Know-How Exchange : SEO/SEM

Wow. No to both.

For total number of keywords, you don't want to have a very long page, but not a very short one either, if you can avoid it. Really what's important here is that your keyword appear in the text of the page. That's more important than the total number of words on the page.

As for total number of bolded words -- who gave you that number? Again, no set optimal amount here -- but you want to have your keyword on the page bolded as often as you can without sacraficing readability. It's the number of times the keyword is bolded that counts -- not the exact number of bolded words, regardless of WHAT the words are.

Good luck.

No and no.

A simple test is to perform an exact string query on Google placing the keyword phrase within quotation marks (eg "keyword phrase").

Then do a word count on the pages in the first three pages in the Search Engine Results Page (SERP). This will answer your question. We have a client that is #1 out of 340,000,000 (~29,000,000 in quotes) on a term where that page's word count is only 134. You can also run this test without the quotes.

A while back I searched the highly competitive term "T Shirts" and at that time the first three results had zero content (Flash).

I cringe when I hear these exact formulas (eg 750 words) because there are no exact formulas in SEO. There are anomalies but for the most part everything is fluid and more often than not the opposite can also be proven- though admittedly on a much more limited basis.

Bolding is such an insignificant factor in search rankings this isn't much of a consideration. Bolding a word here or there is fine. However, when you start over-optimizing a page you could trip quality filters and end up harming the page's rankings.

Is this advice coming from an inexperienced SEO?

Balancing brand integrity and user experience with SEO is a necessity. Without SEO your visitors won't find your content and on the hand, who wants to read SEO gibberish?

Words per page:
Google in particular works in verticals. If top rankings for your industry-specific terms are accomplished with X number of words it might be worthwhile looking at that. As for 750 words I'd ask why they made that recommendation. Off-page factors will carry more weight than words per page.

Keyword density:
Not a useful metric for determining the search quality of a page. We're observing very low KW densities. Merely mentioning the phrase a few times on a page is all that is typically required. If the density is too high this can hurt you. The title tag deserves the most effort.

Link-Words ratio:
Are you referring to anchor text or to the number of links per page or to "Code to Text" ratio?

They are not critical. But two other rules are.

RULE NUMBER ONE: COMMUNICATE EFFECTIVELY.
It doesn’t do you any good to have a good SEO ranking if you can't communicate your message in a manner that resonates with your buyers. You need to form a relationship with those who visit your site and get them to move through it and convert. Too many companies get excited about moving up from the 358th to the 247th position while sacrificing their message in the process.

RULE NUMBER TWO: KNOW YOUR BUYER
You should create personas for each segment of your target audience and move them through different paths on your website. Determine if they like short bursts or novel-length amounts of copy, lots of bullets or flowing prose, emotional connections or hard technical facts.

The simple truth is that there is no single magic number for word count. Ideal ranges will vary depending on your audience. Good luck.

Man, you've got the bug. ;-) Be careful though because you may be overthinking this and could get yourself in trouble by focusing on the wrong areas.

If it seems awkward to bury the value of your content by plastering the page with links then what will be the perception of your visitors about the site and the page? The search engines are working towards evaluating page quality in the same manner as users. Keep that in mind when you're thinking of new methods of optimizing your pages.

To explicitly answer your question the answer is no. The historical answer was to keep the quantity of links per page to <100. However, I've seen pages with multiples of that number succeed. The question is, do the links provide value to the visitor and are they expected or appreciated? If so, then the count could be higher.

"How do you recommend I proceed with creating a new webpage (with a new keyword)?"

Careers are based on this question. The abridged version:

1. Undertake keyword research to determine the keyword phrases that your visitors actually use (versus those terms that you "feel" are correct).
2. Understand your buyers. This is where buyer personas are helfpul.
4. Create a content strategy.
5. Generate content that aligns with the interests (thoroughly researched keyword phrases) of those personas.
4. Then optimize the page.

Don't get too wrapped up in the small details unless you are skilled.

Phew, time to get back to client work...

Are you referring to search engines? If so, we answered that question earlier with the test.

If you are referring to your visitors you will need to do some testing to determine which approach works best with your visitors. One test would be long vs short copy.