How Can I Improve My Keyword Density?

Having the proper keyword density mixed with keyword prominence will help search engines determine what words are the most important to your page. Search engines look at your density to conclude what words in your content stand out the most.

Keyword density is usually calculated by taking the number of words on a page and then dividing the amount of times we see your keyword by the total. So if your word shows up 10 times and there are 200 words, that word’s density is %5. Seems pretty simple, huh.

Where it gets tricky is when you are trying to capture the long tail keywords. All big companies who have a lot of money and a ton of web presence are always going to be able to monopolize the single keywords. The competition for these words is like going up against an 80’s Mr. T when you are a 90’s Pauly Shore (or a Pauly Shore at anytime). That is why you have to concentrate on getting the most searched long tail keyword terms. These are the mixes of your favorite terms that contain 2-4 words. So instead of going for search optimization, we might go for Vancouver search engine optimization.

Now this is where keyword density gets a little harder. You want to keep your density around 5% for 2 words, 5% for 3 words and 4% for 4 words. But trying to do that and make it look organic can cause some problems. So for 2 word keyword terms, you take the total words on the page and divide that by 2. You then add up all the times you see your two word keyword term together. So if you see your 2 word term 5 times in 400 words you only see a density of %2.5…you might want to double the amount of times you include it in the copy.  

There are many keyword tools out there to help you find what terms are the most prominent on your page. I recommend using a few different ones as some go through stages of being broken. Just search for keyword density tool and remember that comparing is always good.