There are lots of questions people ask about search engine optimization, but this question caught my attention. Keyword Density is a very important factor in search engine optimization to which people overlook. What is Keyword Density?
Keyword density basically indicates the amount of times that a selected keyword or keyword phrase appears on a web page or in an article on said page. Keywords must be used throughout the web page but you do not want to over use them. If you used them too many times, your web site could be misconstrued as attempting to spam search engines or artificially boost your search engine rankings.
Let’s check out the simple way for calculating the keyword density of your pages.
Every web page has a total number of words. Let’s assume that your web page has total words of 250, without the HTML code say roughly 1/3 to 1/2 of your web page will be the code – so just deduct that number of words from the total.
To find out the total word counts of your page use a Word processing program such as Microsoft Word. Copy and Paste the HTML source code of the page into a blank document, then select File> Properties >Statistics >Word Count.
Let’s get back to the optimization part. If you are optimizing that page for a single keyword, you need to figure out how many times that particular word is repeated within that 250 word total.
Go through that web page and count every repetition of your keyword manually. Your Word program should also have an Edit and replace function. Paste in the code and then type in the keywords in both the edit box and the replace box. The program will replace each occurrence of the word with itself…and produce a total count for the number of repeats.
For Example: Let’s says that you have used that keyword 10 times on your page you want to target. To calculate the keyword density – take that figure and divide it by the total number of words on your page. Thus, in this case 10 divided by 250 = .04. Keyword density is always referred to as a percentage of the total word count for the page. So, multiply .04 by 100 to get the right percentage figure.
Calculations would exactly look like this;
.04 x 100 = 4%
The page has a keyword density of 4%.
For effective optimizing that will boost your pages into the Top 20 spots on the major search engines you are aiming for a keyword density of between 2 – 5%.
To save time, don’t stress too much over exactly matching the density of your page to the Top listed pages on the search engines.
At major search engines, algorithms changes constantly so, it’s much simpler to optimize a few pages for different densities. Remember that the page that has the keyword density of 3% to 5% will rank well on a major search engines.
Related posts:
- How important is the Valid HTML Code to SEO
- Keyword Optimization: Art of Choosing Right Keywords
- Get Successful at the Web via MSN Search Engine
- 7 Most Important On-page elements
- Common But Important SEO Tips
Posted under Blogging, SEO Tips, Search Engine Optimization
This post was written by teeky on April 2, 2009
This isn’t totally true. Keyword density is going the way of the keyword tag because it’s so easily spammed. Keyword placement is infinitely more important than density.
Time spent calculating keyword density would be better spent checking to make sure your keywords are in the title, H1, H2, etc. Even better, you’d see more results if you spent that time promoting your site using social media.
I agree with Josh a little, though I still see great results with a good keyword density mix. So I think it is a little early to discount it. Good Read. Thanks