Understanding Keyword Density: Everything You Need To Know

While keyword density was once the holy grail of SEO, times have changed. Today’s search engines are smarter, and so are successful SEO strategies. 

That’s not to say keyword density is a metric you don’t need to consider in your on-page optimization. You just have to be more strategic about using keywords effectively without compromising the quality of your content or your site’s rankings.

Let’s take a look at how the SEO landscape looks for keyword density right now, and the best way to use it to optimize your content.

What is Keyword Density?

Keyword density is a term used in SEO to analyze the number of times a specific keyword or phrase appears in your content relative to the total number of words. It’s typically calculated as a percentage using this formula:

(Number of times the keyword appears / Total number of words) x 100 = Keyword Density

Back in the day, if your keyword density was too low, it could imply low relevancy for search engines. On the other hand, if it was too high, it could imply keyword stuffing.

Does Keyword Density Matter for SEO in 2024?

At present, Google’s algorithm tends to focus more on context and semantics and current SEO practices focus on targeting topics, user intent, content quality, and overall relevance rather than strict keyword ratios.

Google has become smarter over the years and understands that “car business” and “automotive business” are the same. If you calculate keyword density based on an exact match of the target keyword, one of these terms will be left out.

However, keyword density still plays a role in understanding how effectively you’re targeting your primary keyword. It can also be helpful for monitoring your content to keep it focused and relevant to the topic, helping search engines and users quickly grasp the main topic of your page.

Keyword Density & Google’s Algorithm Updates

Over the years, Google has rolled out several major algorithm updates that have significantly impacted how keyword usage affects search rankings:

Panda

Launched in 2011, this update targeted low-quality content, including pages that used keyword stuffing to improve their rankings. It emphasized the importance of unique, valuable content over keyword-focused writing.

Penguin

Prior to the Penguin update in 2012, best SEO practices for keyword density typically resulted in over-optimization of content, leading to poor readability. The Penguin update specifically targeted manipulative link-building practices and over-optimization, including excessive keyword use in anchor texts.

Hummingbird

When Google released this update in 2013, they never published an explainer, but SEO experts found this update improved Google’s ability to understand context and user intent. Since this update, Google’s algorithm has placed less emphasis on exact-match keywords and prioritized more natural language use, making it easier to use keyword variations and related terms while still effectively targeting your focus keywords.

These algorithm updates collectively shifted the focus from how many times a specific keyword appears on the page to overall content quality and relevance. That’s not to say keywords aren’t still important, but they should be used naturally within high-quality, informative content that addresses the user’s needs to have the best chance of improving your position in SERPs.

How to Optimize Content for Focus Keywords

Despite keyword density not being as important as it once was, how and where you incorporate your focus keywords still plays a big role in your SEO strategy. 

A focus keyword is the main term or phrase you want your page to rank for in search engine results. It should be the primary topic of your content and reflect what your target audience is searching for when they’re looking for information related to your page.

Trying to improve your page’s keyword density score can lead to keyword stuffing, where you cram your content with focus keywords and often has a negative impact on the readability of your content. This lowers the quality of the user experience of your page and visitors are far less likely to consume your content in full, which can harm your rankings. 

Instead, aim to create high-quality, informative content that naturally incorporates your focus keyword and use keyword synonyms, related terms, and long-tail keywords that are semantically related to your focus keyword. Using keyword variations also helps you create more natural, diverse content while still maintaining relevance to your topic.

Not only is this practice better for on-page optimization, but it allows you to target multiple keywords with one piece of content.

Here’s how that looks in practice.

If you use your focus keyword as the seed keyword in our Keyword Explorer tool, you’ll get a list of related keywords that you can weave into your copy as keyword variations, long-tail keywords or contextually related keywords. 

For example, let’s say your focus keyword is ‘meditation in the workplace’. Incorporating keyword variations like ‘workplace meditation’ and ‘corporate meditation’ into your content allows you to expand your focus keywords to capture a wider range of search queries related to your topic.

Your focus keyword has a search volume of 40, whereas the two related keywords you’ve found to include have a search volume of 320 and 70, respectively, so that increases your reach to keywords with a total monthly search volume of 440.

How to Improve Keyword Density

As we’ve mentioned, keyword density isn’t necessarily a metric you should place too much importance on. That being said, there are some methods you can use to improve your keyword density score without impacting the quality of your content.

In addition to incorporating your focus keyword naturally into your main written content, you can incorporate it into the following on-page elements to boost your score:

• Title tags: Include your focus keyword in your page’s meta title, ideally near the beginning, for the most SEO impact.
• Headings: Use your focus keyword and variations in H1, H2, and H3 tags to place more importance on these terms over other written content.
• Image names and alt text: Incorporate your focus keyword for your image name and naturally in your alt text for an easy win without impacting readability.

Summing Up Keyword Density

Understanding how to incorporate keywords into your content effectively is still best practice when it comes to on-page SEO. When it comes to keyword density, we recommend keeping an eye on your score as you work on your on-page optimization, making sure it isn’t so high its verging on keyword stuffing, or so low that the page’s topic isn’t clear.  

Using tools like Keyword Explorer to find long-tail keywords and semantically relevant alternative keywords will keep your content feeling natural and help reduce a high score, whereas using less obvious on-page elements, like your images, headings and page titles, can help increase a low score. 

Above all, focus on creating high-quality, in-depth and relevant content for the best chances of ranking.