You probably already know how important it is to use keywords and long-tail phrases to improve your search engine rankings, but how many times do you need to use them and does the number of times really matter? Who knows??
The short and clear answer is: It is very important!! Because in the world of SEO, there is something called “keyword density”. And to help you fully understand the process, in this article, we will compile some quick tips to explain what “keyword density” means and its importance.
We will also talk about why some methods should be avoided, such as keyword stuffing and how they destroy rankings in Google. Asia Search has compiled all the knowledge for everyone to learn together with the experience of running a Digital Marketing Agency and highly specialized SEO services. Businesses that want to do SEO can consult with us here.
If everyone is ready, let's go!
Table of Contents
What is Keyword Density?
What is Keyword Stuffing?
How important is Keyword Density to SEO strategy?
How is Keyword Density calculated?
Where to put keywords for effective results
Why write content with Keyword Variants and Keyword Clustering?
Avoid keyword stuffing
Summary of Using Keyword Density in SEO Strategy
What is Keyword Density?
Keyword density is the number of times a keyword is used in the content of a page. It is usually expressed as a percentage. The advantage of this is that it helps search engines and visitors understand what the page is about.
Now, if you want to rank your page for a particular keyword, you will write your content with this principle in mind.
The main rule to know is that a page should only contain one ranking keyword. Other words act as related keywords, which is equally important because it helps readers and search engines better understand the overall topic on the page.
One thing to remember is not to use keywords alone, because it will reduce the number of words on the entire page, making it a thin content page. Let me tell you, SERPs will not like it.
What is Keyword Stuffing?
In the early days of SEO , using a single keyword multiple times in your content can help you rank better. The more, the better.
Sounds good, right? But in reality, it’s so easy that shareholder database webmasters are starting to use this tactic to boost their website’s SERP rankings. It takes almost no effort at all, just a matter of putting in the keywords you want to rank for, and no fancy or readable content.
But recently, this tactic has been called “Keyword Stuffing”. Simply put, it means using too many keywords that visitors cannot read.
And if users can't read it, neither can Google. They'll likely judge websites that are stuffing keywords as dysfunctional and start to drop their rankings in the SERPs. Instead, you'll likely be better off focusing on creating content that's informative, easy to read, and has a good amount of keywords involved.
How important is Keyword Density to SEO strategy?
Ranking and Keyword Density processes are no longer the same. After Google caught on to keyword stuffing tactics, they changed their algorithms to be smarter. Effective SEO may now require creating quality, informative and engaging content, rather than focusing on putting as many keywords as possible in an article or blog post as in the past.
But that doesn't mean that Keyword Density isn't important. It's still important and definitely can't be overlooked!!
Whenever Google or any other search engine looks at the content on a website, it doesn’t just skim through the words on the page and that’s it. It also scans the text for the most prominent words on the page. Smaller, more common words are overlooked.
If you do keyword research and write content around those keywords, you should have keywords that act as the top keywords in your content. This is called “keyword density.”
The more a keyword is used, the more likely it is that the entire page will be relevant to that topic.
Therefore, focusing on keyword density is still something that should not be overlooked if you want to succeed in SEO. However, you must know that nowadays it is not like before because there is context involved. There must be a balance, not just stuffing in as many keywords as possible.
Are you only ranking for the keywords you want?
Another thing to keep in mind is to pay attention to the keywords you want to rank for and the related keywords. Always be aware that you will rank your page with these words.
But there’s no guarantee that it will work, as sometimes a page will rank for a keyword you didn’t intend to rank for in the SERPs, or even rank for a related keyword instead.
As mentioned earlier, Google looks at the words on a page as a single context and then breaks down each word based on how many times it appears on the page. This means that it's possible to rank for keywords that you wouldn't rank for, but are still relevant to the context and topic. And that's a good thing because you can rank that page in multiple ways with just one page of content.
How is Keyword Density calculated?
The formula for calculating Keyword Density is not complicated. Just take the number of times the desired keyword ranks and divide it by the total number of words in that content.
A simple example is if you have your main keyword 10 times in an article with a total of 1,000 words, the Keyword Density would be 1% (10 / 1,000 = 0.01 = 1%).
The next question is, what is a good keyword density? Some marketers consider 1% to be a good number, but many argue that it should be more than 4%.
But the real answer depends on the length of the article or post.
Obviously, if the keyword density is 4% on a 1,500 word article, then the distribution of words may be more natural than on a 150 word article.
