As any seasoned content writer will know, the basic keyword technique when writing content is the keyword density. Most writers see keyword density as a the keyword or phrase percentage within the total word count. Amateur writers will attempt to to stuff their content full of keywords creating an awkward article for the reader in the belief that this will attract maximum SEO effect. Unfortunately this is not the case. Google can differentiate between keyword stuffing (spamming) and natural keyword prevalence.
Keyword Density Percentage
If you are writing content and focusing on keyword density by percentage, your efforts are probably wasted. Any article that does not grab a reader’s attention or earn their trust will definitely not attract natural links from high PR websites. Poor spelling, bad grammar and a limited vocabulary are just some of the ways to detract readers and natural links. Keyword stuffing can also be your downfall as it will ultimately affect the grammar of your work and not provide informative content in a reader friendly format. Don’t worry if you are unable to achieve an 8% or 10% keyword density percentage. It means nothing anyway.
Keyword Density Graph
The other method to ensure that you have a healthy keyword prevalence is through a keyword density graph. This can be simply done by counting your total keywords, after writing naturally and professionally. Verify that your keywords are the dominant words in your text. Do not worry about prepositions (with, for, etc), articles (the, an, a, etc) or conjunctions (but, and, or, etc). These are ignored by Google anyway. Just ensure that your keywords are the most prevalent word(s) from the remaining words in your content. An experienced writer is able to do this simply by highlighting the keywords and making a fairly accurate estimate by the naked eye. Alternatively, identify the dominant words in your text, count each and do a quick comparison to ensure that your keyword tops the list among prevalent words.
Keyword Alternation
An experienced medical writer will know that every medical term has multiple synonyms. From medical terminology to patient’s crude descriptions, there is many ways to convey the same message and concept. These synonyms are often recognized by Google. So Google is able to differentiate that ‘high cholesterol’ is not ‘hypercholesterolemia’ but both are related. Your keyword tool will verify this. Synonyms are just as important as keywords to ensure literary integrity while gaining maximum SEO effect.
Your main keywords, which will be the prevalent keyword (not by percentage) and within your article title is your primary keyword(s). Identify at least two synonyms, based on common sense, clinical experience and verify that Google recognizes these as synonyms on your keyword tool. Your synonyms can now be considered as your secondary keyword(s). When writing, alternate your primary keywords with your secondary keywords thereby creating a search engine and reader friendly article. Secondary keywords can also be used in your subtitles (H2, H3 tags).
Keyword alternation provides more literary freedom for the writer without having to keyword stuff an article. Construct your keyword density graph and ensure that your primary keyword is still the dominant keyword, followed by secondary keywords and then other words. It takes a little time and lot of practice to balance the three essential components for medical seo writing; (1) Technical accuracy, (2) Reader friendly articles and (3) search engine optimized (SEO’d) content. These practices can be applied to any niche, not only health and medicine, for maximum SEO benefit.