even have “target keywords” in the title. Instead, the title effectively captures your attention and draws you in.

The top ranking blogs might not even have search phrases scattered carefully throughout the article body, including sub headers. Instead, the article is written to inform, entertain, or serve some other purpose.

In other words, the reason your blog isn’t ranking on the front page of search results is that you are focusing too much on keywords, not enough on topics.

Does this mean you should just stop using keywords?

Obviously not.

To elaborate a bit, it’s perfectly okay to stop using keywords once you no longer need to. In the meantime, implement search phrases naturally and be damn sure you’re doing it naturally. Writing an entire article (or batch of articles) based on a list of valuable keywords is the wrong way to do it. There’s nothing natural about it.

If you don’t have something worth publishing a blog about, don’t bother publishing at all. It will not do you any good because getting on the front page of search results is only part of the goal.

After all, having a high bounce rate is counterproductive. If SEO is really your #1 priority—worth risking the credibility of your brand on– then you might want to rethink your entire business strategy.