SEO: Don’t Keyword Stuff, it’s all About Topic Density

Effective SEO: Beyond Keywords

When it comes to search engine optimization, I’ve found the vast majority of people believe it’s all about adding keywords as many times as you can across as many pages as you can on your website. Although this used to work, Google can tell when you’re spamming it.

The best way to rank for something is to use a tactic I like to call topic density. That is, talk about a specific topic. Remember, Google wants a good user experience, not an SEO experience. This doesn’t mean that Google doesn’t like SEO; it does, but the fundamentals of SEO are actually around making an all-round good experience for the end user.

What this means is if you are talking about a specific topic, Google is constantly improving its algorithm to show those websites that are making it easy for users to get the information they’re searching for. This means if you write an interesting article, as long as it is focused on a specific topic, Google will work out what that topic is and assist you to rank for all sorts of phrases around that topic. It’s much better for the user, and as a result, is much better for SEO.

For this tactic to truly work, make sure you have good site structure.