How important is keyword density?
-
Several leading experts say that keyword density isn't all that important. What do you think of keyword density? Do you incorporate it into your day to day activities?
-
In my limited experience it's about clarity, not density. EGOL makes a good point, if your page is clear and well written about its subject, in general you should be alright.
-
It is still important to some extent. If you intend to rank for "Chinese Burgers" but you are writing more about "Cheese" instead, Google will assume the page is more likely about "Cheese" than "Chinese Burgers". If you get some backlinks with the right variations of anchor text that includes "Chinese Burgers" in the phrase, that will solve Google's dilemma, but assuming no backlinks and no other external factors, keyword density is still pretty important.
I know this could be confusing (as I was not too long ago) as lot of 'experts' say its not important - just do your own little test with brand new domains and see what kind of difference it makes.
Its true however that there is no magic "density" to this - just make sure you don't use some other keyword phrase more than your MEAT keyword phrase.
-
I'm with EGOL...I don't pay any attention to keyword density. I will be sure to have my keyword in the title. And as I write, I will mention it as it comes out naturally, but I'm not paying any attention to how often I've mentioned the keyword.
-
There is a good article on this subject here:
http://memeburn.com/2011/07/good-content-density-can-help-your-seo-strategy/
-
I pay zero attention to keyword density. I write naturally - when you are trying to write well that is a big enough job.
Setting KW density goals is a good way to screw up a great article.
-
Both Alan and Charles seem to have hit the nail on the head. On the one hand the keywords have to be in the content, and don't be surprised when you get customers asking you why!
The search engines follow what the human reads. Content that is stuffed with keywords, especially your meta-tags and alt-tags, will quickly get noticed by Google.
My rule of thumb is;
Main keyword - 3 times on homepage, also on every other page possible
Sub-level keywords - 1 time on homepage, wherever possible inside the website
-
I think it is important to have the keyword phrase you are targeting at least 1-2 times in the body content and it helps to have it in the title tags, image alt tags, and URL. Natural writing patterns typically don't have the same phrase repeated several times and we often see pages that rank very highly for a phrase without multiple instances of that phrase on the page.
"A complete myth as an algorithmic component, keyword density nonetheless pervades even very sharp SEO minds. While it's true that more usage of a keyword term/phrase can potentially improve targeting/ranking, there's no doubt that keyword density has never been the formula by which this relevance was measured." -Rand Fishkin
-
My own rule of thumb is to incorporate each of the top two or at most three primary phrases at least once, the top phrase at least twice, in the content - with the content being at least 400 words (or more) - and the more content, the more it needs to then have the partial phrases thrown into the writing. But there's no set formula for keyword density anymore. too many other factors to consider these days.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Is there a way to index important pages manually or to make sure a certain page will get indexed in a short period of time??
Hi There! The problem I'm having is that certain pages are waiting already three months to be indexed. They even have several backlinks. Is it normal to have to wait more than three months before these pages get an indexation? Is there anything i can do to make sure these page will get an indexation soon? Greetings Bob
Technical SEO | | rijwielcashencarry0400 -
Difficulties in positiong a specific keyword
Hi, I am responsible for the blinds and curtains brand Kaaten and the its online store that operates in the Spanish market, during the last 6 months we have increasing substantially the traffic and improving the positioning of our main keywords (in most of the cases we postion right under Ikea and Leroy Merlin). However, there is a keyword that I cannot get to position, not even in the top 50 positions - that is the word "cortinas". I do not understand why is that happening as in a word like "estores" with similar monthly searches and competition we rank 3rd. Looking at the Home site and analysing both keywords the density is similar, so I do not see many differences there. I also cleaned up a bit the content to remove some "cortinas" keywords and thus avoid the keyword stuffing, but no results so far. Does any of you have any suggestion that what I can do to position better in that particular keyword? Look forward for your response and thanks for your help.
Technical SEO | | oriolbandalux0 -
ALT attribute keyword on the same image but different pages
Hi there, As i'm sure you're probably aware, moz advises to use a keyword within the ALT attribute on pages... On a new website I am launching, I have the ability to add an alt keyword to image headers. On multiple pages we have the exact same image but with different keywords associated them inside the alt attribute. The image itself is a collage of different images and so the keywords used can, quite sneakily, match the image. My question is therefore, will using different keywords on the same image on different pages have a negative effect on SEO? Thanks, Stuart
Technical SEO | | Stuart260 -
Client's site dropped completely for all keywords, but not brand name - not manual penalty... help!
We just picked up a new search client a few weeks ago. They've been a customer (we're an automotive dealer website provider) since October of 2011. Their content was very generic (came from the previous provider), so we did a quick once-over as soon as he signed up. Beefed up his page content, made it more unique and relevant... tweaked title tags... wrote meta descriptions (he had none). In just over a week, he went from ranking on page 4 or 5 for his terms to ranking on page 2 or 3. My team was working on getting his social media set up, set up his blog, started competitor research... And then this last weekend, something happened and he dropped completely from the rankings... He still shows up if you do a site: search, or if you search his exact business name, but for everything else, he's nowhere to be found. His URL is www.ohioautowarehouse.com, business name is "Ohio Auto Warehouse" We filed a reconsideration request on Monday, and just got a reply today that there was no manual penalty. They suggested we check our content, but we know we didn't do anything spammy or blackhat. We hadn't even fully optimized his site yet - we were just finishing up his competitor research and were planning on a full site optimization next week... so we're at a complete loss as to what happened. Also, he's not ranking for any of the vehicles in his inventory. Our vehicle pages always rank on page 1 or 2, depending on how big the city is... you can always search "year make model city" and see our customers' sites (whether they're doing SEO or not). This guy's cars aren't showing up... so we know something is going on... Any help would be a lifesaver. We've been doing this for quite some time now, and we've never had a site get penalized. Since the reconsideration request didn't help, we're not sure what to do...
Technical SEO | | Greg_Gifford0 -
Local Keywords Not Ranking Well in a Geographic Location (but Rank Very Well Outside of Geographic Location)
Has anyone experienced, in the last few months, an issue where a website that once ranked well for 'local' terms in Google stopped ranking well for those terms (but saw a ranking decrease only within the geographic location contained within those keywords)? For example only, some 'root' keywords could be: Chicago dentist Chicago dentists dentist Chicago dentists Chicago What happens is that when a searcher searches from within the geographic area of Chicago, IL, the target website no longer ranks on the 1st page for these types of keyword phrases, but they used to rank in the top 3 perhaps. However, if someone was to search for the same keyword phrases from another city outside of Chicago or set a custom location (such as Illinois or even Milwaukee, WI perhaps) in their Google search, the target website appears to have normal (high) 1st page rankings for these types of terms. My own theory: At first I thought it was a Penguin related issue but the client's rankings overall haven't appeared to have been affected on the date(s) of Penguin updates. Authority Labs and Raven Tools (which uses Authority Labs data) did not detect any ranking decrease and still reports all the local keyword rankings as high on the 1st page of Google. However, when the client themselves goes to check their own rankings (as they are within that affected geographic area), they are no where to be found on the 1st page. :S After some digging I found that (one of) the company's Google Places listings (the main office listing) became an 'unsupported' status in Google Maps. So now I am thinking that this phenomenon is due to the fact that other listings are now appearing in search results for the same location. For example, in this case, an individual dentist's Google Places listing (who works within the dental office) is being displayed instead of the actual dental office's listing. Also, the dentist's name on the Google Places listing is being swapped out by Google with the name of the dental office, but if you click through to the Google Places listing, it shows the name of the individual Dentist. Anyone encounter a similar issue or have any other theories besides the Google Places issue?
Technical SEO | | OrionGroup0 -
Watermarking Keywords
I've been viewing an seo companies website that claims to get small business websites to Google Page 1 for free or starting at $150/mo. I'v noticed that on all the website this company has done work on they include in the footer (usually as a watermark) all the keyword phrases. There don't apprear to be any sites that have been penalized. Isn't this poor SEO practice? I've included a screen shot of what I'm talking about. I just want to be clear. Thank you for your input. XnQUc.png
Technical SEO | | JulB0 -
Keyword cannibalisation
We created a product blog page that was highly optimized for SEO based on a recommendation from a colleague. These are now our best performing pages - however they do not convert as highly as the bona-fide product pages. After further investigation we're concerend that we shouldn't have split our content accross two pages - keyword cannibalisation. Is this correct and should we 301 our product blog pages to the other high converting pages?
Technical SEO | | JohnHillman0 -
Strange Top URLs for Keywords in Google Webmaster Tools
When we click on one of our keywords under the keywords section of Google Webmaster Tools it shows our top URLs for that keyword. The problem is that it is giving us some very strange URLs that we have searched high and low to try to find but we don't know where they came from. Here is a screenshot: http://bit.ly/pl6mB3 Do you know where this type of URL string could have originated and how to fix it?
Technical SEO | | Hakkasan0