As an effective article service I get a great many different requests from online entrepreneurs for search engine optimized articles, optimized content and successful press releases. But what strikes me most of all is the proportion of people who still demand on keyword stuffing. Writing an effective article for submission to an article directory is one thing - but hurling every possible variation of your keyword into every sentence is entirely another.

Whether those online entrepreneurs just have their own preconceptions, or have employed less savoury article writing services previously I don't know. But I simply don't compose articles for websites knowing quite clearly the harm that they could cause if not produced the right way.

It's true that there once was a time when stuffing your web pages full of keywords was effective. In fact, simply including as many permutations of related keywords and phrases as possible into the keywords meta tag was just about sufficient to get you to the top of the search results pages. But this was a brief period thank goodness, and the search engines picked up on it very quickly. Google immediately abandoned the keywords meta tag and has never given it any attention since.

But even more than this, today search engines frown upon sites who overuse keywords, and creating what you think is an optimized article, but which is actually little more than a thesaurus entry, will be likely to cause great harm to your site. Demotion is the very least that you can expect, but you also run the risk of being blacklisted if you take it too far.

But how do you know how many keywords to include? There are theories that 5% is about right, but this is ludicrously dangerous. In a 500 word article, a keyphrase such as 'article writing service' would need to appear 25 times. If each sentence was about 20 words long, that would mean that every single sentence would have to include the phrase 'article writing service'. Quite apart from what the search engines would make of your writing, imagine how ludicrous it would seem to a human!

Even 2% density is taking a risk, since you'd still be talking about including your phrase in every third sentence or so, and the search engines will still detect this quite easily. It seems, therefore, quite difficult to know what sort of density to aim for. This is essentially the problem. Any article service that is still droning on about ideal keyword densities is stuck in the past. Today we are fortunate that such warped ways of writing are over, or at least being actively discouraged by the search engines.

So if it isn't keyword density anymore, what is it? There are two easy answers - quality and semantic language. The first of these is relatively easy to understand. Writing well, using good quality English, having something to say and saying it well will make sure that your work is seen, read and promoted.

Ultimately it is not only the search engines you should be aiming to please. If real people see your articles, and find them useful, then you are more likely to find your articles syndicated, published elsewhere and linked to from more websites. The rules of most article directories are clear - syndication and reproduction is fine, as long as the author's resource box or links are kept intact. This allows people to use your article within their own websites, but as they must credit you, links to your web pages will also be included - generating more backlinks, more votes for your site and helping it rise up through the search results lists.

With regard to the second answer - semantic language, this is more misunderstood than keyword density, and will demand a subsequent article at least to discuss and explain. But in brief, any article service that tells you that keyword density is necessary is stuck in the early part of this decade, and any article writing service that recommends writing semantically should also be avoided - since this is no more than keyword density by a different name.