Most probably, you already know the purpose of bold words and italics not only in web content writing, but in writing in general. And that is to put emphasis in certain words.

Bold And Italics As Scan-Stoppers

More than the visual appeal that this can add to your article, using bold and italics can easily increase the chances of your webpage visitor to have a quick idea of what the content of your article is by simply scanning the bold and italicized words.

They are natural scan-stoppers.

And you can take advantage of this by using your keywords and other related keywords in these bold and italicized content.

But do not overdo it. Or else, it would lose its effectiveness.

Generally, bold words are used to emphasize the key ideas presented in the article. And italics are often used, or should I say traditionally used, when stating proper titles of things like books and movies. Although in today’s modern usage, the two are often used interchangeably.

In SEO, it is commonly accepted that the use of bold and italics also help in putting emphasis on certain keywords. Why else would a writer bolden or italicize certain words if they are not especially important in conveying their idea. Therefore, it is commonly thought that search engine give these emphasized words some weight in evaluating the content of the entire webpage.

Emphasizing Keywords For SEO

So, if you want to optimize your webpage for certain keywords, be sure to include at least one instance of the keyword in the article in bold or italics. But be sure that you choose the proper placement of that bold or italicized keyword in the document. Usually, if the purpose is for emphasis, writers generally bold or italicize the first mention of the keyword in the article.

But as I said, it is up to your discretion and creativity. And again, just do not overdo it. Not only will it lose its effectiveness in bringing focus on certain ideas. It might also lead the search engines to evaluate such things as keyword stuffing and penalize your site.

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