subject: Keyword Density And How It Affects Search Engine Rankings [print this page] So what is Keyword Density and how does it affect Search Engine Rankings?
Keyword Density is an indicator of the number of times the selected keyword appears on a web page.
It is expressed as a percentage of the total word content on the page.
Suppose you have 100 words on your webpage (not including HMTL code) and you use a certain keyword five times then obviously the keyword density is 5%
The keyword density is obtained by simply dividing the total number of keywords by the total number of words that appear on the webpage and then multiplying the result by 100.
However care must be taken to ensure that your keywords are NOT repeated too frequently as then your site will probably be rejected as an artificial or spam site.
Whilst I have seen different figures quoted it would appear that the generally accepted standard for keyword density is between 3% to 5% of the total words used. Please note that this rule applies to every page on your site. It also applies to not only one keyword but also any set of keywords that relates to a different product/service.
The following is a simple way to check the density:-
Take the individual web page and copy and paste it into a word-processing software program.
Go to the edit menu and click select all.
Next go to the tools menu and select word count.
Write down the total number of words on the page
.
Now select the find function on the edit menu.
Go to the replace tab and type in the keyword you want to find.
Replace that word with the same word so that you don't change the text.
When you complete the replace function the system will provide a count of the words you replaced.
That will give you the number of times you have used the keyword on that page.
So using the total word count for the page and the total number of keywords you can now calculate the keyword density.
Alternatively you can manually count each word!!
Another point to bear in mind is KEYWORD PROXIMITY.
This refers to the closeness between two or more keywords. In general the closer the keywords are the better for your search engine ratings.
For example if someone is searching for "search engine rankings" then a web page with "search engine rankings" as a sentence will fare better that the term "rankings in search engines."
I should point out, however, that whilst keyword density was a very important factor in how a page was ranked during the early days of search engines (the late 1990's) it is not now quite so important.
The reason is that search engines began giving priority to other factors which are now outside of the control of webmasters.
However it is still worthwhile considering the keyword density on your sites to obtain as much advantage as possible.
As there are plenty of tools available on the internet to help you with your keyword density I suggest it would be worthwhile carrying out a search to find the one which will best help you.
