Optimum Keyword Density is a Gimmick!
A lot of Search Engine Optimisers live with a belief that having an “optimum keyword density” on your web pages helps in SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) – it’s a gimmick. Your content is the soul of your website and not the keywords or keyword density. Keywords have to be there on your web pages not for the search engines to read them, but for the users, to make them feel that they are at the right place; they got what they searched for. Search engines are smart enough to know what people will like. I’ll tell you how!
A search engine crawler doesn’t read your content, it only collects it and by some embedded intelligence tries to relate your content to other benchmarks to identify the theme of your content. The collected information is sent to the search engine’s index which is a categorized collection of data collected from millions of websites and web pages. Search engines are programmed to show good quality content in their results.
Optimal keyword density gimmick explained
Keyword density generally pertains to the number of times a keyword has appeared in your content. The content should be written naturally with the topic or subject in mind and not the targeted keyword in mind. If the content is written naturally then the keyword density will no longer be the pinch and you could write what you want to, for your visitors.
If your visitors like the content, so will Google, Yahoo, Live or any other search engine.
The math is simple. If you write an article naturally you will anyway end up using the keyword a few number of times. You can’t write a 300 words article about apples without using the word apple or apples or it’s synonym a few number of times. That’s it! There is no hard and fast rule for a keyword to appear a fixed number of times in your content. It is only the quality and relevance of the content that matters.
How will this content writing strategy help?
Good content will always be appreciated by people and then it will also receive votes (back links). Every vote counts and every vote helps in building your website’s image in the eyes of Google or any other search engine.
A real human visitor will actually read your content, understand it and based on that decide the quality of your website. And based on this decision the user will either want to stay on your website, subscribe to your content or simply exit and never come back.
Now, what makes more sense? Real people liking your content and wanting to read it more and more and return to your website or a programmed crawler or a search engine? Of course real people.
To keep in mind while writing content
The content written about a topic, say apples, should never read like -
An apple is red from the outside. From the inside, an apple is watery and juicy. An apple a day keeps the doctor away. Apple helps build immunity. Apple also cleans teeth and strengthens the gums.
Two words for such piece of information – bull shit. This is unwanted information and the last thing I or you would want to read if presented in such a way. Mathematically it will lead to high keyword density and that is why search engines hate content with high keyword density, because we humans hate that too.
So, there’s nothing like an optimal keyword density. Just keep your content plain and simple for your visitors because if you can make people love your content then Google & Yahoo will also show their affection for it.
The curry is served!
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4 Responses to “Optimum Keyword Density is a Gimmick!”
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I totally agree with you Abhishek. People are still considering Keywords density, but this is a wrong SEO mindset. It does not make sense anymore, since Search engines are using Latent Semantic Indexing.
While I can’t say there is no improvement in rankings to be gained from manipulating keyword density, I will wholeheartedly endorse your view that the focus should be on providing excellent content and not changing copy to “improve” keyword density.
Taking the non-tweaker approach to SEO seems to deliver much greater longevity of high rankings as well.
In our case we’ve kept our rankings for over 4 years with a focus on core SEO techniques and great content.
The bonus? Because the content isn’t a bunch of repetitive nonsense our conversion rate has improved right along with our traffic volume.
Karl,
I agree with your statement completely
“Taking the non-tweaker approach to SEO seems to deliver much greater longevity of high rankings as well.”
That is what SEO is, quality content for your visitors and then for the search engines too.
Thanks for supporting the view.
Re:Philippe
I am glad you think so. And yes Latent Semantics are far more advanced than mere Keyword Density.