In the evolving landscape of SEO, the focus has shifted significantly, impacting how writers and marketers craft content. We sought insights from Senior SEO Managers and CEOs, asking them to reflect on the major changes over the past decade. From understanding keyword density to replacing old keyword density metrics with TF-IDF, explore five expert perspectives on the transformation of keyword importance in SEO content writing.
From Keyword Density to Context Understanding
Ten years ago, I would say there was a much heavier focus on really having the keyword usage and density down to a science, as that’s what historically worked, and you almost needed to write for search engines a lot more.
I would say now, with Google getting smarter with things like BERT and RankBrain, it’s become a lot better at understanding what your content is about, and there’s less spoon-feeding, per se.
There’s a heavier focus now on entities rather than keywords, though entities can be keywords at times. Personally, I still optimize around a keyword or topic for each page, but don’t stress if I have the target keyword in the content a certain number of times.
Peter Rota, Senior Technical SEO Manager, Peter Rota SEO
Quality Content Over Keyword Stuffing
In the last decade, the importance of keyword density in SEO writing has changed a lot. One big change is that we now focus on content quality and user experience, a shift away from keyword density.
Ten years ago, SEO strategies focused on keyword density, which meant how often a keyword appeared in an article or blog post. Writers used to stuff their articles with keywords to rank higher in search engines. This usually led to poorly written content that was boring and not valuable for users.
Nowadays, however, search engines like Google have changed. They use advanced algorithms that understand context and semantics. They can thus judge a page’s worth without merely counting keywords. Hence, content today must be well-written, informative, and engaging to rank highly.
Search engines no longer look for exact matches. Instead, they understand related terms and ideas. So, you can use natural language and synonyms and don’t need to repeat certain keywords anymore.
Fahad Khan, Digital Marketing Manager, Ubuy Nigeria
Natural Language and Context Gain Importance
The importance of keyword density has decreased significantly over the past 10 years.
One notable change is the shift toward natural language and context. Search engines now prioritize content that reads naturally and provides value to users, rather than simply counting keyword occurrences.
This change encourages writers to focus on quality and relevance, making content more engaging and informative.
Chad DeBolt, Founder, Surchability
Semantic Search Transforms Keyword Strategy
I think keyword density has seen quite the transformation over the last decade. Back in the day, it was all about stuffing as many keywords as possible into your content, hoping to trick search engines into ranking you higher. Now, I believe the focus has shifted towards quality and relevance. One significant change is Google’s shift to semantic search.
Semantic search is about understanding the meaning behind the words, not just the words themselves. This means search engines now look at the context and overall topic rather than just counting keyword repetitions. So, cramming keywords into your content isn’t just ineffective—it’s likely to get you penalized. Instead, writing naturally and providing value has become a vital part of any good strategy.
Andrew Lee Jenkins, Owner, Catalyst RVA Marketing Agency
TF-IDF Replaces Old Keyword Density Metrics
Previously, keyword density in SEO was all about repeating specific words in the text. Over the past decade, this has changed significantly. Google has moved from simply considering synonyms to understanding related text and context. The closest thing to the old “keyword density” is the TF-IDF (Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency) approach, which assesses the importance of words within a document relative to a set of documents.
In my experience at ZenMaid, this shift means we focus on creating content that’s rich in context rather than just keyword-stuffed. This not only improves our search rankings but also provides real value to our audience. Some free online tools can assist with TF-IDF analysis, making it easier to optimize content effectively.
Amar Ghose, CEO, ZenMaid
