Some marketers believe that you need a certain count of keywords for your content to rank high on search engines. That couldn’t be further from the truth.

While keywords are still essential in search engine optimization (SEO), you no longer need to fill your web pages and blogs with your keywords in order for the site to perform well in search results.

Since the Panda update in 2011, Google has focused on screening out “volume” in favor of “quality.”

Before the Panda update, marketers were trying to outdo their competitors for “number” of blogs posted in a day. If you follow the three steps above, you’ll find yourself naturally mentioning your keywords within the content numerous times.

Quality barely mattered.

“Volume” was also defined in terms of keywords. The more keywords you had on each of your blogs, the better your ranking would be.

Combining keyword density and content volume became the norm. Those who could produce tons of content and stuff the posts with specific keywords found themselves at the top of search result pages.

Now that’s no longer the case.

Today, keywords are still necessary but quality is even more important. If you go for keyword density at the expense of content quality, you will not make it to the top pages of search results.

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What You Can Do? Write for People

Content should be geared towards the ultimate consumers – humans. So create content that solves people’s problems.

Start by Knowing Your Audience

Who are you are writing for? Who are your customers? What kind of people read your posts? This usually depends on the business and your industry.

A small business will obviously target people in the lower to medium income brackets. You should also know whether the core of your customers are male or female, are on social media or not, where they live, what they do, and so forth.

Know Their Problems

Once you know your audience, learn their problems. Then create content that addresses the problems they are currently facing, as well as those they are likely to face in the near future.

Of course, the subject should be tied to your area of expertise. If you’re a web developer, for example, your readers might want to learn about mobile optimization.

Provide a Solution

Once you know your audience, learn their problems. Then create content that addresses the problems they are currently facing, as well as those they are likely to face in the near future. with your expertise, and write a truly awesome piece of content that the reader will love. In fact, make them want to share it – this is the ultimate sign of a great post.

Then… Worry about Keywords

If you follow the three steps above, you’ll find yourself naturally mentioning your keywords within the content numerous times.

Google Will Reward You

The key advantage of quality content is that it engages readers – today’s most important ranking factor.

If people are spending more time on your website or blog, Google will interpret it to mean that you’re delighting your visitors with great content and reward you with better ranking.

Also, when you delight your readers, you will have plenty of repeat visitors, lots of shares, and huge amounts of comments and other user generated content – all of which are key signals that Google uses when ranking websites.

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