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Optimum SEO Keyword Density – A Real-Life Case Study
By Glenn Murray | Advertising Copywriter & SEO Copywriter (c) 2005

So you've built your website, you know what keywords you want
to target (i.e. what words your customers are searching for),
and you're ready to write your copy. You've been told that you
should use your keywords frequently so that you appear in search
results for those words. But what does "frequently" mean?

How many times should you use your primary keyword? This case
study helps answer that question.

Some Background on "Keyword Density"

In order to understand optimum keyword usage, we first need
to have some way of measuring keyword frequency. In the Search
Engine Optimization (SEO) world, frequency is actually referred
to as density. Keyword density is a measure of the number of
times your keyword appears on a page expressed as a percentage
of the total wordcount of that page. For example, if your page
has 100 words, and your keyword phrase appears 5 times, its
density is 5%. So when you hear someone say "keyword density",
that's normally what they're talking about.

(TIP: You can automatically check the keyword density of your
page at http://www.live-keyword-analysis.com.)

However, there is another, more complex measure of keyword
density which takes into account the text components in the HTML
of the page (i.e. the meta tags: Title, Keywords, Alt Text,
Description, and Comments). When using this measure, you don't
just count the words your visitor sees; you also count the words
in your meta tags. For example, if you have 100 words on your
home page, 10 words in your Title tag, 20 words in your
Description tag, 70 words in your Alt tags, and 10 words in your
Comments tag, your total wordcount for the page is 100 + 10 + 20
+ 70 + 10 = 210.

Similarly, when counting keywords, you don't just add up the
number of times a visitor will see your keyword, you also count
the number of times that keyword appears in your meta tags. For
example, if your keyword appears 5 times in the home page copy,
3 times in the Title tag, 5 times in the Description tag, 30
times in your Alt tags, and twice in your Comments tag, your
total keyword count is 5 + 3 + 5 + 30 + 2 = 45. So with a total
wordcount of 210 and a keyword count of 45, your keyword density
is 45/210 x 100 = 21%. It is argued that this measure of keyword
density is more relevant as the search engines measure density
in this fashion.

(TIP: You can automatically check the keyword density of your
page using this more complex measure at
http://www.gorank.com/analyze.php.)

As you can see, you need to be very aware of which measure you're
talking about when you're talking "keyword density". But let me
reiterate; mostly when people talk about keyword density, they're
talking the simple measure.

What is the Optimum Keyword Density

And now down to business... What keyword density (of either kind)
should you be targeting on your website?

There's a lot of debate surrounding this issue because the
search engine companies don't disclose the details of their
algorithms (as that would allow people to abuse the system).
Instead, people working in the SEO world are left to figure it
out based on their experience.

A recent article by respected SEO and Blog expert, Wayne Hurlbert,
(http://www.webpronews.com/news/ebusinessnews/
wpn-45-20050501KeywordDensitySEOconsiderations.html)
suggests that Google sees pages with a keyword density of
greater than 2% as spam. It was this article which prompted
me to analyze the keyword density of my copywriting
website.

CASE STUDY

The Website: This case study analyzes the website for my
advertising copywriting and SEO copywriting business, Divine
Write – http://www.divinewrite.com. For my primary keyword, my
site is now on page 1 of Google.com (out of approximately
900,000 search results).

Number of pages on site: At the time of writing, my website
contained a total of 53 pages.

Primary keyword phrase: "copywriter"

Average Keyword Density: Using the simple measure of keyword
density discussed above, the average keyword density of my
copywriting website is 1.9%. Using the complex measure it's
4.9%.

Keyword Density Range:  Using the simple measure, my density
ranged from 0.4% to 7.6%. Using the complex measure it
ranged from 1.6% to 17.5%

Some comments on the figures:

• The figures and corresponding ranking detailed in this case
  study may not be directly relevant to every site. There's a
  lot I don't know about the algorithms and there are bound to
  be other factors at play which I don't know about.

• With regard to Wayne Hurlbert's article, it would seem that
  he is referring to keyword density as calculated using the
  simple method discussed above.

• The range figures are noteworthy because they suggest that
  you don't need to be paranoid about having some pages with a
  very high density and some with a very low density.

Conclusion

A simple keyword density of 1.9% can be enough for a first
page ranking in Google.com (assuming you have enough quality
backlinks – see http://www.divinewrite.com/SEOCEO.htm and
http://www.divinewrite.com/seoarticles.htm for more
information).

Happy SEO writing!

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Glenn Murray is an advertising copywriter and SEO copywriter and
heads copywriting studio Divine Write. He can be contacted on
Sydney +612 4334 6222 or at mailto:glenn@divinewrite.com. Visit
http://www.divinewrite.com for further details or more FREE
articles.
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