Singular and Plural Noun Keywords

[u_rauf92]

Hi everyone

Extremely love this community, learning a lot day by day!

I am currently in the process of writing a blog post and say for example I am targetting the keyword 'apple' and 'apples'.

My current word count of the article is 850 words and I have used 'Apple' 15 times and 'Apples' 26 times.

1 .Is my Keyword density too high and will Google look at this as keyword stuffing?

2. Do I have to target each Singular and Plural keyword individually? Or will targetting 'Apple' will also automatically target 'Apples' for me and vice versa?

Thanks in advance!

[ofw12387]

For sure is to high.. don´t worry to much about keyword density! Most important is that your visitors find what they are looking for in your post.

I´m working in a niche and some of my articles are ranked in 1st position just containing the kw in the url/title/h1.

The keyword stuffing era is over, so be careful with Panda

[DonnaDuncan]

Hi Uzair,

1. Is my Keyword density too high and will Google look at this as keyword stuffing?

There is no magic number when it comes to keyword density. Rule of thumb is somewhere in the neighborhood of 2-6 times per post depending on it's length. Although 41 certainly sounds like a lot,the better question is "does it sound forced or stuffed"? I suggest you ask for a fresh, unbiased opinion. If feedback says it does, the quality of your post will suffer and readers will exit the page more frequently. Lessen the use of those terms if it does sound forced or unnatural. Try using a similar or related term like "fruit" from time-to-time instead.

2. Do I have to target each Singular and Plural keyword individually? Or will targeting 'Apple' will also automatically target 'Apples' for me and vice versa?

You should try to use each term at least once. Google will consider "apple" and "apples" close variations of one another, meaning it will consider them one in the same. A close variation includes misspellings, singular and plural forms, acronyms, stemmings (such as post and posting), abbreviations, and accents. You might gain a slight advantage by using one versus the other so I'd use your primary keyword phrase (containing apple or apples) in the title tag, meta description and headings.