SEO 101: Keyword Density - How Important Is It?

Keyword density is usually expressed as a percentage. If the total text on a page is 100 words, and your target keyword appears on the page ten times, your keyword density is 10%.  The "correct" keyword density can vary widely, in part depending on competitive realities and the associated degree of difficulty in ranking for that search term.

There are tools for analyzing keyword density (see below) and it might be interesting to use a keyword density analyzer early in your learning curve, but unless you're in an extremely competitive niche, and have exhausted every other tactic, there may be better ways to spend your time.

The rationale for keyword density analysis (KDA) is usually something like this: if you want to rank well for a target keyword, you look at the top ranking sites for that keyword, analyze the keyword density on their pages, and emulate what they're doing. Some SEO's recommend automating KDA to calculate an "average" keyword density across 'x' number of competing pages to arrive at an "ideal" keyword density target.

Other highly successful SEO's will tell you that they haven't used a keyword density analyzer in years. Does this mean that keyword density is no longer relevant? No, not really. It's just that search engine algorithms have shifted over the years to a point where links and anchor text (both internal and external) play such a big role that you can easily end up wasting a lot of time on KDA when in fact it might only play a minor role for a top-ranking page. There are just too many examples of pages that rank well with little or no presence of the target keyword on the page - simply due to the quantity and/or quality of inbound links.

I would suggest that keyword density is mostly a matter of common sense. You want to use your target keyword(s) throughout your page with appropriate prominence and frequency. Assuming that the site in question actually has to make sense to visitors, it might be a good idea to write naturally for those visitors, and work your target keywords into the natural flow of things. But… make sure that the "natural flow" includes that keyword in the title tag and heading tags, that it occurs early in your text and is sprinkled in reasonable doses throughout the page, including paragraphs, possibly in bulleted lists and anchor text, and maybe bolded where appropriate.

Then… let a little time pass, and see where you rank. You may not hit the top ten on your first try, but before you go back to the drawing boards and start obsessing over keyword density, take another look at those top ranking sites. Dollars to donuts it's more about their links than their keyword density.

That said…

If you've never played around with a keyword density analyzer it can actually be an enlightening experience if you're fairly new to SEO. Here are a few better known ones:

GRSoftware GRKda - Keyword Density Analyzer

Ranks.nl Keyword Density, Prominence & Placement Analyzer

Bruce Clay's SEOToolset

Ranks.nl has a free option and an affordable annual subscription, so it may be the best bet if you're just trying to get started. The Bruce Clay KDA comes as part of a suite of tools that has a higher price tag. One possible drawback on GRda is that it's a downloadable app for Windows only, whereas the others are web-based and platform-independent. I've used them all, and my preference has usually been based on what was best for the specific task I was trying to accomplish.