Keyword Specificity - How Important is it these days?

Hello everyone, I wonder if you guys could provide me with your thoughts on this ...

Keyword optimisation tools like RankMath and Yoast are very specific about your using the EXACT keyword you are targeting with no modifiers. EG if your keyword is "dozen roses", and you have something like "dozen premium roses" in the content, the tools won't assess that as being an instance of your keyword.

But whenever I'm searching google these days, it always impresses upon me that Google is actually pretty good at matching search terms to instances where there is a modifier included, or where two parts of a longer tail search are present in the on-site content in proximity to one another, even if you don't have the EXACT keyword present in the content.

So my question really is - how important is it to be using the EXACT keyword you are targeting, or where Google advises us to just write content naturally with the user experience in mind, is it better to focus on using the keyword in normal semantic context - ie using modifiers or having the parts of longer tail keywords in proximity to each rather than in exact match, given that enables you to write much more natural content rather than just robot-repeating the same keyword so many times per hundred words the way these optimisation tools demand?

I'd appreciate everyone's thoughts.

 

I am trying to come back after a very long time so don't take my answer as authority.

But what has changed over the years is SE becoming more intelligent and their prime goal is to provide the help results to give answer to the search.

So exact keyword usage must not be artificially inflated.

 

Using keywords is definitely necessary, but it should not be too intrusive. So that it doesn't look like spam.

 

Treat Google like your audience and it will definitely reward you.

 

It is important to use your target keywords in your content, but it is also important to use them in a natural and semantic way. The goal of keyword optimization is to help search engines understand the topic and context of your content, and to match it with relevant search queries.
It's true that Google has become more sophisticated in understanding the intent behind search queries and matching them with relevant content, even when the exact keywords are not used. Google's algorithm uses a variety of factors, such as synonyms, latent semantic indexing (LSI) keywords, and the context of the content, to understand the topic and intent of the page.

When it comes to keyword optimization, it's best to focus on writing high-quality, informative, and engaging content that provides value to your audience. Use your target keywords in the title, meta description, and throughout the content.Use modifiers and long-tail keywords in a natural way, and make sure they are used in proximity to one another.

 

As google's algorithm is changing, it's becoming smarter day by day to optimize things in a better way. Now google is focusing on the content and the intent, if your content is really helpful for the audience, nothing else will matter more. But again, it's better to place the keywords in such a way that