What is Keyword Density?

May
2009

posted by Ryan | on Articles, Blog | No comments

Keyword density is an SEO term that refers to the amount of times a keyword phrase is found on your Web page. The more often (up to a point) that your phrase is found on the page, the more likely that page will register as being about that phrase in the search engines.

Question: What is Keyword Density?

Keyword density is a jargon term in SEO that refers to the number of times your keyword phrase appears on the page.

Answer: Keyword density is the percentage of times a keyword or keyword phrase is found in your page content amidst all the other content. For example, if you have a Web page with exactly 100 words on it including all headlines, captions, alt text, and advertising, and you have a keyword phrase that is on the page 3 times, your keyword density is 3%:

# of repeats of the keyword / total number of words on the page * 100 = Keyword Density

Keyword density applies to the page as it displays live on your website. Many people will create content with a high keyword density and then place it on their website with a lot of navigation, images, and advertising content and their actual density will go down.

Strive for a Keyword Density of Around 5% or Less

There is no hard and fast rule for what your keyword density should be. But too little and it won’t be clear to search engines what the page is about and too much and it will look like you’re trying to spam them. Plus, the more times you repeat a keyword phrase the more the page won’t be palatable to your readers.

Don’t let keyword density rule your Web writing. If your page has a very low keyword density, but it’s well written and clear, you’ll get as many readers as you would with a more SEO focused articles.