How Important Is Keyword Density To Boost Your SEO Rankings?

Keywords remain as undeniably one of the most important aspects of establishing good on-page SEO. After all, search engine optimization relies on your keywords to establish the kind of niche you’re in and the topics your pages are tackling. This explains why a lot of digital marketers say keyword research has a lot to do with your keywords ranking properly with search engines. And a huge part of this involve keyword density.

• Keyword Density: The Important Things To Remember
• Density: Why Natural Writing Works
• Keyword Density: Precision, Intention Are Important

Defining Keyword Density

When we talk of keyword density, we talk of the frequency of the appearance of a keyword in a piece. This helps search engines identify whether or not your page can be “important” for a viewer looking into a particular topic. Some recommend a density of two to three-percent of a particular keyword in any page, which means your keyword should be two to three-percent of the total words in a particular page you want to rank in that keyword in.

Keyword Density: The Important Things To Remember

Having defined keyword density, here are some important details about keyword density you might want to remember:

• There’s no “ideal” keyword density that always works: Another painful reality we need to realize is that there’s no “ideal” keyword density that always brings results. Remember, Google and other search engines are extremely hush-hush about exact aspects of their algorithms. This means whatever tips you read online are based on experience and analysis. Keyword density seems to be a logical approach to determine the relevance of your piece to your niche, but it’s not a proven concept.

• There’s still a lot of conflicting opinions about density: Part of what can confuse marketers about SEO are conflicting opinions regarding keyword density. Others say keyword density is an extremely important element in their pieces. Some say keyword density shouldn’t be a big deal. The best way to approach this is to look at it from the middle – it’s safe to at least mention the keyword at least one to three (1 to 3) times at the beginning, middle, and ending of your pieces.

• A lot of external factors come to play: Keyword density isn’t something that only applies to your blogs and your articles. Keywords appear in all sorts of places, such as your graphics, your images, your web pages, and even your social media posts. If you take advantage of keyword occurrences there and tie these to your page content, you’ll likely get more traction even without a lot of keywords in your main blog.

• Focus more on intent and your audience: If you’re being a bit iffy about your keywords, try to look at it from a subjective point of view. What exactly is the point you’re trying to convey, and how does this keyword appear from a practical standpoint? Is it something people will realistically search online? Is it something that should logically and syntactically appear in this part of your page?

• Google warns of keyword stuffing instead: Google, perhaps the biggest search engine to exist, also doesn’t seem to pay that much attention to keyword density. Rather, they pay attention to keyword stuffing. For Google, it’s more alarming if websites actually use too much of a keyword in a piece, as this gives the impression that they simply want traction and not much else.

• Focus on optimizing your keywords instead: It may also help to instead take note of how your keyword appears instead of how often they appear. If there’s a way to find keywords that other people don’t use, focus on that instead of how much of them appears in your content.

• Write for humans first, search engines second: Remember, the primary reasons search engines exist is to make sure internet users get access to the most relevant information for their needs. So, if you want to appeal to search engines, you should probably write for someone you know would need your information in the first place.

Density: Why Natural Writing Works

If you’ve read the above, you might find yourself a bit overwhelmed with information regarding keyword density. This is perfectly fine; however, if there’s anything you have to remember, it’s that natural writing still works to establish proper and consistent keyword density. Business Mavericks considers the following factors:

• Natural writing that doesn’t focus on keyword density will still most likely have similar keyword density to what search engines consider “well-written” pages.
• In fact, search engines appear to have the capability to recognize certain words and their respective synonyms. This means they’ll likely notice that you’re using the synonyms for specific keywords, anyway.
• Lastly, keyword density isn’t the only important factor in terms of ranking for search engines. If for instance you do religiously follow keyword density guidelines but have a poorly-written piece, you’ll most likely not get any traction anyway.

Keyword Density: Precision, Intention Are Important

The above points can hopefully establish both the importance and the delicate nature of keyword density for successful keywords ranking. If you’ve noticed, on-page SEO isn’t just about search engine finding all your keywords for you to rank. Rather, it’s search engines locating your keywords at just the right instance in your pages. This means the best way to utilize keywords for SEO ranking isn’t really unleashing a “barrage” to search engines – but rather just using them as naturally as possible.