Is 2% *really* the minimum keyword density?

I stopped looking at keyword density in 2011. The key now is semantic keywords. Obviously, if you are writing semantically (which you should) then you are going to have a lower density. So, I totally believe you when you say your writing turns to crap above 2%. It should!

That is one reason kw density is out (my opinion only). Google is now scoring the relationship between keywords within content, not the number of instances an exact phrase appears on a page.

That is general info and not SEOpressor info, though.

I've never said this before , keyword density is the same as keyword stuffing, Google dealt with that years ago.

Don't keyword stuff, looks like crap & serves no purpose for SEO.

Use keyword themes (related keywords), which will probably happen on it's own when writing normal text.

Given Matt Cutts's recent warning, I would be more worried about maximum keyword usage instead of minimum.

Watch this

As others have said (and I wouldn't take even Matt Cutts' word as gospel, it's in his best interest to keep some things close to the chest) keyword density takes care of itself when the content is written well. I wouldn't worry about exact figures. Typically I just read my articles and make sure that A) It sounds natural and B) My keyword and related keywords are mentioned a few times throughout. Keyword stuffing is easily detectable, and should be avoided.

I agree.

But I have had terms rank when I only mention them once in an article right at the beginning, but cause the same term is in the title and in heading tags, it is easy to know what the site is about.

As long as it sounds and looks natural mention it as many or less times as you feel is neccessary, but if you go by Cutts video, then you don't need to mention the term more then 2/3 times.

The concept of 'keyword density' is largely obsolete nowadays, and has been for a while. Just throw in your keyword a few times and be sure to just write naturally. Don't worry about a percentage or number of appearances of the keyword.

I once had a website that I wrote articles for. I didn't have a single care in the world for KW density because; 1) its just too tedious to maintain a certain percentage and 2)my article would just read like crap.

The website ranked no problem at all.

No. 1 Percent is. And I've seen people rank with even lower.

The main idea is to write for the readers and not for SEs. If the readers find your article interesting and well written the chances are they will promote it to their network and your site will start getting more traffic.

I personally don't really care about KW density and don't tell my writers to care about it either. What I usually ask is good content that makes sense to users and a well crafted article that readd well. I'm usually below 1% and it never really affected me at all. As long as you have your keyword in h tags, title, etc. you should be good to go!

Mister Rex, could you explain "Google is now scoring the relationship between keywords within content"? Thanks.

Worth a read

http://www.warriorforum.com/adsense-...ffing-not.html

It's highly dependent on the keyword. You can get away with using a single "root" type keyword a lot more on a page than you can a 5 word long-tail. Look at most retailer pages... they'll have the root single keyword on the page hundreds of times often enough. But put "best 50th anniversary gifts for grandma and grandpa" on a page 100 times and you'll be -950 for that phrase almost for sure.

Keyword density...I don't even think about that. I just focus on providing value to the reader.

I agree with most of the posters on this thread -- think of 2% as a max, not a min. Google has publicly said they don't want "over optimized" sites, and I suspect they have lowered the threshold for keyword stuffing.

Keep your writing natural -- for humans -- offering real value. Avoid spun content.

I think it is totally fair and right to have the keywords in there a reasonable number of times, depending on the length of the post/article. I personally go for 1-2%. For a 300 word article, that's 3-6 times. The shorter the article, the less I go out of my way to go over 1% very much.

Having related keywords in your writing is very wise. Google is making more and more use of these. LSIKeywords.com is a *free* (love that word!) resource that can tell you the keywords that it finds on other top sites for your keyword. Consider these in your writing - it helps to make sure you are using common terminology that others are using as well. Again, though, don't overdo it -- write for the human readers, and just be friends with Google.

There is no minimum keyword density for SEO, in fact you can easily rank a keyword these days without even having the keyword on your page, search engines are getting smarter about overall themes of your website content and ranks your more naturally

keyword density is not all that important. Just dont do like 20 percent and dont do .1 percent.

I try to keep my keyword density around 2-3% but in the long run I dont think it is the most important factor at all when it comes to SEO. I do it because I dont think it hurts to work on it, but it's really not something that I overthink.

Right now one of my site is ranking #1 for it's targeted keyword and has 2.01 keyword density. That's all.