Keyword basics

The first thing that needs to be learned in SEO density is how to do keyword research. This will allow newcomers to find out which words will be most effective for the search engines to crawl. This research will give you ample ideas in order to more effectively get your website noticed. Google, Bing, and other search engines use ranking systems to decide whether your site should be pulled up during a particular search. One aspect of these systems is to look for the density (number of times) at which your keywords are used, this is called keyword density.

What it is keyword density?

Keyword density is a commonly misunderstood topic for many trying to understand SEO. For many novices, this is a subject that sits on the back burner until they first learn the basic steps. What keyword density tells us is how many times a keyword pulls up on a specific page. To be exact, search engines will count how many times that keyword appears per 100 words. This calculation is usually viewed as a percentage. For example, let’s say that your keyword showed up three times on a page with 100 words. All you would need to do is take the number of keywords on the page (3) divided by the words on the page (100). This example would give you a keyword density of 3%.

So, how much is too much?

Search engines have high-tech algorithms that can tell if you are overusing your keywords to get noticed, this is called keyword stuffing. Search engines like Google and Bing will be able to catch on simply with their robust systems if you try to overdo it.  With that said, there is not necessarily a specified percentage that search engines look for. This is why it is important that you utilize keywords, but don’t try to force them. One of the most difficult parts to improving your SEO density rank is to make sure that you are smoothly and subtly adding in keywords. This will allow you to possibly add more keywords without Google or Bing flagging your site as spam.

Why it’s important

Keyword density may not be the first thing that a new digital marketer may learn about, however, it is a subject that can make or break a site getting noticed. Search engine spam is most often linked back to density percentages within a website and will easily be picked up by Bing and Google. If this happens, your site will lose the trust of those two powers and they will send you to “the dark side” of untrusted sites. To avoid this terrible happenstance, use sites like SEMRush, DeepCrawl, and SEOQuake to get suggestions about your keyword density. These sites offer a plethora of tools that can provide more than just suggestions and tips for the density of your website. They also help with links to your website, rankings, tags, and more! If you leave this page with only one piece of information, remember this: having a good keyword density will keep you trustworthy with Google and away from the dark side (untrusted sites).

Taylor Covey