The Importance Of Keyword Density
Keyword density is a simple concept – it’s how many times the designated primary keyword and the secondary keywords appear on one page of your website.
SEO experts often talk about keyword density when looking at keyword stuffing. This is when you overuse the keyword to try and rank higher – an old SEO technique that is now heavily frowned upon by search engines.
Getting your keyword density right is really important for your SEO. You need to find the balance of getting the word or phrase into the content often enough that you tell the likes of Google that this page and this entire website is about this particular topic. However, you don’t want to overuse the terms because this starts to look unnatural – and Google is all about the human user experience these days.
How To Calculate Keyword Density
There is no exact answer for the question: what is the correct keyword density? However, the general rule of thumb is to stick to the 2% mark on any web page. You calculate this by looking at how many words are in the primary keyword or phrase, how often you use the exact primary keyword in the copy, and how many words you’ve written in total.
The equation looks like this: (KR / (TW – (KR x (NWK-1) ) ) x 100
- KR – keyword repetition
- TW – total number of words
- NWK – number of words in the keyword
How To Avoid Keyword Stuffing
- Make Sure You Have A Primary Keyword – Each page on your website should have its own primary keyword that is related to the topic but not the same as any other page. You can then focus on distributing the keyword correctly on the page without worrying about how often it’s used throughout the website.
- Create Secondary Keywords For Each Page – Variations on your main keyword will help you to avoid keyword stuffing but still get the message across to the search engines. Think about synonyms for the main keyword, as well as longtail versions of your topic. For example, the page could be about desk chairs and that’s your primary keyword phrase. Your secondary keywords could be ergonomic desk chairs, desk chairs for sale, office chairs, etc.
- Have More Than 300 Words Of Copy On A Page – SEO content writing best practices say that you should always have a minimum of 300 words of actual text on any web page. This gives the page proper weight and enough context for the search engine bots to understand what the page is about. It also makes it easier to distribute your keywords evenly.
- Focus On Writing Naturally – The quality of the copy on your website will play a big impact on how well you rank and how well users interact with your website. These days, Google and the other search engines place a far higher emphasis on good content that’s useful to the reader than on using the exact keyword correctly throughout the copy.
- Pay Attention To Your Meta Data And Alt Text – Placing your keyword into your meta data and any alt text you use on a web page is an essential part of on-site SEO. However, it’s important to remember that this adds to the total number of times the keyword is used on the page and can be included in the search engine’s thinking. You should use the primary keyword once in the Meta Title and once in the Meta Description. When it comes to alt tags, you should only use the keyword on the descriptions that make the most sense. Do not use the keyword for every single image or piece of media.
Keywords are central to every SEO strategy and when used correctly they can majorly impact your rankings. Using the density formula you can ensure that you get the balance right.
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