Q and A: How many times can I repeat a keyword before being penalized?

Dear Kalena...

How many times are you allowed to repeat a keyword within the H1, H2, H3... tags before you are penalized for it?

Emily

Kalena's Answer:

Dear Emily

Ah, this old chestnut. Pardon me for saying so, but you're logic is back-to-front. You are making the classic webmaster mistake of trying to engineer your site with search engines in mind. I know I sound like a broken record, but you should ALWAYS design for your audience first and foremost. Search engines, schmearch engines.

As for your Heading tags, there's no harm in using keywords within them, but create the headings so they make the most sense for your site visitors. Headings are ideal for breaking up the text on a page and making it easier to read. But they've got to be comfortable to read too. If you add too much keyword repetition, it will look and read very poorly. As for the keyword penalty threshold, search engines don't publish precise details of their filters but it's a no-brainer that keyword repetition will be picked up, as will excessive heading tags. Personally, I would stick with a single keyword instance per heading and no more than 2 or 3 heading tags per page.

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