People involved with SEO always end up debating keyword density. People have some strong opinions about this and its involvement with your rankings in the search engines. However, some serious questions need to be answered. Does it really exist? Does keyword density improve your rankings and if so, what’s the proper density that you should be going after?
Keyword density is of course the percentage that a keyword or key phrase shows up in the content of your website. If the word “cars” shows up 10 times in a 200 word article, then the density for that word is 5%. Additionally, if the words “red cars” show up 5 times, you still have a 5% density because the phrase still takes up 10 words out of 200 words.
Many people have the belief that a specific keyword density is the solution to success with SEO. However, there is no consistency in what people believe. Some people seem to think that extremely high keyword usage, up to 10% is acceptable and effective. Other people feel that smaller 4% or 5% keyword density is the ideal figure. So what is it really, and how can your website use keyword density to improve on its success?
In reality, there is no specific keyword density that is a magical solution for your SEO. If you hit a 2% density, there is no green light that turns on in the search engines that says “page 1 ranking”, and the same holds true for any other density. Therefore, a smarter strategy than worrying about keyword density is just worrying about including the keywords to some extent, and in a natural way.
This means that as you prepare your content you should keep a focus on including your keyword phrases wherever they make sense to be used. You might have a general guideline for yourself, such as trying to include the phrase every 100 words, or once per paragraph or so, but you should not worry about hitting a targeted percentage.
This doesn’t mean that you can’t set a few rules or guidelines for yourself. For example, many people practicing SEO try to use their keywords once every 100 words or so. Other people might try to use a keyword once every paragraph. Regardless of your strategy, just remember to take it easy and don’t jam the keywords into every nook and cranny of your content. While no keyword density guarantees success, too many keywords on a website is a surefire signal of spam, and an easy way to ruin your rankings.
Another important thing that you’ll want to remember is that besides your content, other areas of your website can be affecting the level of keyword density that you have. For example, the terms used in the links within your menus show up in the search engines, as does the description you enter in your META tags and the title you have at the top of the browser.
By now, the SEO debate for keyword density has been solved. The answer is to stop trying to pursue exact percentages. Instead, focus on natural inclusion and avoiding excessive usage of your keywords. In this way you’ll please both your visitors and the search engines and your rankings will improve.
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