by James Kimmons

Created on: February 05, 2008

Keyword density is a term that any web content writer needs to understand. However, it isn't like a trip to Wendy's, where super sizing is a better value. Keyword density is just one facet of a well designed website or blogging strategy. More isn't better in most cases.

When the content for a web page is written, generally we are trying to concentrate the content of that page on one topic, and one or more keywords or phrases. This allows the search engine spiders to more easily determine the subject matter of the page in relation to keywords searchers might use to locate it.

Using the example "red gadgets" as the key phrase we're optimizing for, we would be writing our page content to discuss red gadgets. It could be how they are made, how much they cost, where to get them, etc. If you take the number of times the phrase "red gadgets" is used on the page, and divide it by the total number of words, you get the keyword density.

In other words, if "red gadgets" is used 8 times on a page with 600 words, we divide 8/600 to get 1.33 for our keyword density. What's the right number. Well, it's a moving target, and there really isn't a definitive answer. Each search engine has their own secret recipe, and they change them at times. However, many SEO (Search Engine Optimization) gurus seem to think that the big boy on the block, Google, likes around 2.5 to 5 for keyword density.

That said, web pages with far lower, and somewhat higher, densities do quite well. The best approach is to first write for your site visitor, and what you believe they will want when they arrive at that page using the keywords or phrases you are targeting. Spiders can't read, so why do so many people write for them first and their site visitors second? It does you no good to get a visitor to the site with the right key phrase, only to have them "bounce" off the page in a few seconds.

The key is in the planning. What will the page be about? If it's about selling "red gadgets", then you'll probably be covering product description, features, benefits, pricing, and how to order. Sprinkle the red gadgets phrase throughout the text, but only where it flows for easy reading by your valuable visitor.

When you're happy with your text, and when it accomplishes the mission of describing and selling the "red gadgets", then you can look at your keyword density. If it is sitting under 2, and only if you can keep your text effective and improve it, then go over the content to see where you can add in the phrase.

Once you have a density anywhere over 2.5, you're probably OK, and more work on this isn't justified. Follow your website statistics, particularly your visits to the page and the "bounce rate." If you're getting the people there from searches on your "red gadgets" phrase, that's great. If they're bouncing back off, then look at what you're doing with the content that isn't grabbing them and getting the action you desire.

By the way, the online keyword density tool I use is here: http://live-keyword-analysis.com/. It took a while to find a good one that you could paste text into, rather than give it a web page to analyze. I want to check what I've written long before it's live on the web. Using that tool, I pasted in all of this text before this paragraph to get the density of this article for "red gadgets." It came up with 1.9%.

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