Why keyword density is a waste of time

[nick1123]

I know some of you may disagree with this but when you’re writing an article I believe that worrying about the keyword density is a waste of time.

If you’re writing a good and informative article about a particular subject then you will naturally have your keywords show up in the article as well as some of its synonyms.


3% to 5%

Now I’ve heard people say that you should have the keyword density of between 3% and 5%. To me this seems ridiculous!

Has anyone done the math on this?

%5 would be very high. That’s 1 in 20 words. A 400 word article would have the keyword 20 times!

%3 also seems very high to me. That’s 1 in 33 words. A 400 word article would have the keyword 12 times!


Focus on good Writing

Instead of worrying about keyword density just focus on writing good informative articles about your particular topic.

I would make sure that your keyword did appear a couple times but beyond that I don’t think it really matters.


Search Google for your keyword

If you’re still really paranoid about keyword density then do a Google search for your keyword and analyze the keyword density of the top 10 search results and use that as a baseline for what you should do.


I know some of you will strongly disagree with me and that’s okay.

[Andyhenry]

Hi Nick,

I agree - and disagree

You're definitely right that trying to stuff a certain keyword into an article can ruin in, however - Incorporating LSI keywords wherever they naturally fit definitely helps as far as getting organic traffic is concerned, so ignoring keywords is not wise.

So I agree about stuffing the keyword being bad - but I don't think you can write naturally the best article without also factoring in what the LSI terms are and incorporating them where they work.

Andy

[DonDavis]

LSI? Isn't that so 2008?

[Andyhenry]

Originally Posted by DonDavis

LSI? Isn't that so 2008?

Well I'm not a guru so I didn't see the need to give it a new name and write a product about it

[JayXtreme]

LOL @ Andy...

As a sidenote..

LSI is very valuable when it comes to search engine ranking... saves your skin at times when you need to keep the flow of the content more natural..

I'd rather go for 1% inclusion spread over 3 closely related and naturally inserted keywords than attempt to stuff 1 single keyword into an article for that same 1% inclusion...

Peace

Jay

[mattinertia]

Originally Posted by davelincoln

Stompernet, and Leslie Rohde, did a recent video debunking LSI. I don't know if it's true or not, but I know Leslie is a VERY smart guy so I tend to believe it. But either way, I think it's irrelevant.

The big 3 to ranking pages is a) Title Tags b) Anchor Text pointing to Page c) Pagerank of page. There are disagreements about the value of PR, I chalk those up to the discussion of toolbar pagerank. There's no way that Google's definition of true pagerank is not still important. The entire algorithm is based on who links to you and who links to them. It's impossible to remove it.

But anyways, having said that, alt tags and keyword density are 2 things that I think are virtually meaningless. If you're writing a topic on "Blue Widgets", I think you naturally will have target kewyords and related keywords in the body copy.

I used to worry about that, now I just worry about the value of the content. I have worked on improving high bounce rate pages to realize that goofy looking SEO'd headlines with tons of keywords in the body are enough to send visitors packing.

So even if you can get a few extra visitors through your keyword density strategy, what's the point if they end up leaving once they hit your page.

Good post and i agree about the PR thing completely... although totally off topic!

Keyword density doesnt mean anything for rankings anymore, fact!

I still think LSI is important and i think Google are fully aware of similarities between different textual content. LSI should be discounted tho coz it's one of those things which is all about evaluating the natural flow of text and subjects. So if you write about something with knowledge and passion you'll do what LSI is looking for.

[Andyhenry]

Originally Posted by davelincoln

Stompernet, and Leslie Rohde, did a recent video debunking LSI. I don't know if it's true or not, but I know Leslie is a VERY smart guy so I tend to believe it. But either way, I think it's irrelevant.

The big 3 to ranking pages is a) Title Tags b) Anchor Text pointing to Page c) Pagerank of page. There are disagreements about the value of PR, I chalk those up to the discussion of toolbar pagerank. There's no way that Google's definition of true pagerank is not still important. The entire algorithm is based on who links to you and who links to them. It's impossible to remove it.

But anyways, having said that, alt tags and keyword density are 2 things that I think are virtually meaningless. If you're writing a topic on "Blue Widgets", I think you naturally will have target kewyords and related keywords in the body copy.

I used to worry about that, now I just worry about the value of the content. I have worked on improving high bounce rate pages to realize that goofy looking SEO'd headlines with tons of keywords in the body are enough to send visitors packing.

So even if you can get a few extra visitors through your keyword density strategy, what's the point if they end up leaving once they hit your page.

Perhaps I should've said "related niche keywords which you would like to be found for" rather than LSI, I just figured people know what LSI is so it's easier to put 3 letters than say that

I don't care what you call it, and I don't care about what anyone else says about its importance - I only care about what gets me results and factoring this stuff in makes sense and gets results, so LSI, whatever - I stand behind my comments because the only thing a searcher has is a box to input keyword phrases - so having them in your content where they naturally fit just makes sense.

I agree with you generally about the focus on the content, but I think you can do worse than factor in what keywords you want to be found for and have them handy whenever you're writing for your website, just so that you 'naturally' use them when you may not have thought to otherwise.

Andy

[NichePro]

I tend to agree with you.
I have tried it both ways, and I did not see a big difference between them.
The keyword density may help in your Google efforts, but I prefer to write to the people, not to the machine.
They seem to be more responsive that way.

[Steven Carl Kelly]

Originally Posted by davelincoln

Stompernet, and Leslie Rohde, did a recent video debunking LSI. I don't know if it's true or not, but I know Leslie is a VERY smart guy so I tend to believe it. But either way, I think it's irrelevant.

Here's a (non-aff) link to the video:

Latent Semantic Indexing is Lame | StomperNet

[AndyBlackSEO]

I agree with Andy and Jay. It's not just about the keyword itself, but related keywords that google finds linked to your keyword on other sites.

This tells google that the article may be of some quality. I realised that keyword density didn't really affect rankings anymore ages ago. Some top ranking sites have had 12% and others 1.1%. I know there are many other factors involved here but still.

Natural writing is key providing your chosen phrase is in the maybe once or twice.

What I have noticed lately with tests I've being doing is that having your keyword phrase right at the start of your main body content helps with rankings. I've analysed and studied this and it definately helps. Do a search on google for various phrases and the majority of them will have that phrase near the start of the main body copy.

Link building is great, if not tedious... But there's much more to increasing your rankings than building links.

[kayelex]

I am glad you made a post on this. I know I have sat in front of an article before trying to get that magic 3% and trying to shoehorn a keyword in a sentence that sounded "just ok". Using the LSI keywords along with the main keyword helps me write a much more natural article. I still have that keyword density in the back of my mind, but it is at the bottom of the list of things I worry about when writing the article. My thinking is I can always throw a link or two to the article to give it a nudge if I really want to.

[Kevin Riley]

Originally Posted by Andyhenry

Well I'm not a guru so I didn't see the need to give it a new name and write a product about it

I've decided it shall now be called CoolWords and I'm releasing a WSO tomorrow called How To CoolWord Your Articles For Massive Server-Melting Traffic That Will Have Buyers Lining Up To Dump Bundles Of Cash In Your PayPal Account.

[esericsu]

I like to keep my keyword density to 1% to 2% max. Writing good articles and have others link to your articles is the best way to get ranked by google.

BTW I think LSI is overrated.