I know. I’ve been there. You’re stuck with a keyword like “skillet doodles” and there is just no tactful way to fit it into an intelligent sentence. Who thinks of these keywords, anyway? And while we’re at it, exactly how many of those additional keywords do I really need to use?

 

The answers, my friends, are blowing in the win—I mean, the air conditioned vents of the LifeTips office.

 

·        Clients recommend keywords that they know their customers are searching, and our SEO specialist researches popular search phrases in online tools such as Google AdWords and Keyword Discovery. Sometimes these keywords are a writer’s (and editor’s) nightmare. The word might be unhyphenated when it should be, be in an awkward tense or use apostrophes where there shouldn’t be any.

·        What is the difference between a “required keyword” and an “additional keyword?”

o       Required keywords will be linked to different landing pages of the client’s website. These are often the most searched words regarding that specific topic.

o       Additional keywords are also commonly-searched phrases. Although they will not be linked, they give relevancy to required keywords when the search engine spider bots are scanning a web page. Spiders will know that when you are talking about, say, “tuna fish,” you mean recipes for cooking, health benefits of tuna, and award-winning tuna melt sandwich, instead of how to charter a fishing boat for recreational tuna fishing. These topics are two very different searches, and we want our website to appear at the top of searches for the right audience. Additionally, any double entendres that arise will not confuse our friendly spider bots.

• You must use all the “required keywords” you see in your category. Try to fit them into your tips the best you can, flaws and all. Use the additional keywords as a guide for the rest of the tips in the category after you have used all your required keywords. In a category with 10 total tip boxes and four required keywords, the remaining six tips will feature additional keywords. If you are doing tips on women’s fitness and most of the additional keywords in a category have to do with abdominal exercises, take the hint and write about crunches and sit-ups!
• You only need to put one required keyword in one tip, one time. That’s 1-1-1. DON’T crowd a tip with every required keyword you are given. You also don’t have to use required keywords or additional keywords more than once in a tip—but you may do so if it flows naturally with the message you are trying to convey. Just remember, we make organic tips and advice that are not stuffed with keywords. Stuffing can make the tip sound contrived, repetitive and just plain bad.
• If at all possible, try to buffer the required keyword in each tip with content on both sides of the word. Optimum placement for required keywords is somewhere in the middle of the tip. This adds to the overall SEO value of the tip, and is one more way to get perfect $10s!