SEO Articles?!

You're kind of asking the million dollar question but generally speaking 350-450 words with 2 keyword links. This has stood the test of time for me well.

More generally Joseph Archibald (Affordable SEO Tips and Tricks) did a great 40 day challenge on here where he laid out exactly how he got to the top of Google. He's recently published an e-book on it all I believe too.

P.S. One more thing - quality of link (ie domain it's coming from) is a greater factor nowdays than a realistic looking article (that's not to say the article can be gibberish though)

No ... nobody can tell you "the best way", but many different people can give you their own recommendations. So I'll do that, too ...

Use your main keyword at the start of the title (not "5 ways to keyword keyword" - that's no good, as EZA's editorial guidelines wisely explain - and the same's true on your own site, for the same reasons).

Use your main keyword again once in the first paragraph and somewhere near the end, and apart from that, don't overdo it. Anything above 2% "keyword density" is automatically rejected by EZA, without even going in front of an editor, and you should reject it for your own site, too. If you must measure it, then 1% - 1.5% is good.

Apart from that, just make your article readable and interesting.

Be entertaining; be provocative; tell people something they really didn't know; challenge their preconceptions; write plenty. These are the main ground-rules.

"LSI keywords" you can ignore altogether. LSI is just a "techie" way of saying "those other terms that tend to come up often in discussions of your keywords". And if you write intelligently, and readably, and know your subject, you won't be able to avoid using some of them anyway - so it's not worth your time and attention to write out a list of them and try to "work them in": that's not really "writing", and if you make a habit of it, your readers will think it isn't really "reading", either - and you might lose them.

The less you think about the "scientific structure" of your writing, the better your writing will be. The more you think about what a search engine wants/exects to see, the worse your writing will be.

High quality content can even attract its own backlinks (to some extent).

I wouldn't worry too much about keyword density and LSI density, placement, and whatnot. I usually shoot for about 2% kw density, but I don't adjust my work too much to fit that.

Early Ranking Factors Data + an April Linkscape Update | SEOmoz

Page 28 of the slide.

Write for your readers, not Google.

This is exactly why you need to learn the basics of SEO, then learn how to vary them. Your goal should not be to try to learn the "perfect" SEO formula, but rather how to get as many different "formulas" onto as many different pages as possible.

If someone tells you to use the keyword once in the title and someone else says to use it twice, what do you do? IMO, you do BOTH. You find ways to create content so you have one page using the keyword once, and another time you use the keyword twice.

Same with KW "density" (which is bunk, as dynamic pages often rank the same, despite keyword density changing daily, if not more often). Try having low KW densities, high densities and some in the middle.

Even if there was a "perfect" SEO formula, it could change tomorrow. If you vary things, you'll be prepared for far more situations.

Here's the real secret formula to SEO: Put a lot of words on a lot of pages in a lot of different combos, then get a lot of links to those pages. Figure this part out, the rest will take care of itself.

If you write a GOOD, related and somewhat longer article, you can assume it will automatically contain a bunch of LSI keywords.

Otherwise there are some standard rules, like having the main keyword in the title, main keyword in content several times (anywhere from 1.5% density to 3% density) and so forth.

But don't write for the search engines - write a relevant, informative article for people, Google will always reward this in the long run.

(Sidenote: Google has not "invented" LSI keywords, Google is not the one dictating the "rules". Its exactly the other way around: Google is adapting to what humans consider relevant..and it will always reflect this in its algorithms.)

Like some of the others have said, there is no "magic" SEO formula for your articles.

The most important thing you can do is to provide solid information to your readers, and naturally integrate your keywords into it. If you've got the right facts and the right keywords, this should not be difficult. In fact, in many of my articles, I don't have to *think* about placing the keywords in; I simply do it naturally.

There are some places where your keywords need to be (at least your biggest target keyword) - in your title (the closer to the beginning, the better), in your first paragraph, and in your last paragraph. However, that's no different than "telling 'em what you're gonna tell 'em, telling 'em, and telling 'em what you've told 'em."

While you should definitely avoid keyword stuffing, I don't believe that a hard-and-fast 2% limit works in all cases. With some keywords, I'll go over 2% because there isn't a better way to say things (how many synonyms can *you* come up with for "faux wood blinds"? ). In my opinion, as long as it reads naturally, you're OK. If that means having a keyword density of 2.5%, so be it.

When in doubt, read your SEO article out loud. If it sounds like something you would explain to a friend over dinner (without sounding awkward with keywords or sounding too formal), you should be good to go.

Hello,
I write SEO optimized articles. I have written for various clients including the owner of an SEO company.

The strategy that seems to work best is a keyword density of between 2 to 3%. This means in an article of 600 words, you will want to have the keyword in there 12 to 18 times.
As for placement, keyword in title, subtitle, first line in the article and last line in the article.
You will want to avoid keyword stacking by placing the keywords far enough apart.

As for LSI keywords, you can use a free tool at lsikeywords.com. Start by searching for your keyword and use the LSI keywords generated throughout your article.

Hope this helps you out, & if you get tired of writing articles, you can email me!
racquelmcfarlane(at)gmail.com

Oh I just use this basic structure for all SEO articles

I honestly don't bother myself with calculating keyword density, I just make sure it doesn't sound repetitive and fake.