Linda Jenkinson Web Content Design

Keyword density is always a hot topic and to quench the webmaster’s thirst for keyword density knowledge, a lot of other webmasters have developed keyword density tools. In fact, a search for “keyword density tool” brings up nearly a million results in Google. Even the top SEO programs, such as IBP and Web CEO have keyword density tools. This article helps quench that thirst for knowledge and shows you how to optimize a page without using keyword density tools.

Calculating Keyword Density

Just about every keyword density tool calculates keyword density differently than the next. Some keyword density tools count stop words, such as ‘the,’ ‘an,’ and ‘it’ in calculating keyword density; some tools do not. Some keyword density tools calculate single keywords and some calculate keyword phrases that contain up to four words.

Depending on which keyword density tool you use, how it calculates the density, and which “expert” you believe, optimal keyword density can be calculated from anywhere between 1% and 9% of your content word count. The problem with on-page optimization based on percentages is that if you optimize at 3%, your competition may go for 4% and so on up the ladder.

Here’s an example:

Suppose you write 500 words on hidignablios (that’s just a word I made up – could you tell? ) How many times do you suppose you would need to repeat it to rank well for the word hidignablios in the SERPs? My guess is that once would be enough.

However, more often, targeted keywords are common words that may have many different meanings. For instance, the word ‘toast’ can mean ‘make a toast’, ‘toast bread’, or “You’re toast!” So to be sure that your content ends up on the right SERPs, you’ll need to optimize your page using keyword phrases.

The mistake many webmasters and keyword density tools make with keyword phrases is that you needn’t keep words in keyword phrases adjacent to each other. The sentence “White bread makes good toast” will fair just as well in search engine results as the phrase “white toast”. Creative use of keyword phrases makes your content both more informative and a more enjoyable read for your visitors.

Keyword Placement

Keyword placement is far more important than keyword density. Heavily weighted content areas include your title element, headings (h1 – h3 are best), contextual links, bolded or emphasized text, possibly alt text and possibly title attributes – probably in that order. These are the same things that draw your visitor’s focus to your content so make sure they are visitor friendly as well.

Write your content for your visitors. They are the final judge of how well you describe your topic. Optimize your pages for what you believe your targeted visitors will put into a search query. If your page is visitor friendly, it should prove to be search engine friendly as well.

The way to write keyword rich web content is just to write content that covers your topic and then reread it to find the spots where you could better describe your content with the addition of a keyword or two. For instance, get rid of as many of the pronouns as you can and use your keyword phrases instead. That is the true measure of good keyword density.