Carving content that works

While I like to think of myself as an "under the hood kinda guy" when it comes to web development, I'm often tasked with creating web content in my freelancing antics. So I, being the caveman that I am, try to break the tasks down to the simplest terms, primarily, what is the purpose of this content, and how can I ensure it will fulfill that purpose ...

I've scribbled on my cave wall the following mantra...

• I will write for people, not search engines.
• I will be conscious of my primary keywords and use them and their variants in my content, but I will not be swayed to the dark side of the keyword density cults.
• I will write as if I am talking to a potential customer, not a co-worker, using layman terms rather than industry specific terms.
• When I write anything about any specific topic in a natural way, my keywords and their variants naturally occur. I will not force it, but I might polish it and tweak it from time to time.

As I've said, or at least attempted to convey in numerous past posts, there is no magic number of times your keywords should appear on any given web page. There is no magic "keyword density" but, there is a threshold where search engines will consider your site "over optimized" and they will punish you for it.

Besides having an inclination to write mantras on walls, I'm also a "learn by example" kinda guy, so whatever the topic, I'd certainly be taking a look at what my competitors are doing to fulfill the purpose. Since it's a competitor, they are likely targeting some, or possibly all of the keywords you are. Depending on how entrenched they are, it might be wiser to focus on some of the low hanging fruit keywords, eg; variations on search terms that the competitors aren't targeting.

While the "low hanging fruit" keywords might not be searched on as often, dominating the search engines on a few of these "long tail" search terms can often result in just as much traffic as ranking on the the most frequently used terms.

I should stress, copying a competitors text might be tempting, but unless it is seriously revised beyond recognition, it will be seen for what it is, thievery and search engines don't like thieves, which is as it should be.