Keywords are vital to your site’s SEO. Keywords are the cornerstone of your entire SEO campaign. Without the right keywords, your SEO structure has no foundation and will get you nowhere. Understanding keyword density is one step to leveraging your website’s on-site optimization. This is a Tutorial to Keyword Density.
Keyword density deals with the ratio of your keywords in light of the total number of indexable words placed in your webpage. For example, you have 100 words article, then having a 1% keyword ratio means that you should have the presence of your keyword one time within that 100 word text.
Why does keyword density have to do with SEO?
Being mindful of your keyword density can give a signal to the search engines that your article is all about a certain specific topic – which is the keyword you are targeting. Having this signal gives your webpage relevance and good keyword presence.
Don’t mistake this with keyword stuffing. Keyword stuffing is squeezing in as much of your desired keyword as you can inside your article without much/any regard to your readers. Keyword stuffing is plain wrong and is a spammy method that won’t get you up in the ranks anyway.
The recommended keyword density is not the same for all search engines. For example, Google’s recommended keyword density ranges from 1-2%(pictures taken from gorank.com)
Click on the Picture to Enlarge
While Yahoo’s recommended keyword density is at 3%. In general, I would recommend that you stick to 2%.
Click on the Picture to Enlarge
Is keyword density still used in SEO today? Yes I’m sure it is. It still has an effect to the search engines to some extent. But if you ask me if people still count their keyword density, I would say no. Why? Because people don’t usually write for search engines – unless he/she is a black hatter or a spammer trying to get up the ranks quick.
Tips for Keeps: You don’t need to really count if you have a 2% ratio in order to rank well. Just try to be mindful to insert your keywords when necessary. Don’t overdo it. Write for people because in the end, it’s people who will be reading what you have to say.
This entry is part of the SEO Hacker School series: Complete On Site Optimization Tutorial
About Sean
Hi, Sean –
Another great post from you! I’m about to start using a wordpress plugin to help in checking keyword density, since I tend to focus so much on content that I forget about seo. :(
Anyway, just one thought for you: When I added Feedburner to my site, I had it open in a new tab so that I wouldn’t pull traffic away from my site.
Thanks again for sharing!
Jessica
Hey Jessica!
Thank you for your kind words and advice – I will take action on it soonest.
Thanks for sharing! Key word density always confused me, and results can be bad. Thanks to your post, it proofs the information I had before.
Hi Sean
Thanks for this article.In seo circles I’ve heard many times that keyword density should be around 3-6 % and on the other hand some people say that it must be around 1-2 % can you please guide me to official guidelines from search engines about it.
Hamza recently posted..What is Guerrilla Marketing
Hi Hamza,
Unfortunately, there is no official guide from search engines because each existing search engine is unique to itself. The algorithm behind each one is different from the other. For me, just write out great, quality information – don’t worry about keyword density that much. Just remember to put in your keywords once in a while when easy and necessary.
Hi sean,
Thanks for advice
how much time it takes to get good ranking in google search engine ?
Hi Amit,
It really depends. Some sites take 6 months to a year. Some sites only takes 3 hours. It would depend on your site’s SEO and human friendliness – how authoritative it is in both the search engines and with people.
the other big factor here is the level of competition online for the keywords you are targeting. If you want to rank for “yellow size ten slippers with 3 dots” you are going to have a rather simple time of getting your site ranked first for that keyword.
However, if you want to rank for “online dating” or any of the other highly competitive terms, you need to expect to put in a lot of work to get you there…
Well said Sean, You gave me a lot of help, actually i was making my focus on keywords while writing content .
Any how i put the keywords in the content, now i got very well.thank you so much.
I just searching for online marketing tips and I found your site. I think you put some unique content to your site. It is very helpful for those guy who working in SEO field (like me). I am looking forward to get more tips from you. Good luck and have a great day
Kajal
Brief, and helpful thank you so much :)
Hi Sean, i am regularly following your tweet and just looking for this kind of things. So that it can make our work much more easier.
Hey Sean,
Wow, after reading this post, I think I pretty much know why I don’t rank too well in Google. My keyword density is like 5% lol. It’s going a while to fix that :-/
Thanks for the info.
Chad
Wow that’s a lot of fixin’ you have to do. Do it quick. You’ve probably already been hit by penguin.
Thank you Sean,
Now, I have some question, how Google could recognizing some keyword in blog that use for real user/reader and just not for search engine ?