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DIY SEO: Step 4 - Keyword Density

28 October 2008 437 views 15 Comments

photo credit: Matter = Energy

This is the sixth post in our DIY SEO for WordPress series.

Short, but illuminating exercise today: determining your keyword density.

What’s Keyword Density?

Keyword density is how often your keywords appear in your text relative to other words. Let’s say you’ve got a 500-word post and you’ve used your keyword 25 times - that’s a keyword density of 5% (25/500 = 5%) - and that’s the target that’s most widely recommended. Any more than that and you run the risk of Google thinking you’re “stuffing” your post with your keywords at the expense of quality content and treating your page as junk. And it would be junk. Don’t believe me? Pick a keyword, any keyword and just TRY to use it more than 25 times in a 500-word post without ending up with junk. Shoot - depending on the keyword and the post - even 5% keyword density might be pushing it.

Calculate Your Keyword Density by Hand Before You Publish

There are a number of keyword density checkers and tools available online these days, and they are quick, accurate, and for the most part, easy to use. Only one problem: they can’t check pages that aren’t published and ‘live’ on the web. Not much help when I’m writing a new post, right?

So until I publish, I like to roll ‘old school’ on this one, so here’s what I do: I copy/paste my post (title, headings and all) into something like MS Word, where I can click a button and find the total word count quickly. Then, I use Word’s ‘find’ function and search for my keyword or keyword phrase in the text. I just count how many times I successfully ‘find next’. Divide that number by the total number of words and bang ? I?ve got my keyword density calculated!

For example, until this paragraph, there are 309 words in this post. My keyword phrase keyword density appears 9 times, for a keyword density of 2.91%. “But Suzanne, your math is skewed because keyword density is actually two words and it’s counted as two words in your total of 309, yet you’re counting it as if it were one word that appears 9 times…that percentage is a little off…”, I hear you thinking.

Easy fix: use Word’s Find/Replace function to make it one word by hyphenating the two words together. That makes my total word count 300 and my keyword still appears only 9 times, so now I’ve got a keyword density of 3% even.

And now, after that last bit, my keyword density is up to 3.16% (411 words, 13 occurrences). Are you sick of me saying keyword density yet? I’m almost sick of me saying it, and I’m still 2 points away from 5%! Just imagine how awful this would be if I jacked it up to 10%. See why Google would think I was keyword stuffing? It’s just not natural to repeat the same word(s) over and over again.

Turns out, Mrs. Williams, my 7th grade English teacher, knew what she was talking about. She did such a good job encouraging me to expand my vocabulary and use different words to say the same thing (“…to make it more interesting for your readers, Suzanne…”) that I have a hard time getting remotely close to that 5% number. But I’m working on it…

Use Online Keyword Density Checkers After You Publish

Keyword density is impacted by using your keywords in your page title, page description and keyword meta tags, as described in Step 2 of this series, so if you remember to optimize there, your actual keyword density will get a boost.

As I said, there are many tools online, but I like this keyword density checker the best. Just search for keyword density checker and you’ll find lots of options.

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15 Comments »

Christa said:

This was helpful. I wish I could clone myself so I could spend all day reading and digesting each one of your posts!!

Christa´s last blog post..So NO to mimes, YES to memes

# 28 October 2008 at 10:53 am

Suzanne said:

Christa, no need for cloning…just take it one step at a time. This series is a lot to absorb, particularly if you’re new to blogging, too, so just take it easy on yourself and you’ll grow into it in no time.

# 28 October 2008 at 10:58 am

Vered - MomGrind said:

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post saying that I do not so SEO.

I have since changes my mind. I do not see SEO as evil anymore - I see it as useful and important.

This series of posts is useful. Thank you.

# 28 October 2008 at 2:20 pm

Suzanne said:

Vered, I just went and looked up your post and read it. I’m curious now - what changed your mind? Do you see a happy medium that you can achieve? (I hope so, because SEO doesn’t have to be - and more importantly, SHOULDN’T be - the main focus of blogging.)

I have a rule of thumb I live my SEO life by: SEO is fine and dandy, but it’s the PEOPLE who come here who pay me to do stuff for them. Not Google. So when it’s a decision between defer to the people or defer to Google - the people always win.

# 28 October 2008 at 2:42 pm

Maya said:

Very helpful series Suzanne. I know I will be coming back here often!
You got me hooked
Maya´s last blog post..Embracing our cultural identities at work and in life can only be good for us

# 28 October 2008 at 9:14 pm

Suzanne said:

Maya, I’m glad you find it helpful. Please don’t be bashful about asking questions, either here on the blog, or in email directly to me. Not only does that get your questions answered, but it helps me to know what’s useful to the folks who visit here.

# 28 October 2008 at 9:22 pm

Lance said:

Suzanne, I didn’t even realize there were such things as these density checkers! I guess I have much to learn on SEO - will be back to review the other stuff you’ve written as well - this was most definitely interesting!

Lance´s last blog post..At One Hundred, Life Is?

# 29 October 2008 at 12:49 pm

Suzanne said:

Lance - thanks for stopping by and I’m glad you found useful information here. (That’s my goal. ) Let me know what questions you have, too.

# 29 October 2008 at 4:17 pm

Marelisa said:

Hi Suzanne: This is very helpful. I’m going to apply it to the last post I wrote where the keyword is “flow”. Let’s see if I get anywhere near 5%
Marelisa´s last blog post..How to Enter the ?Flow State?

# 29 October 2008 at 8:45 pm

Suzanne said:

Oh cool, Marelisa! Come back and let us know how you did!

# 29 October 2008 at 8:49 pm

Marelisa said:

I’m back. The post had 1205 words and I used the word “flow” 26 times, which gives me a density of 2.15%. Is there an ideal range, like between 2% and 5%, or is 2.15% too low?

Marelisa´s last blog post..How to Enter the ?Flow State?

# 29 October 2008 at 8:51 pm

Suzanne said:

Marelisa, I don’t know that you can arbitrarily decide an ‘ideal’ for something like this, other than the 5% target. I would say 2.15% is a little lower than you want, so I’d go back and see if there are either any possibilities for adding ‘flow’ a few more times OR opportunities to cut out some of the other text, which would also boost that ratio.

One of the things that this keyword density thing has done for me is make me aware of how ‘tight’ or succinct my writing is (or is not, as is more the case with me.) Lately, I’ve opted to work on tightening up my writing without losing my ‘voice’. I’m the kind of person who uses 30 words to say something when 10 would probably do the trick. LOL Some of that is my ‘voice’ and some is just extraneous fluff I would do well to eliminate. Discerning the difference is the exercise of the moment, for me.

# 29 October 2008 at 9:06 pm

Marelisa said:

I just calculated that if I have 1205 words, 60 of them would have to be “flow” in order to get a 5% density ratio. Wow!

Marelisa´s last blog post..How to Enter the ?Flow State?

# 30 October 2008 at 4:55 pm

Suzanne said:

Marelisa - That’s a good example of a situation where maybe your keyword should actually be a phrase. In your case, your one-word keyword ‘flow’, taken at face value on its own, could mean too many things, from the ‘flow state’ you’re talking about to the flow (or lack thereof) addressed by the prescription FloMax.

I would suggest you not target just the word flow, but phrases that provide the context in which you’re using the word, like ‘flow state’, ‘in the flow’ and others. This will help the search engines know better to which ‘flow’ you are referring, which will give you better search results positioning in the long run.

# 3 November 2008 at 2:31 pm

michigan search engine optimization said:

a trick i sometimes use is to have a subdomain setup (that i block with robot.txt) or just publish and unpublish a page as i run the automated keyword density tools.

# 17 November 2008 at 10:41 pm