Keyword Density - The Basics

Today's Marketing Tip: Keyword Density

Keyword density is an indicator of the number of times the selected keyword appears in the web page. But mind you, keywords shouldn’t be over used, but should be just sufficient enough to appear at important places.

If you repeat your keywords with every other word on every line, then your site will be rejected as an artificial site or spam site.

Keyword density is always expressed as a percentage of the total word content on a given web page. Suppose you have 100 words on your webpage (not including HMTL code used for writing the web page), and you use a certain keyword five times in the content. The keyword density on that page is obtained by simply dividing the total number of keywords, by the total number of words that appear on your web page. So here it is 5 divided by 100 = .05. Because keyword density is a percentage of the total word count on the page, multiply the above by 100, that is 0.05 x 100 = 5%

We recommend a keyword density between 4% and 8%, to get recognized by the search engines try not to exceed this. Remember, this rule applies to every page on your site. It also applies to not just to one keyword but also a set of keywords that relates to a different product or service. The keyword density should always be between 4% and 8%.

The more important keywords should be not only included in the copy of the page, but in the following areas of the document:

• URL title, this is found in the html code of the document
• Meta keywords and description, these are also located in the source of your HTML document.
• Page Headings, in this case the page heading is "Keyword Density, What is it & Why is it Important?"
• Try and include your keywords in link text, this will help give the document greater keyword strength for your top terms.

Check Your Keyword Density:

Use the keyword density tool. Simply copy and paste the copy from your page into the text area of the tool and click "GO". In no time the density tool will generate a report telling you the count of all the words in the page.

So, make sure your keywords take up between 4% - 8% of your document word count, include them in the main areas of the document and use the key terms in link text and you will be on your way to natural search nirvana.

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