It is still relevent and should be used in your content plans. Id' stick the around the same upper limit. I myself don't measure this as an exact science, so just make sure I get the keywords I want to target in the copy 2 or 3 times at least.

I try and aim for about 2-4 occurences of the exact phrase in a 500 word article and it seems to work well. Just make sure it does flow and it written naturally. Also remember that you may have keywords with anchor text as links in the navigatione etc so that may increase the kw density.

Just my 2 pence!

Blah. Pick a few phrases then write around your keyword themes. If you are worried about ranking for specific phrases based on how many times you incorporate those phrases you are totally wasting your time and your writing will reflect it.

Case in Point:

Search sent 5,745 total visits via 3,175 keywords

See how many different keywords sent me traffic to this site?

Do you think I "optimized" for 3,175 Keywords?

Mmmm okay. I pick keyword themes. In this case this site is in the Automotive Niche. And I pick a topic and write, and the words just fall into place. And that's how you do it.

Onsite factors have little to do with ranking anymore. Google has access to billions of webpages and they can create software that can "pull" what your topic is about. Attempts to influence the keyword density will make no difference. And that's just how it is.

Rather than focus on keyword density, I make sure my targeted phrase is in a H1 tag, I try to incorporate it into my first paragraph (first sentence if possible), and also use it in my last paragraph.

Placing them in this manner shows that the keyword or phrase is important, and a central theme to your page. It has seemed to work for me!

these people who say it is not relevant, have nothing else to talk about in their blogs.

It is even more important now because of the volume of spamming that is going on