What’s The Optimum Keyword Density + Analyzer Tools

57Shares
  • What is Keyword density?
  • What is the appropriate keyword density for SEO?
  • How much keyword density for SEO?
  • What are the best Keyword density analyzer tools?

In this guide, you will learn everything about the perfect density of keywords you should be using.

At the same time, I highly recommend you to read the following guides to learn everything about this topic:

Why can’t we just blog instead of worrying about search engine visibility?

 Sadly, search engines use the algorithm, and you have to help them understand your content and your site. You need to work on search engine optimization for better visibility in order to get more traffic.

But there’s some good news:

  • SEO is not tough.

With just a few hours and some good study material, you can easily understand the basics.

(I suggest you browse our SEO and WordPress SEO archive where you can get more information about SEO.)

Today, we will be looking into one very important factor of SEO:

Keyword density.

What is keyword density in SEO?

Keyword density is the percentage of the number of times a keyword appears on a page divided by the total number of words in that page.

So if in an article of 100 words you are using your keyword 10 times, your density will be 10%. Many people use different formulas to calculate keyword density (like this one).

Keyword Density =

  • # of keywords / # of total words

But in essence:

Keyword Density percentage =

  • (Number of keywords/ Total number of words) * 100

There are other formulas too, which you can find here.

The reason why you need to place keywords on a page is to make search engine bots understand your content better so you can rank for those keywords.

But in recent days, the density of keywords matters much less than site quality and site authority.

But this doesn’t mean keyword density doesn’t hold any value in SEO. It does. In fact, it’s one of the factors in the on-page SEO checklist.

What’s the ideal keyword density percentage (according to Google)?

Here’s a myth:

  • If we use our keyword many times, we will rank higher in SERPs.

This can actually be bad as Google may treat your page (and your site) as “keyword stuffing” and will lead to an over optimization penalty.

Here’s an example of keyword stuffing:

It’s important to remember two things:

  1. Articles with low keyword density will not achieve the desired results in search engines.
  2. Articles with extremely high keyword density may get your entire website flagged for keyword spamming.

Personally, 1-2% of keyword density along with “semantic keywords” and LSI keywords works best for me.

Google suggests writing natural articles. Again, there is no ideal percentage, but placing your keyword in natural places will work the best.

Check out this video where Matt Cutts busts the density of SEO keywords myth:

In short, you need to keep a good keyword density percentage which looks natural and not stuffed.

This is one of the most common problems I have seen in freelance copywriters. One time I hired an author to write an article around a three-word keyword.

He managed to add that three-word keyword 12 times. That article looked like a big piece of spam.

There are many online keyword density calculators available which you can use to calculate the keyword density. Try to keep your density around 1.5%.

So where should you place your keyword?

  • In the permalink
  • H1 tag
  • H2 tag
  • Meta title tag
  • Start of the article
  • End of the article
  • Add relevant images and use your target keyword as anchor text

Again: Avoid stuffing your article with keywords just to increase keyword density.

Instead, try to place your keyword naturally as it seems necessary.

You can use videos and slides and other media tools to make your content more informative and presentable.

Pointers:

  • Keyword density is useful, but stuffing should be avoided.
  • Articles should look natural.
  • Bold and italicize your keyword and other important “semantic keywords”.
  • Use keyword variations (Ex: Search engine optimization, SEO, search engine ranking).
  • Use LSI keywords.
  • Use a WordPress SEO plugin to check keyword density (or an online tool). You can use a combination of Yoast SEO, and SEO Writing assistant to make most out of keyword density.

Best Keyword Density Checker Tools:

1. SEO plugins (WordPress)

If you are using WordPress, your SEO plugin like Yoast SEO, Rank Math shows the keyphrase density in the post editor section. It shows if the density of your target keyword is optimum or you are overusing it. It takes account of total words on the page, and suggest changes based on that. 

I have found this to be quite accurate, and something you can use for free. 

2. ADD Me Tool

This is another tool that will help you in generating a keyword/phrase density report.

There’s also the option to export your result as a .csv file.

These are a few of the best keyword density checking tools which I have come across. If you know of any more keyword tools, please share with us in the comments section below.

In the end, search engines care most about these other factors for ranking:

  • How useful is your article?
  • How informative is it?
  • How many social signals are your articles getting?
  • How many backlinks are you getting?

There are hundreds of signals which Google considers when ranking a site. Keyword density is certainly one of those signals. Doing it properly will help, but doing it wrong will not be good.

Suggested reading:

  1. Keyword Density Myths
  2. On Page SEO Guide

Was this helpful?

Thanks for your feedback!
  • Save
57Shares
Authored By
A Blogger, Author and a speaker! Harsh Agrawal is recognized as a leader in digital marketing and FinTech space. Fountainhead of ShoutMeLoud, and a Speaker at ASW, Hero Mindmine, Inorbit, IBM, India blockchain summit. Also, an award-winning blogger.

16 thoughts on “What’s The Optimum Keyword Density + Analyzer Tools”

  1. Deepak

    Keyword density shouldn’t be overused, as mentioned in the article above. Totally agree with Harsh. It will definitely lead to penalties. Rather go for clean and customer focused page designs. If they are good and load fast, it will rank better.

  2. preeti patil

    What will happen if i use more than 3% keyword density? Will it affect on my website ranking?

  3. Chinju Rahul

    Thanks for your article. I have a doubt that, can we use keywords in other H tags??

  4. Min Yon

    Now, I’m completing understand the percentage of keyword density, which is difficult to find formula in the google. but after read this article, i know how to put keywords in the articles and prevent spam

  5. Vicky Pawar

    Thanks for Informing I followed all.your shared information and now my alexa rank is improved fast only in 3 days… thanks bro for sharing thia valuable information

  6. Altaf

    My Keyword Density is 5% to 10% or more than in all website but i Successfully Rank without having any issue

  7. hamed

    thanks for your useful information. my website’s life time is smaller than one year. keyword density optimal value, was a question in my mind and i found its answer in your post. good luck

  8. Alberto Rendon

    Hi Online Partner,

    Thanks, you for the things you have shared about SEO…. here I understand little by little about how to optimized a blog. You are of great help.

  9. Swapnil

    I got enough knowledge about keyword density in this one article. But my concern is little different. As the main thing is to write natural useful articles. I am starting a blog where I will write about WordPress theme. So my articles will be like “50 free wp themes for construction business”. So when I will list themes, I will write for 1st point like ” sahifa is best free WordPress theme.” And I have to repeat this several time in list. This is natural and nothing intentional but it will seem like keyword stuffing. What to do in such cases.
    Thank you

  10. Gabriella

    Hey Harsh Agrawal thanks for including “Are Keyword Density Killing Your Article” we are happy it was of good use, and is sharable among your readers!

  11. SajuSEO

    Try to make useful great content, do a research, some analysis. i am sure that you will get the credit for that. Try to make it look natural instead of over optimizing the anchor text. Remember that its we are ultimately optimizing for Users and the users are gonna buy our products not search engines.

  12. Ashish

    Excellent Post.. Anybody who implements these techniques would definitely write a thankyou here after few months..

  13. Surekha

    I think Keyword Percentage is Not Important In Articles U can Write for Users Not for Search Engines ? Really Need To Maintain Keyword Percentage In All Articles In A Website ?

  14. Amal

    Search in plugins section of wordpress.

  15. Somy

    Hi Harsh,
    I think there is a typo in the formula you mentioned above. Rather it should be – No. of keywords / Total no. of words * 100.

  16. Raheel Mushtaq

    From many sources even SEOmoz, i see that keywords density should not be given too much importance now. using in title, h1 tags and description is enough i think.. but the article must be in such a manner that is written for user experience and if you are promoting some brand or product it is sure to come again and again so the density will be higher but i don’t think Google will ban such site which is writing a review on some product and its name comes 5-10 times in 400 words article..!

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Scroll to Top
57 Shares