What is Keyword Density

Google uses keyword density as a determining factor in who ranks and who doesn't. Yet most designers don't even know what it is, let alone how to change it. This explains what keyword density is, why it matters, and how to change it.

Keyword density is the ratio of total words versus keywords. For example, if your page title has 5 words, and 2 of them are keywords, the keyword density of is 40%. Put another way, 40% of your title tag is keywords.

If you remove the 3 extraneous (non-keyword) words, your title tag has a keyword density of 100 percent. That's good.

Most designers do the opposite. They throw in all types of terms, using the philosophy that more keywords are better. Twenty keywords are not better than three. Not when it come to keyword density.

What Google is saying with keyword density is they want web pages focused to a single keyword phrase. As a designer (or optimizer) decide on the keyword phrase for that page, and then hit that target. Use that keyword phrase exclusively. Remove extraneous words, even little words like the, and, and or. Use the keyword phrase only. You are shooting for 100% keyword density.

As a marketing strategy, decide on a unique keyword phrase for each page. Then go through each page and use that keyword phrase (without ANY other words) as follows:

1. File name of the web page
2. Title tag of the web page
3. Meta-keyword and meta-description tags
4. Image alt tag
5. Body copy
6. Within the last 20 words on the page (the footer)

A low keyword density is Google's way of saying the page isn't focused. Unfocused pages go nowhere - they'll never be seen. It isn't good enough to just get your keywords in. You must get the non-keyword words out. Strive for the 100 percent keyword density. Do this and you should do pretty well.