Is Keyword Density Still Relevant?
-
Good afternoon everyone!
I wanted to ask everyone here a question, one that has been being discussed around my office with a lot of different sides being taken.
Does Keyword Density matter? If it does, what percentage do you try to have your keyword hit?
-
In my experience its important to mention your keyword as much as you can provided that where you write that keyword actually makes sense, ie.. it should be surrounded by relevant text. I run a shopping site and department pages with say a 500-800 word block of text which mention the key phrase maybe 5-10 times rank much better than those without.
-
This is excellent, thank you! I had no idea that mentioning a keyword 15 times in a 500-word copy is something that gets flagged by Moz.
-
I was actually also looking for an answer to this and found threads way back 2013 with the same advice that keyword density doesn't matter. What I found using MozPro is that target keywords should be mentioned in the meta title, description, H1, URL (if possible), and at least once in the copy without breaking the keywords apart. I also found that mentioning a target keyword in a 500-word copy more than 15 times is flagged by Moz as stuffing. I just use these as a rough guide. When I'm feeling particularly worried that some keywords have been mentioned too much, I use a free keyword density analyser to see how many times they appeared and reduce if necessary (especially if the copy doesn't read too well because of too much repetitiveness). Hope this helps!
-
this a great list to keep in mind
-
Based on my experience "The Keyword Density" does not have a big impact on the rank performance of a web page.
Don't get me wrong you need your Keyword in Title Tag, Header 1 etc. But there other factors with a better impact and more weight than "Keyword Density"
1. Domain Age
2. Keyword Appears in Top Level Domain
3. Keyword As First Word in Domain
4. Domain registration length
5. Keyword in Subdomain Name
6. Domain History
7. Exact Match Domain
8. Public vs. Private WhoIs
9. Penalized WhoIs Owner
10. Country TLD extension -
I agree with what you have to say about KW stuffing and making sure that the content on our sites are useful, well-written and purposeful. But should we avoid focusing on keyword density entirely? Even if it's just hitting a 3%-5% margin?
-
No, you should not be stuffing KW or worried about density, make your content user friendly and useful based on the KW phrases that you want to attract visitors with.
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
-
Keyword Planner
VERY much a newbie with MOZ Pro (10 days into my 30-day trial), so for that, I apologize. I just want to get an idea of the time needed to accumulate data for keywords, and if I am doing all this right. I'm guessing this...use the tool and enter as many keyword possibilities as I can come up with for my website. Then wait a week or so. Then make a keyword decision. Is this the recommended or best practice? If it makes a difference, my website pertains to a local onsite service that I provide. Any web traffic more than 50 miles of my physical location would be a waste. My 1 on 1 session with Seun was great, but now I need to put it all together and make some traffic happen! Any other ideas, please throw them my way. If I'm completely off-base with this, feel free to send insults! Thanks, Billy
Local Website Optimization | | NewSEOguy0 -
Best practice for local keyword ranking in URLs
Hi, I have a large artificial grass website with many franchise location landing pages. At the moment i have most of the landing page URLs like this www.domainname.com/uk/city/ My TLD does not contain the keyword "artificial grass" so should I follow the location with the keywords /city-artificial-grass/ or is Google pretty savvy these days and will it know that I am an artificial grass company? I'm after the best recommendations for this if possible. Thanks
Local Website Optimization | | Easigrass0 -
Why am I not ranking although my domain authority is higher than competitors with same relevancy?
So I am trying to rank the domain http://jamesriver.org for the term "Churches in Springfield, MO" Not sure why we are not ranking as well as we ought to rank. I have a few assumptions, but wanted to see what other have to say to get better input. Below are some details about the us: We have done a brand name change in the past 2 years - James River Assembly to James River Church We have two locations: Ozark, MO - which has been there for a very long time and Springfield, MO which is a newer campus We have higher domain authority than others that rank higher for the term We have a new website that was launch about 3 months ago We have a location page for each of the 2 campuses I am wondering what factors might be at play in our lesser rankings even though we are relevant to the term and have higher authority than those that are ranking much higher than us. Thanks for any help you can provide.
Local Website Optimization | | chris.oursbourn0 -
RE: Keep Losing Keyword Ranking Position for Targeted Keyword Terms Can't Figure It Out, Please Help!!!
Hey Mozzers, I am pulling my hair out trying to figure out why one of my clients keeps losing their SERP for their targeted keyword terms. We're actively pursuing local citations, making sure their NAP is consistent across the board and refining on-page content to make sure that we're maximizing opportunities. The only thing I've found is a 4xx error that my Moz 'crawl diagnostics' keep returning back to me, however, when I check to see if there's any problems with Google Webmaster Tools, it doesn't return any errors. Is this 4xx error the culprit? Are there any suggestions any of you could give me to help me improve the SERP for my targeted keyword terms. Anyway, any and all insight can help. I'm at my wits end. Thanks for reading and for all of your help!
Local Website Optimization | | maxcarnage0 -
Local seo landing pages and proper keywords to optimize and showing up for generic keyword localized results
looking for advice. I have my site built into landing pages for each city I service. Would it effect my seo in a negative way if I built other landing pages with "keyword + zip code" as well as the city ones I already have or do you think it would make my city rankings worst? Also how do you get a seo city landing page to show up for the "keyword" or "keyword near me" in the city of interest? Is making landing pages with "keyword + city" sufficient way to accomplish this or is there a trick I am unaware of?
Local Website Optimization | | Spartan220 -
Drastic changes in keyword rankings on a daily basis
Anybody ever seen keyword rankings for a site change drastically from day to day? I've got a client, a local furniture store, whose local keywords (furniture + city) rank consistently well without much change, but when it comes to broader keyword rankings (like "furniture" or "furniture store") in their zip code, they'll go from ranking at the top of Google one day to not being ranked at all the next (at least according to Raven Tools). My best guess is that it's just a reflection of personalized results from Google, but such a dramatic change day in and day out makes me wonder.
Local Website Optimization | | ChaseMG0 -
Should I use keywords in all my URLs?
I couldn't find anything online that really covers my exact question. If I wanted to change my home page URL, (currently along the lines of "http://example.com/home") would it be a good idea to change it to "http://example.com/dallas-auto-repair"? Then on the "services page" I might change the URL to "http://example.com/dallas-auto-services". Pages like the contact page would probably remain simply "example.com/contact" Theoretically by putting my main keywords right there in the URL, I would imagine that I could get moved up in the SERPs. Am I wrong? So if this is a bad idea, please let me know why. If this is a good idea, do you have any articles or references that cover this, or even personal experience?
Local Website Optimization | | Marshall_Motors0 -
Is it possible to target a keyword which is english but targeted to google.com.tr user
Hey I want to know, is it possible to target a keyword which is english, but target market .com.tr For that purpose must we take backlink from site written english but target to turkish ?
Local Website Optimization | | atakala
Or site written english but target to anywhere? I know this question is a bit confusing but my boss want me to that.0