Chances are you’ve heard about keyword density, but you’re not exactly sure what it is. Keyword density is the measurement (most often expressed in the form of a percentage {%}) of the number of keywords to content or the abundance of a specific word or phrase (the keywords/key phrase) in an article. A simple example shows this nicely: If your webpage is about learning how to horseback ride then a sample keyword would be something like “horse riding” or “horseback lessons” or even something as simple as “riding lessons” would suffice as long as you word the article appropriately. Google offers several tools to help you understand keyword density, including their keyword tool in Google AdWords.
Why does keyword density matter? Well, popular search engines like Google and Yahoo! use keyword density (amongst other things) to determine the ranking of each site in their index. The right keyword density can help you achieve a higher rank. However, this does not mean that cramming as many keywords in as possible is going to put you on top. They have security features to ensure this doesn’t happen, as the spiders that crawl your page will recognize your page as spam and ignore it. It has been rumored that Google has a golden percentage for keyword density. However, instead of writing for the search engine, write for your audience so your articles and pages flow more naturally and include more relevant content.
Keyword density has changed over the years from as high as 3% to as low as 0.5% to 1%. It is best that websites that need content created or optimized with the proper keyword density should hire an experienced SEO company. SEO firms can help you reach the top of the ranks in Google.
