05 May 09 SEO SIMPLIFIED – Keywords in Content Part – I

Content is the reason why users will come, and content is the reason why you have started the website or more precisely it is the content because of which any media exists. We consume media to get something, some information, or knowledge from it. An interesting-to-read and relevant content is what we need to put on our website to pull and retain visitors, and we need to write the content using the keywords for which we have optimized our websites. There are four key considerations that we need to keep in mind when using keywords in the content. These four elements are very important, so you need to pay extra attention to these. Let’s discuss them one by one. In this article we will talk about Keyword density.

Keyword Density: In the simplest term Keyword density refers to the number of times a certain keyword or key phrase has been used in the content. This is calculated in the percentage term. For any kind of content you should eye to maintain the keyword density of between 2% and 7%. If the keyword density is below 2% then the search engine will have hard time noticing the content, and the content will be overlooked (considered spam), if the keyword density of your content is more than 7%.

Suppose you have written a 300-words article using the keyword “marketing eBook,” and you have used this term 12 times in the article then the keyword density of “marketing eBook” is 4%. To get to this figure, we have used the following formula:

K_N = (K_D X W_N)/100

Where,

K_D = Keyword density

K_N = Number of times a keyword has been used in the article/content

W_N = Total number of words

Now, Let’s take an alternative view. You have written an article of 500 words using a certain keyword, and you want to achieve a keyword density of 5%. Now, the question is how to find how many times do you need to use the keyword to achieve 5% density? To do this, you can use either of the two formulas written below. The first formula is nothing but the reverse of the above one.

K_N = (K_D X W_N)/100

Where,

K_D = Keyword density

K_N = Number of times a keyword has been used in the article/content

W_N = Total number of words

Alternatively, you can multiply the total number of words by 0.05 to get the number of times you need to use the keyword to achieve 5% density. In the above example, you need to use your keyword 25 times to attain a keyword density of 5%.

To calculate the keyword density of 2%, 3%, 4%, 5%, 6%, or 7 % using above formula, you need to multiply the total number of words by 0.02, 0.03, 0.04, 0.04, 0.05, 0.06, and 0.07 respectively.