Dilution of Keywords is Not Effective for SEO
Lack of Keyword Focus Can be Damaging to Website Rankings
Not having clear keyword focus and goals can lead to keyword dilution and a drop in search engine rankings. This can cause a lack of targeted traffic and a fall in hits that convert to sales.
What is a keyword?
If you are new to search engine optimisation then you may not be aware of what a keyword or key phrase is. A keyword or key phrase can also be known as a search word or search term. It is the word, term or terms used by a web surfer when using a search engine to find what he or she is looking for.
When the surfer types the words they associate with the products, services or information they are looking for then search engines such as Google pull up all the web pages that they believe to be relevant to that search term.
Let us say that you are looking for a drum machine, you go to Google and type in your keywords “drum” and “machine” Google then runs a search and lists the top web pages that it relates to those keywords in order or most relevant.
What is keyword dilution and why is it a problem?
Keyword dilution happens when a website or web page has poor or no keyword focus. This can be down top bad planning but can also be down to conflicting interests within your business. Usually your web or SEO team has a confliction of interest with the marketing department.
For example a web page may be fully optimised for the keywords “drum machine” and because of this may also get a lot of traffic. The marketing department notices that there is a lot of traffic through this page, or just comes up with an idea of a promotion to add to ever page. They may think well we display “drum machines” on this page we could also advertise the fact that we sell drum sticks, guitars and keyboards. Now though the keyword focus is diluted as more and more keywords are added to that page making the keyword strength weakened.
This is keyword dilution. In simple terms the effect of the keyword or words is diluted by adding more words to the page and making those original keywords appear less important.
The reason that this is such an important factor and a major problem is twofold. Firstly your optimisation of the page and your entire SEO plan will be weakened as your pages will not be seen as important for your keywords and phrases as others with a clearer focus.
Secondly your conversion rates of hits to sales will be drop. People searching for drum machines will be less likely to buy from a website that has poor product focus. On top of this if they arrive at a web page that they thought was going to show them a keyboard and they find a drum machine (for example) they will leave the site as quick as they entered it as the page has not delivered what the search results promised.
Summary for better keyword focus
Review your website going through each webpage to review the keywords used and how clearly focus they are. Ask yourself are there too many words on this page that will not only confuse the search engine spiders but also the web user?
So in summary focus on your website goals and keywords that your target audience will use and make sure your landing pages are clearly focused on these keywords alone.
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