Keyword Density: How Many Times Should You Use a Keyword To Market Your MSP?

Are you trying to find the “magic” number of times a keyword should appear in your MSP content? Keyword density remains one of the most misunderstood SEO and content marketing aspects. Here are three tips to better understand and use keyword density to rank on Google.

What Is Keyword Density?

Keyword density is the number of times your chosen keyword is repeated as a percentage of your overall content. A down-and-dirty example would be if you have a 100-word blog piece and mention “Managed IT” 10 times, your keyword density for “Managed IT” would be 10%.

If 10% of Keywords is Good, 5 Times That Should Be Better, Right?

If you haven’t updated how you use keywords, you may still be using the pre-Panda keyword (stuffing) method. While jamming your content to the brim with keywords was a best practice over a decade ago, it is now considered black hat SEO. Google frowns on black hat SEO, punishing violators with reduced page rank and in extreme cases removing their ability to be shown at all. In modern SEO, less is more when it comes to keywords (in terms of their density).

What’s a Good Keyword Density?

If you’re familiar with SEO, you will also be familiar with the usual answer…it depends.

Google suggests that an average of one keyword per 200 words is good. There’s some wriggle room, but Google may view our down-and-dirty example of having ten keywords in a piece of 100 words suspiciously. Perhaps suspicious enough for Google to place it at a lower rank than your competitors.

Your Competitors Remain Your Greatest Resource

For many businesses, competitors are viewed as a threat. However, when it comes to SEO, your competitors can be your greatest resource to market your MSP. If you’re unsure if your keyword density is at the correct ratio, you can look at your competitors and adopt their percentages. There are several free keyword density calculators to examine your competitors’ websites, which can help determine why they rank higher. 

In doing so, you can adjust your content accordingly. For example, if your competitors have a keyword density for “cybersecurity” of 4% and yours is 1%, then you should increase your keyword density, and the inverse is true as well. If you’re at 10% and they are at 4%, then there’s a chance that Google feels you are keyword stuffing and are reducing your page positioning as a consequence.

Three Tips To Improve Keyword Density

1. Add Keyword Variants: Keyword variants are variations of a targeted keyword. Keyword variants allow you to supplement your target keyword with other related and relevant keywords. For example, in addition to using “Managed IT” as a keyword, you could incorporate terms such as “outsourced IT”, “Flat-Rate IT”, or “24/7 maintenance and monitoring” as variations. Not only do keyword variations beef up your content, but they also increase your ability to reach customers by providing a wide range of related keywords. When considering which keywords to focus on, remember that most people don't know the jargon you use as an MSP. They may search for solutions to their problems using layperson's terms. Expanding your vocabulary can increase keyword density while avoiding triggering Google's keyword stuffing penalty. 
2. Incorporate Keyword Clusters: Keyword clusters lean into user intent, linking your targeted keyword to themes relevant to the content you create for your audience. For example, if you focus on “cybersecurity” as a keyword for your content, you would also mention the problems cybersecurity would solve. When you do this, your keyword cluster will naturally include other cybersecurity-related keywords such as “phishing”, “ransomware”, “data breach”, and similar terms. Keyword clusters would help the reader better understand your services as an MPS can help their business by linking those services to real-world issues they could be experiencing. 
3. Understand User Intent: In its simplest form, user intent is understanding what users expect to find when clicking a link. Part of the significant changes Google has done was triggered by searchers having a poor experience when they click on a link. In other words, user intent strives to predict what information searchers seek and provides content that answers the searcher's question. Google's latest update, “The Helpful Content Update”, focuses heavily on giving searchers the information they are looking for.

Content Remains the Main Driver of MSP Marketing Success

Managed IT is a specialized industry, and it isn’t often easy to find writers (or marketing agencies) that understand what an MSP does and explain it in a way that non-tech-savvy people can understand. A specialized business, such as an MSP, will not be well served with the generic “tech" content that most marketing agencies that take on MSPs as one of their verticals provide.

We are one of the few marketing agencies that specialize in MSP marketing. A significant reason why this is important is that, as an MSP, we understand the stress you feel when your phone doesn’t ring, and you’re not sure how to generate leads. 

How do we know? We’ve been there.

One thing to consider is that just having a website isn't marketing; it isn't marketing your services as an MSP or giving potential leads a reason to provide you with a chance. You need to generate interest in your services and drive traffic to your website, and you need to market your services and your website itself to be able to convert leads.

This is why we developed our tried and true marketing services, such as SEO, content marketing, and our exclusive MSP-focused website, the Ultimate MSP website, to help drive traffic to you and generate the leads you need. 

If you've been frustrated by your inability to break through the noise of your competitors and gain the attention you need to generate leads, call 888-546-4384 today to schedule an appointment with our marketing team.