When you opt for a search engine optimization (SEO) strategy, you’ll find that keywords are a crucial part of your campaign.
As you integrate keywords on your page, it’s essential to keep track of your keyword density to ensure you’re not overusing your key terms. Keyword density plays a vital role in helping your pages rank properly in the search results.
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What is keyword density?
Keyword density is the number of times a keyword appears on a webpage.
Whether you add a new page to your site or write a blog post, keyword density is crucial to helping your page rank properly in the search results. Keyword density, also known as keyword frequency, is relevant to monitor to ensure you’re creating a balance between using a keyword often enough to rank, but not too often that it hurts your ranking.
When you calculate keyword density, you’ll calculate the ratio percentage of the keyword to your overall word count. To calculate keyword density, follow this formula:
Number of times keyword is mentioned/total number of words on the page=keyword density
To find keyword density, you’ll take the number of times you’ve mentioned your keyword on your page and divide it by the total number of words on the page. You can turn this ratio into a percentage by multiplying your result by 100.
What’s the ideal keyword density?
When you’re calculating your keyword density, you want to know that it’s a good ratio for the page. The truth, however, is there is no set optimal keyword density for every page.
If you research optimal keyword density, you’ll get a lot of answers.
Some experts will tell you between 0.5% and 0.8%. Other sites will say anywhere between 0.5% and 2.5% is acceptable.
If you want to hit your ideal keyword density, it will take some trial and error. You’ll generally want to stay below 3%. From that point, you must test your pages to see what keyword density works best for your business and helps you in the rankings.
What is keyword stuffing?
When we talk about keyword density, we can’t discuss it without mentioning keyword stuffing.
Keyword stuffing is the over usage of keywords on a page. It occurs when writers try to fit as many keywords as possible into a webpage in hopes of helping it rank better for that keyword. Pages with keyword stuffing often use the keyword in forced and unnatural phrasing.
It’s essential to understand keyword stuffing because it harms your SEO. Google will punish your site for overusing a keyword to try and boost rankings. This process is considered a black hat SEO technique, which goes against Google’s standards.
To avoid keyword stuffing and negatively impacting your ranking in the search results, test your optimal keyword density. Try using keywords more or less often to find the right keyword density that helps you rank and doesn’t punish you for using a keyword too often on the page.