I have heard quite a few people ask about keyword density. It spurs from either not exactly understanding the term or how they can apply the concept to their site. However, what does that mean for you and what you want to write about?
According to Wikipedia:
Keyword density is the percentage of times a keyword or phrase appears on a web page compared to the total number of words on the page.
When you write an article, you have a topic. Usually that is what your keywords pertain to, but some people write articles and put a relevant keyword. For example, if I was writing about designing a site and decided instead of using web design as a keyword and linking it to another site, I want to do that to web hosting. I could and that would be a keyword.
It does not have to do with tagging your posts. Tagging is something like categories, they are both used for organizing your site – categories for general topics, and tagging is more specific topics.
For anyone who has professionally written for article companies that focus on keyword density, a lot of them ask that a keyword not be used more than 1.6%, but at the least .6%. This could mean you could use that keyword any where from 1 to 5 times depending on how short or long your article is. After that, search engines like Google may believe you are trying to keyword stuff your article which is a big frown face no-no.
The beauty of language is that there are many words that are similar and you can avoid keyword over usage by consulting a Thesaurus.
If you are concerning about keyword density, you can use the keyword density analyzer, which is free for anyone to try out.
If you are using WordPress, you might want to try out Keyword Statistics.
What other tools might make monitoring your sites keyword density more convenient?
I Like the sound of the wordpress plugin, I usually check my keyword density with either online sites or I use the SEOQuake plugin for Chrome which is very useful for a batch of other factors to do with other rankings as well.
Right off to check out this WordPress plugin you mentioned 😉
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I tend to refrain for installing extra plugins, but for some… I just mentioned it. Most of the time I really do not have to check because I have professionally written articles so many times it becomes a habit to key SEO in mind, but also write naturally. Of course, sometimes when I am lazy, I just disregard… but oddly enough my use is not too shabby then…lol 🙂
If you check it out… maybe you might like to try a guest post at WPAddict.net… I like to have WordPress plugin reviews there when I can.
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Hey Niles,
We've met at Bloggerluv. One funny thing I've noticed is that I often get guest blog posts that do better for search traffic on my blog than the ones I write myself. I suspect its because some of the guest bloggers are more SEO savvy and optimize the articles for keyword density. It's something that I should pay more attention to.
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Sometimes it might be that they have been written well by SEO savvy people. Others may have been lucky to cover something your readers desperately wanted to know about. Even I cannot cover all the topics… I already write like a machine…rofl
I like to use the SEO Wordtracker Blogger plugin for Firefox. It works with any blogging platform where you write your posts in your browser. Does an awesome job of helping you find and use keywords and keyword phrases in your articles.
Very useful and completely free. Also works with the Flock browser. Can be downloaded here:
http://labs.wordtracker.com/seo-blogger
Like my site, I try to not browse with a lot of plugins. I only use 3 in Firefox. I just slimmed out my IE. None on Opera or Safari. I figure the online tool is nice to have as a bookmark. However, that is a good tool as I have heard others mention using it.
Mostly blog owners ask to mention 10 of their given keywords, not knowing that this might be a reason of their site to be banned by google.. this post is a great help… must read!
The preferred keyword density ratio varies from search engine to search engine. May people recommend using a keyword density ratio in the range of 2-8%. Keyword Density Analyzer tools renders great help.
I am glad that you were able to actually quote a proper percentage. I have found that many gurus say a much higher percentage is OK and I have always disagreed. I like your numbers — below 1.6 % is probably ideal.
I have always been interested in getting more search traffic and SEO. keywords are a very important part of SEO so we should choose them carefully. too much keyword density could ruin ourc hances to get good ranks. Thank you for telling us about the keyword density and Seo.
Nice post Nile.
As long as you write for human consumption first, your potential
keyword density violation issues, should probably be kept to a minimum.
But as you pointed out, you want to be sure that you don’t get overboard with their
use.
The proper keyword density is a lot easier when you write artificially. Thanks for
sharing Niles.