Seo Run

Keyword density, What is it and why bother?

In writing your articles, in your content you will use keywords related to the topic of your site, many times.

Many people get preoccupied with the keywords they want to target for SEO and want to make sure the copy contains those words in order to rank. Some people suggest using keywords in the most natural way, so that the text is readable, comprehensive and consistent for visitors.

The number of times you use your targeted keywords, in relation to the total number of words in your article is called in SEO keyword density. The keyword density is usually shown as a percentage, indicating the number of times that the keyword or phrase is repeated, in comparison to the total number of words. This can also be expressed as a ratio.

Keyword density as a parameter was first introduced in the early 1990s when, at the time, keyword density was one of the major and in some cases, the only factor contributing to the way search engines ranked their results.

Currently keyword density is still of great value to search engine optimisation, but is no longer the only factor in increasing ranking. Other important factors include: good site structure; uniqueness; high-quality regular content updates; and strong, numerous and consistent back links.

The Ideal Keyword Density

Keyword density is a tricky thing as there is no absolute figure for choosing the right keyword density, and what is an acceptable percentage of keywords for one topic, may not be the same in another topic. Some people suggest using a guide of about 5% to 9 % and then adjust accordingly.

Using targeted keywords too many times within your content will make it difficult to read and from a search engine's point of view, it also looks like you are artificially ‘stuffing’ your keywords. ‘Stuffing’ means you are trying too hard to rank for that word. 

If you are trying hard to get your keywords in place in the content, you will get the opposite result of what you wanted to achieve. Although keyword stuffing may produce high rankings for a brief time on highly unique content, it is likely to produce negative effects, and is not a recommended strategy to follow for search engine optimisation.

What seems to be clear is that the number of times you use your keywords in your text, must be related to the length of your article. As there is no ideal keyword density because it depends on what the competition are doing, the recommendation is to go and look at your article after you finish writing it. If it looks like you have written your keywords too many times, try to change a number of them by using a synonym. That will give you a chance to rank for those words as well