Keyword density as an optimization unit.

Keyword density is a correlation of quantity of all words on your page with quantity of keywords. Keyword density is usually expressed in percents. For instance if you have 100 words and seven of them are keywords – your page’s keyword density is 7%. Keyword density is always measured per-page, never per site, because search engines consider a page to be the smallest independent unit.

What keyword density is allowed by search engines?

All search engines have a lot of criteria to measure a web page. Keyword density is one of them and it is one of appreciable ones. Search engine algorithms are complicated mathematical measures and each search engine has it’s own – that is why allowed keyword density can vary for different search engines. If you are targeting one search engine – you can try to find out it’s allowed keyword density and keep it. If you target two or more – keep minimal keyword density allowed by one of them.
What are actually keywords and how search engines find out what are keywords on my page?

We know that keywords are search terms we seek, but a search engine doesn’t knows what keywords have you actually installed in your web page, unless you list them in META keywords tag (however, it is more like that the majority of search engines ignore this tag). So how do I count keyword density. Count the maximum repeating words! Even if your site is about apples, but there are more “garden” words – search engine will count maximal quantity of similar words. This means that you have a total of 100 words, 10 of which are “apple” and 30 of them are “garden”, you can get penalized for “garden” word. Note that articles, pronouns and other keyword-neutral words are not counted as keywords. The most convenient way to get full keyword analysis of your page is to use appropriate software. There are a lot of free and pay keyword analysis tools online.

There are another significant notion in counting keyword density of a page – keyword phrase. You know that some keywords consist of two words – product names, geographical names, etc. Search engine algorithm is also looking keyword phrases, which are defined by finding repeating keyword phrases. Clear? I hope so.

How do I count up right keyword density?

It is a unique way of research for each webmasters. Yes, there are some commonly known recommendations, but during last two years I’ve heard more than hundred numbers of “right” keyword density. Create a couple of page with different keyword density and optimize ‘em in the same way (this doesn’t means creating a couple of identical pages with different keyword density, because you will trigger duplicate content filter doing so) and see the results. Sometimes it takes many time to find out the right value. Some of my sites are under 10% limit, some have no more than 5% – you will find your best quantity soon, trust me. However, there are some variables which can influence allowed keyword density – position of keywords. I believe that keywords in H1 are considered heavy, just as keywords in links text, keywords in “bold” tag and those, which are placed close to the beginning of the document. That is why there is no definite quantity of keyword density.

1. Idea and planning
2. Choosing keywords
3. Writing texts for site
4. Stuffing text with keywords
5. Compose site and put it to web
6. Check site (includes checking of all levels of site – HTML coding, scripting, accessibility, site navigation, optimization, checking for broken links, grammar and spell check, keyword density check, etc.)

Writing texts for a site I don’t care keywords density and keywords during this first step, because it’s easier and quicker to write a text right from your head than to refer to keywords list each time you have to write them. After writing a text I insert keywords and keyword phrases. The third step is keyword density analysis performed with help of software. I usually keep keyword density under 5-10% depending on their similarity, position and frequency (as I have already mentioned in previous part of this article, “keyword frequency” is a term we use to describe intensity of keyword usage, e.g. how many times per day does this keyword being searched by surfers).

After installing keywords and checking keyword density I check the text once again reading it several times aloud to appraise sounding, ease of reading and simplicity of comprehension. Keeping keyword density under 5-10% is important because of two reasons – to avoid getting filtered for keyword overstuffing and for simplicity of perception. Some webmasters put keywords just where they want them to put or where keywords will give some meaning. Neglecting perception simplicity and ease of reading you scare of potential buyers! Vary keywords, find synonyms, check your text ten times before posting it to your website. So the rules are:

1. Keep your texts comprehensive and easy-to-read.
2. Don’t compose keyword phrases to the detriment of understanding.
3. Don’t overstuff your text with keywords.
4. Keep keywords in logically correct phrases and sentences.

Let’s take a closer overview of the fifth point. You can often find pages containing lines of meaningless keywords anywhere on the page, but not in text. This is the way how webmasters who don’t want to spend some time inserting these keywords in text do. It is a very rough mistake, because Google is actively using linguistic analysis filters. As far as they find such meaningless line(s) of keywords, page gets filtered out. Moreover, it corrupts appearance of page and scares customers. Keep your whole site cute if you want to do good marketing.

Understand what actually keyword stuffing is.

We have already talked about average allowed percentage of keyword density, but it is important that you understand that this quantity means equal distribution of keywords through all parts of your page. If you put all your keywords in one single place, or nearly this can also neglect all your attempts of creating a good page. For instance (already mentioned), you shouldn’t put more than three keywords in title, more than 3 keywords in META description, and accurately distribute the rest of keywords along your text.

Summary.

Everything mentioned in this article is my own experience for as long as 5 years dealing with SEO. I just want you to understand importance of linguistic approach to site building. I have even hired a linguist to check, correct texts and give me tips in his field. I’ve hired him, because I’m not a native speaker and I doubt my grammar and spelling – you can see this from this article (it hasn’t been checked by my assistant).I must say I’m very satisfied with results – writing good texts, attractive descriptions and reviews I have increased my sales up to 20-25%. That is why I give much importance to the language.