What Is Keyword Density and How Do I Use It?

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the means by which you hone your site so as to make it as appealing and attractive as possible to the search engines, with the ultimate goal of gaining more traffic. One way of optimizing your site is through the use of "keyword loading" or using the phrase you're trying to attract visitors for a certain number of times on specific pages of your site.

For example: "This site is all about the iPhone" can be carried into the phrase "This site contains iPhone information, iPhone apps, iPhone reviews and iPhone tips and techniques."

Because the keyword "iPhone" is used repeatedly throughout the text, it has a better chance of ranking well in the search engines such as Google or Bing which will be more likely to see the page as being about the iPhone rather than just mentioning the device in an offhanded manner. This is especially true if the word iPhone is used in conjunction with other words, such as the names of specific apps, that people interested in the iPhone are likely to be searching for.

The number of times a keyword is used in a piece of text is called its keyword density. Therefore, a keyword density of 3% means that the keyword will be used 3% of the time in a given article. As an example, the following paragraph has a keyword density of about 10% for the word "iPhone." To achieve this, it must use the word "iPhone" once or twice in every sentence:

"The iPhone was introduced by Apple CEO Steve Jobs on January 9, 2007. The iPhone is a multimedia and internet enabled smartphone. The current generation of the iPhone is the iPhone 4S and is the fifth generation of the popular device. iOS 5 is the current operating system for the iPhone and other Apple handheld devices."

It is important not to overuse the concept of keyword density, because it can lead to boring and monotonous writing. The old "Dick and Jane" readers had a very high density of certain words, but they did not exactly make for compelling reading: "See Spot run. Look at Spot. Run Spot run!" The overuse of keyword phrases in your writing can have the same effect. 

In fact, the article directory EzineArticles.com maintains that the only keyword density that your article should contain is that which comes naturally in the writing of the article. In fact, its automated algorithms will reject any submitted article whose density of any given word is too high.

As an article marketer interested in SEO, what should you do to improve the optimization of your text? You should use your target keyword or phrase in the article title, in the first paragraph, the last paragraph, and a few times in between. That should be enough to signal to the search engines what your article is about. If you overuse keyword density, however, while you might attract the search engines, you risk repelling the reader.