by Author Name Withheld 143

Created on: July 02, 2007

It is important that you understand keyword density if you write for the web and write SEO articles. keyword density basically indicates the amount of times that a selected keyword or keyword phrase appears on a web page or in an article on said page.

Keywords should be used throughout the article but you do not want to over use them. If you repeat them too often, your article or web site could be misconstrued as attempting to spam search engines or artificially boost your search engine rankings. Rather than help your site, it will hurt it. Be careful not to overuse those words!

What is keyword density and how can you determine what it is for your article or web page? Simply put, keyword density is defined as a percentage of the total word count on a web page, or how many times certain words appear within the total body of the article (web page).

For example, imagine that you have 100 words on your web page. Do not include the HMTL code used for writing the web page. Imagine that you use a certain keyword five times on the page or in that article. The keyword density on that page is figured by simply dividing the total number of keywords, by the total number of words that appear on your web page. So five divided by 100 = .05. Because keyword density is defined as the percentage of the total word count on the page, multiply the above by 100, that is 0.05 x 100 = 5%.

The accepted standard for keyword density is between 3% and 5%, so to get recognized by the search engines and you should never exceed it and you would want to have a 3% density at the minimum.

Remember that this rule applies to every page on your site and to every article that you write for the web or your own web site. It also applies to not just to one keyword but also a set of keywords that relates to a different product or service.

Easy steps to check the density:

1. Copy and paste the content from the web page or article that you wish to check into a word processor program such as Microsoft Word or Open Office.

2. On the tool bar, select Edit from the menu and click Select All. Next, go to the Tools menu and select Word Count. Jot down the total word count.

3. Now select the Find or Find and Replace function from in the Edit menu. Go to the Replace tab and fill in the keyword you wish to locate. Replace that word with the same word, so that you are not changing the text.

4. After you have completed the Replace function, the system will provide a count of the words that you have replaced. This gives you the number of times you have used the keyword on that page or in said article.

5. Using this method and the examples shown above, you can now calculate the keyword density.

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