Keyword density is always such a controversial topic in the SEO world. Everybody has their opinion. The keyword here being "opinion". We've read that 1 to 3 % is optimal and then the next source we go to strongly suggest a 3-5% percent range. Then when we think, OK, we can live with those percentages, we read 7% is an optimal keyword density.
All the forums are busy with businesses freely stating their opinions and they all vary so much.
Well, we think keyword density will continue to remain a mystery because Google really has nothing to say on the subject. It's obvious that keyword stuffing will most definitely get you penalized by the search engines with your web content. Google continues to keep their algorithms under wraps and all we can do is just guess what will work and what won't.
We think most businesses are needlessly worrying about keyword density and missing the mark on what the search engines are really looking for. In fact, focusing on just keyword density and trying to attain the mysterious magical percentages is one of the problems itself.
Lack of quality, readable and relevant content.
One factor that we can all agree on is that the search engines are much more concerned with content that is relevant and gives the reader the information they're looking for.
We're sure you've had the same experience as we've had and the search engines remain frustrated with this in regards to keyword density and ranking websites.
And that frustration is searching for a particular keyword phrase and then getting results that aren't relevant. We think a lot of the results are junk, but was ranked because of the keywords.
The search engines are smart and we know there's more to ranking than just keyword density. Now we're not saying that you shouldn't have a dominant keyword phrase in your text, because that phrase is needed so the search engine spiders do have an idea what your page is all about. But, what percentage is better than another?
We believe using a keyword phrase for keyword density purposes is only valid in the context of a well written and easy flowing article or web page.
The experts say, “content is king”, but we'll go further and say, “quality content is king.”
Another component that we think the search engines weigh more heavily in their ranking algorithm is what is known as LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing) keywords. These are supporting words that are relevant to your main keyword phrase. We think the search engines like to see these additional terms in the article because:
An example of some LSI words that the search engines are looking for in addition to the phrase “keyword density” might be words like: optimum, analyzer, prominence, ideal, percentage etc. Now these words used in the context of the main keyword phrase helps support the content better and make it more relevant to the subject matter.
But getting back to the idea of writing quality and readable content. Did you notice that a good part of these words ended up being included in the article naturally?
So, we think the main focus is to write with the intent of giving your reader great information. Try not to solely focus on following the mysterious keyword density rules to the extent of sacrificing readability.
To conclude, create quality content first and include the principle of keyword density only as far as it doesn't sacrifice you contents readability.