Why "Perfect" Optimizing Doesn't Always Mean More Traffic

You may already know how to do your keyword research and find the right phrases to target for your site, but did you know that too much of a good thing can actually do more harm than good?

Search engines are complicated, anyone who's diligently followed their progress on Google for weeks, testing and tweaking without much results will agree.  Well, we're not going to tell you how to figure out Google's algorhythm, but we will tell you that the one thing you want to be doing when it comes to SEO is making your pages look as natural as possible.

Your pages should be written with the reader in mind.  As SEs get more and more sophisticated they are able to pick up patterns of optimization which have been obviously set up for the search engines and not human visitors.  This won't win you any points with the people whose business is to provide the most accurate and helpful search results for their customers.

That's not to say you shouldn't be doing your keyword research or optimizing your pages... after all how will the search engines find you in the first place?  It just means that we have to get the optimization balance right. 

Here are a few tips to help you:

When you set up a page it's important to have keywords for that page but you also don't want your pages to have a set pattern to them. You want to think more along the lines of "natural optimizing" rather than getting it just right.

One way to do this is to slightly change your H1 (header tag) to be different than your keywords and title tag.

For example, if your keyword and title tag is:

parenting toddlers

You may want to slightly change your header tag to look like this:

Help and Advice for Parents of Toddlers

It's a variation of the keyword phrase but you're still including important relevant words and it looks much more natural than just repeating "parenting toddlers"

You can also slightly change your title tag to look like this:

Resources and tips for Parenting Toddlers

Although you're still using your main keyword phrase "parenting toddlers" you're adding a little to it and making it look much more natural in the process.

This is just an example but basically you want to change things slightly, so you don't have "parenting toddlers" a bunch of times on the same page and in all your tags.

When you move on to write your page, try to write first for your visitors without over thinking the optimization part of things. Once you finish writing your page, go back and read through it. If your writing is based on your keywords you should naturally have used that keyword phrase and related phrases throughout.

It's important to keep things as natural as possible while still using targeted keywords. If in doubt go back and read your page.  Does it make sense? Does it flow naturally?  If it does and you still have your keywords in there, chances are you've found the right balance.

More Search Engine Information: Highly Recommended! 

Check Aaron Wall's SEO Book.  Aaron's book doesn't leave any stones unturned.  He covers everything you need to know about getting traffic to your website and legitimately ranking well with the search engines. His book covers all the nitty gritty details in an easy-to-understand way.