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Creating The Best Keyword Density Over Your On-Page Content
By Patrick Hare
Expert Author
Article Date: 2009-07-21
The subject of keyword density has been open to debate for a long time. In the early days of search engine optimization, high keyword density was the order of the day, to the extent that you would have the same keyword repeated several thousand times on the page, in small print that matched the background color of the site.
Alternatively, you might have several hundred doorway pages that had a single phrase on them, for a 100% keyword density score. On today's search engines, sites like these are almost guaranteed to be penalized for exceeding keyword density levels. Depending on who you ask, the best keyword density could be between 2% and 9% of your on-page content.
For people who write their own web content, keyword density can be problematic. Naturally, you don't want to trip any filters in the search engines, but at the same time you shouldn't have to pad your content with fluff and filler. One of our general rules is that you should be able to read your content out loud without sounding repetitive, but in some cases there are a few profitable keyword variations that would all do well on the same page, so the language can get a bit stilted. Generally, we try for a 4% density, but there are numerous outside factors that can move this figure up or down by a few percent.
First and foremost, your content should be useful to a real customer, even if it isn't likely to be read. Second, you should make sure that your page's best keywords are being represented in the body text, since your competitors who use SEO techniques are likely to do the same thing, and you want to be on a level playing field. Third, you should make sure you are optimizing enough pages to spread your keywords out efficiently. Normally you should be hitting a maximum of 3-4 keyword phrases per page.
If you have more high volume keywords that fall in the same category, consider creating subtopic and detail pages which examine the various permutations of each word. For example, if you have a page about cat food, it might reference detail pages about dry cat food and moist cat food. Even though you will reference both keywords from a top-level page, using anchor texts to the detail pages will ensure that they will get properly classified for each type. You will then have an advantage in the search engines, since you have a general topic and two subtopics in a hierarchy, and more specific related words on each page.
Do you need to how dense your content is? For text that's already on a site, here are two free keyword density tools:
http://www.webconfs.com/keyword-density-checker.php
http://www.gorank.com/analyze.php
The webconfs.com keyword density checker also gives you a keyword cloud which illustrates which words are most prevalent. In addition to showing density, it also lets you see if your content overuses common words or phrases. Another advantage of tools like this one is that you can see what your competitors are doing. Even if you see that someone else has very high density, we do not recommend following suit, since rankings are based on multiple factors, and some sites can get away with behavior that would get your site penalized.
If you want to check a piece of content that hasn't yet been published, this tool lets you paste in content and check it against 3 keywords. If your keyword density is too high, consider using synonyms or pronouns to cut down on repetition. You should also note that on-page density checkers may be considering alt tags and navigation menus as content, so text that looks good on its own could have a high score when it gets added to the page.
Many of our customers come to us with sites that have had SEO done on them in the past. In most cases, our first task involves reducing the on-page keyword density to a manageable level to prevent the appearance of over-optimization. For customers who haven't had any SEO work done, the same can be true because they may have pages with one or two sentences of content, and a small amount of repetition can create density levels that are too high.
If you are creating new content for a web page, you shouldn't necessarily panic about keyword density, unless you are becoming overly repetitive with your word choices. SEO content writers use advanced tools to make sure they aren't over-optimizing pages, but there are plenty of high ranking pages on the search engines which haven't been run through a keyword density analyzer. There is a lot to be said for using natural language, and as search engines evolve the consideration will move from density to semantics, so a site that follows grammatical rules may have advantages over one that was edited too heavily for search engine spiders.
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About the Author:
Patrick Hare has been managing online and offline marketing projects since 1999. From 2005 to present, he has been with Scottsdale Arizona's Web.com Search Agency (formerly Submitawebsite). Patrick provides Search Engine Optimization and Marketing advice to in-house customers and Web.com Jacksonville’s web design group.
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