I have often been asked for the incorporation of key words and phrases into articles for my customer.

These requests are invariably described as being ‘natural’.

 In these instances, the customer requires the keywords to fit into the general flow of the article and to make sense.

This is as opposed to being obviously stuck in as a keyword, which detracts from the quality of the article and which can border on being offensive to the readers intelligence.

Of course, it can be difficult to achieve these natural sounding keywords when the keyword phrases are ones that are not naturally found in everyday sentences!

It depends on the customers personal needs, but I generally err on the side of quality and use the ‘less is more’ policy when I encounter such situations.  

If an article is purely for search engine optimization, then key word frequency is obviously going to be a priority, but it can be a challenge to get a balance!

The best way around it is to work closely with your client, until you have a clear idea of the customer’s personal needs.