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Importance of keyword density

Written by: Pramod

Article Overview: Improving the keyword density on your website is one of the fastest and simplest ways to increase your site's visibility in the search engine results pages.

Importance of keyword density

So you’ve built your website, you know what keywords you want to target (i.e. what words your customers are searching for), and you’re ready to write your copy. You’ve been told that you should use your keywords frequently so that you appear in search results for those words. But what does "frequently" mean? In order to understand optimum keyword usage, we first need to have some way of measuring keyword frequency. In the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) world, frequency is actually referred to as keyword density. In simple words, keyword density is the ratio of the word that is being searched for against the total number of words appearing on a given web page. If your keyword occurs only 2-3 times in a page of 500 or more words, obviously it has a lower keyword density than a keyword that would occur 8-10 times in a page of similar length.

As far as search engines are concerned, if a particular keyword has a higher density on a particular web page, then the chances of that page obtaining a much better search engine ranking increases almost exponentially. Not all search engines compute or evaluate keyword density in the same way and most have their own proprietary algorithm for calculating the average density of a keyword. Each search engine, from industry dominant Google, to Yahoo, to MSN Search, to the various other search engines, has a different keyword calculation. Some search engines permit heavier keyword numbers and density on the page, while some like Google, have much stricter allowable density levels. The placement of keywords, in any number of locations on the page, has different results in the various search engines as well.

The placement of keywords, in any number of locations on the page, has different results in the various search engines as well. Hence, you should try to write sentences that use your important keywords and key phrases. However, you should try and keep keyword density around 1.5% - 2%. If you overstep this limit there is a real chance of your site being penalized by Google.

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Article Tags: Google, keyword density, keyword frequency, search engine, search engines, Yahoo



Related Forum Posts
Poll: How many search results do you analyze of competitors - If you are trying to emulate your competition or let's say a competitor who is in the top search results you may examine certain factors in the SERPs such as keyword usage in the Title Tag, on page factors like keyword density, keyword prominence or keyword proximity in the body text, plus other on page factors. I know quite a few students of SEO like to do this as a way to improve their own search visibility. Here is this Poll question. If you were to examine competitors within the top results, how far down the list of SERPS would you care to explore for various factors?
Re: Can someone explain Search engine optimization to me? - If you use a good keyword research tool like Keyword Discovery or WordTracker, you'll find a lot of solid profitable keyword phrases that don't make a lot of sense. You should also be able to uncover some phrases that make better sense and still have a decent profitability. By profitability, I mean the keyword phrases have a decent search volume but a low lever of competition. I always teach that you have to write for real people first and the search engines second. If you try to weave a strange keyword phrase into your article with a fixed keyword density, it will sound strange and that can affect your credibility and trust.
Any suggestion about Good free SEO tools? - Well you can use programs with your SEO efforts. Are you manually going to check your keyword density for every page for example? Good luck as its very time consuming.
Re: How should i promote a new website? - First start with On page optimization, start from keyword analysis then use your major keywords within your site's content and optimize your images and banners for your major keywords. Use 3-4% of keyword density while adding keyword to your content. Never ever use copied content for your site or anywhere else. After completing On page you can go for Off page promotion like link building and web promotion.
SEO Marketing tips for Promoting your Business on Bing - Bing is gaining popularity and within a short period of time this search engine has surpassed Yahoo and almost giving tough competition to Google. There are more users logging into Bing every single day. Some of the cool things about Bing is that it is QUICK and has a better USER INTERFACE. However, there is a significant different in the way Google and Bing rank websites. If you are planning to optimize your website for Bing then you need to consider these following tips. 1. Domain Age – Bing gives preference to your domain’s age. Google on the other also gives preference to domains which are old. 2.On-Page Optimization/Off-Page Optimization – Google gives more preference to Off-Page optimization rather than on-page optimization. Bing on the other hand gives more preference to On-Page SEO optimization rather than Off-page optimization 3.Text Density – Bing gives preference to keyword density of your content. If you are targeting a particular keyword and your keyword density for that keyword is abysmally low then you wont be able to rank too high on Bing. 4.TITLE is more important – Although Google does gives preference to keywords in TITLE, Bing entirely focuses on TITLE of any given webpage to decide whether it should be ranking at page 1 or Page 8. Therefore make sure to add your important keywords in the TITLE. Also you should abstain from artificial keyword stuffing. Several keywords are semantically considered as same. Take for example, Search engine optimization company, and SEO marketing company are semantically connected with each other. If you are ranking high for one combination, you will also rank for other combination.


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