Keyword density

Keyword density is the percentage at which a specific keyword appears relative to the total number of words on a page. Marketers once thought that a higher percentage automatically led to better positions, but modern search engines have long looked at meaning rather than repetition.

Does keyword density still count?

Not in the way people once thought. There is no magic percentage that guarantees your rankings. Google understands the context of your text through the relationships between words, not through counting keywords. Stuffing a page with the same keyword (keyword stuffing) is even counterproductive: it reads poorly and can harm your positions.

Far more important is that you answer the search intent and treat the topic fully with semantic keywords and natural variations.

So what should you watch for?

Write for the reader first and foremost. Use your most important term in logical places, such as the title, a subheading and the opening sentence, and let the rest flow naturally. In addition, incorporate long-tail keywords and synonyms that match how your audience actually searches.

A page that is too thin is, incidentally, a bigger risk than too low a keyword density: thin content that offers little value does not rank anyway, no matter how often you mention the keyword.

How we view this

At Customer Impact we do not waste time optimizing a percentage that Google largely ignores. We focus on content that genuinely helps your potential customer forward, because that is what leads to contact requests and revenue. During a content audit we look at completeness and relevance, not at a counter. Honest, useful content always beats a keyword trick.