[stanger]

How would you rank keyword density in your articles in importance?

[Jammy]

OMG - back in the day (and I'm talking about before wordpress!) - it was like an exact science.  Keyword had to be in title, H1 tags, H2 tags, on page in bold, again in italics, and in an image, and scattered throughout the article at 2.3% density haha.

Today - title and on the page anywhere once will do the same thing.  I know a lot of content providers will tell you otherwise and they have it just right so you need to buy content from them etc but it's a load of nonsense.  On page isn't as important as it used to be (though it is still important).  Backlinks are more important now than they used to be.

[adamcm]

Jammy, on 06 February 2012 - 12:23, said:

OMG - back in the day (and I'm talking about before wordpress!) - it was like an exact science.  Keyword had to be in title, H1 tags, H2 tags, on page in bold, again in italics, and in an image, and scattered throughout the article at 2.3% density haha.

Today - title and on the page anywhere once will do the same thing.  I know a lot of content providers will tell you otherwise and they have it just right so you need to buy content from them etc but it's a load of nonsense.  On page isn't as important as it used to be (though it is still important).  Backlinks are more important now than they used to be.

I wish I was internet marketing back in the day .

[Blah Blah Blah]

Jammy, on 06 February 2012 - 12:23, said:

OMG - back in the day (and I'm talking about before wordpress!) - it was like an exact science.  Keyword had to be in title, H1 tags, H2 tags, on page in bold, again in italics, and in an image, and scattered throughout the article at 2.3% density haha.

Today - title and on the page anywhere once will do the same thing.  I know a lot of content providers will tell you otherwise and they have it just right so you need to buy content from them etc but it's a load of nonsense.  On page isn't as important as it used to be (though it is still important).  Backlinks are more important now than they used to be.

I beg to differ GREATLY. I have a personal blog that I use just for screwing around and on page SEO as you mentioned has many many of my pages ranking high on the first page of G with nothing else.

[krish]

Post Panda on page factors do play an important role. In fact other factors like speed of loading of a page, social network sharing, LSI keywords etc are some other factors in your control that can make a difference to the ranking.

[scottfarris61]

stanger, on 06 February 2012 - 10:08, said:

How would you rank keyword density in your articles in importance?

I think you should keep in mind that don't use to many keywords in one article.

[stanger]

scottfarris61, on 06 February 2012 - 22:55, said:

I think you should keep in mind that don't use to many keywords in one article.

definitely correct, the article still needs to be readable but also meet your on page SEO requirements. I've been able lately to increase the on page optimization at the sacrifice of the keyword density just to make sure the article on the money site was of quality and a good read.

What I need to do is study some more on keyword density to learn what ways you can add related content to the article to increase the keyword density I just haven't cracked that book yet

[meenakshi0587]

Well keyword density is one of the elements that persuade search engines to bring up a site in search. The preferred keyword density varies from search engine to search engine.

[RobertoMejia]

Out of curiosity, does anyone still pay much attention to keyword density on a page? If you do, what is the density you shoot for?

Edited by RobertoMejia, 10 February 2012 - 10:00.

[akula]

Jammy, on 06 February 2012 - 12:23, said:

OMG - back in the day (and I'm talking about before wordpress!) - it was like an exact science.  Keyword had to be in title, H1 tags, H2 tags, on page in bold, again in italics, and in an image, and scattered throughout the article at 2.3% density haha.

Today - title and on the page anywhere once will do the same thing.  I know a lot of content providers will tell you otherwise and they have it just right so you need to buy content from them etc but it's a load of nonsense.  On page isn't as important as it used to be (though it is still important).  Backlinks are more important now than they used to be.

Before Wordpress? LOL I dont even remember what I did before WP. I remember back in 03 or 04  when I bought some ticket to a blogging summit in Seattle on on whim and the WP team were key speakers. I figured that summit was a waste of money but it really did turn my IM career around to a full time business.

But as for KW density...just don't be stupid. G has come a long way since the strategy Jammy talks about. If you want customers to stay glued to your content then write it so they do.

[MattW]

Hi,

I try to keep my keyword denisty at a minimum.  As long as its in the title and a h1 tag I dont worry but I never let it creep above 3%.  I have some sites that rank for keywords that have a 0% denisty, as in the exact phrase isn't anywhere on the page but scattered throughout a sentence or broken up with other words for example.

There needs to be a certain level of attention paid to onsite SEO in terms of keyword usage, but it certainly doesn't carry as much weight in the algo as it once did.  Perhaps I'll write a more detailed post of post panda best practices from my experience.

It's also worth having a look at competing sites to see what their density levels are at, you might be surprised by some of them!

[RobertoMejia]

I do something similar. I put the keyword on the h1, put it at the beginning of the page/post, and then just write as normal. I usually end up using the keyword and a few variations in the process of normal writing. Then I try to link my pages with keywords as much as possible. I will put the keyword on navigation menus and link all instances of keywords to their respective pages. I don't really look at the density much anymore.

[Juvv]

I think keyword density still plays a big role in one page seo. I also think that LSI also plays its part as well.

If whatever you want to rank for isnt mentioned on your site, why would google put relevance to it? Simple as that.

Unless you are cnn or some other massive authority, I would suspect you cant write an article and randomly drop a keyword unintentionally and rank on the first page.

[RobertoMejia]

Juvv, on 15 February 2012 - 04:32, said:

I think keyword density still plays a big role in one page seo. I also think that LSI also plays its part as well.

If whatever you want to rank for isnt mentioned on your site, why would google put relevance to it? Simple as that.

Unless you are cnn or some other massive authority, I would suspect you cant write an article and randomly drop a keyword unintentionally and rank on the first page.

Using the keyword does matter, but what you described is not necessarily keyword density. You can make your site be relevant paying close attention to keyword prominence and keyword frequency without really caring about keyword density. That is what I was talking about.

I always pay close attention to keyword prominence, and I always end up using the keyword and several LSI keywords several times. However, I don't ever even calculate the actual keyword density percentage.

[Juvv]

I agree, I didnt say anything about calculating percentages. As long as your page mentions what you want to want for a few times it is usually picked up. Especially in the top 2 paragraphs I have found too.

[GeorgR.]

I think context relevancy (which also means LSI and related keywords) as well as a good size (500+ words) is more important today.
But for the main keyword is still use 2%, usually.

[MattW]

Juvv, on 15 February 2012 - 14:22, said:

I agree, I didnt say anything about calculating percentages. As long as your page mentions what you want to want for a few times it is usually picked up. Especially in the top 2 paragraphs I have found too.

I agree, I usually try and place in the last paragraph as well.

[Ted]

In my opinion, Google is only using keyword density as a spam filter for over-optimized pages.  Otherwise, the KD as a percentage of page content means nothing.

You get extra SEO points for every time your KW appears exactly.  You get extra SEO points for every time the individual words in your target phrase appear on the page even if they aren’t connected in the right order.  But, you don’t get any points for having a density of 4% instead of 3% or something similar.   You get points for the number of times your keywords appear and where they are on the page and whether there is anything special about how those kw appear – bold, italics, larger font, hyperlinks, ALT tags, etc.

If you over-optimize the page by having the keywords appear too often, then your page is demoted due to over-optimization.

I have not conducted tests to determine what percentage triggers that.  But, I know it exists because I have tripped it on more than one occasion with pure white hat sites.  There is a trigger in there somewhere.
EzineArticles.com thinks that percentage is about 5% which is why they limit your KD to that.  (I think they may have changed that to an even stricter, lower percentage since Panda.)  I happen to think that Google sets the threshold a bit higher than 5%.

[Jammy]

I just happened to come across this video today.

Edited by Jammy, 28 February 2012 - 10:49.

[Eric Conklin]

Jammy, on 28 February 2012 - 10:46, said:

I just happened to come across this video today.

So if my Matt Cutts translation on SEO is accurate, I'm pretty sure that

1. There is a secret keyword density that works the best, probably like 20 percent
2. There are no diminishing returns. Spam away and rank better!
3. Make sure the person is annoyed by the keyword by getting the same phrase on the page as many times as possible

Is this right you guys?