How many keywords are sufficient in SEO-friendly content? What is the maximum number of keywords you can use? What happens if you overuse the keywords in your text? Our beginner’s guide to keyword density and keyword density analyzers answers all these questions. We will cover the basics, which will help you to ensure your keyword strategy is correct.
Keyword density – Definition
Keyword density or frequency is the repetitions of a keyword in the content compared to the total number of words. It’s generally defined as a ratio or a percentage. High keyword density means the particular keyword appears more on a webpage.
What is the importance of keyword density?
Keywords are one of the most important parts of an SEO or digital marketing campaign. An optimized design and Informative content are not enough nowadays. However, relevant keywords help you to overshadow your competitors and stand out. Therefore, the ranking of your website automatically increases.
SEO significantly depends upon relevant keywords. So, research for terms and phrases that can help you rank higher. A high rank improves user engagement and boosts your business revenue.
Do you know why keywords are important? Because they are one of the best ways to search for a product, service, and everything else. Whenever online users browse search engines like Google, Bing, or Yandex, they type a keyword to show their intent. Afterward, the search engine displays the results depending on the keyword.
Still, you cannot stuff your content with relevant keywords. Keyword stuffing is a black-hat SEO practice that results in penalization and removal of your site from SERPs. Let’s talk more about it.
What is keyword stuffing?
The practice of updating low-quality content with higher-than-average keyword density is called keyword stuffing. The idea here is to confuse the search engines like Google so that they can rank the website higher. It’s a black-hat SEO technique and is no longer tolerated by Google.
During the initial days of search engines, a lot of content creators, firms, and SEO professionals used to write low-quality text. However, they stuff the content with keywords and links containing similar information. The readers were not satisfied with this approach. Hence, search engines improved their technique to show the search results. Now, the web pages overstuffed with keywords are penalized by Google.
What is the keyword density formula?
After knowing about keyword density, you might be eager to know its formula. Well, it’s simple. divide the number of keywords by the total number of words in the content. For instance, if you have content of 1500 words and you use a particular keyword 10 times, the keyword density is 10/1500 = 0.015. Multiply the outcome by 100 to know the percentage, which is 1.5 in this case.
We have another formula to measure the keyword density, TF-IDF (term frequency-inverse document frequency). The trick is to calculate keyword density on particular pages (TF) against the number of times this term appears across all the pages of your site (IDF). The result helps you to understand how relevant is the keyword for these pages.
What is the perfect keyword density?
We do not have a thumb rule for keyword density. However, most SEO professionals and experts suggest the usage of a particular keyword once or twice after every 100 to 200 words. The repetition of the keyword depends upon your content. However, most search engines like Google prefer content with a keyword density of 0.5 percent.
The keyword variants have equal value. So, you can use phrases and words that are not your primary keyword but are similar to it. For instance, if you own a site to sell outdoor lights and your high-value keyword for SERP is outdoor lighting solutions. Stuffing a post with the keyword “outdoor lighting solutions” reduces its value instead of improvement.
Therefore, you can use terms and phrases that are not the exact keyword but are close to them. So, for the post on outdoor lighting, you can also use keywords like garden lighting, patio lighting, deck lighting, or landscape lighting to enhance your website ranking on search engines.
If you are unable to find keyword variants, then Google is a perfect help. Check the bottom of your search to see “searches related to”. Google has developed this section to provide you with similar terms according to your primary keyword.
Keyword density analyzer
You can check the keyword density using the formula we discussed above. However, the calculation is time-consuming and could be a challenge if your site has multiple posts. It is also hard work if your site expands and you have to update it frequently. A keyword density analyzer could be helpful in such a situation. Some of the best options are mentioned below.
- Surfer SEO
Surfer SEO uses a formula to check the keyword density and recommend how to optimize your content. Not only the density but this tool checks for all other factors required to make your text SEO friendly. For instance, it ensures the correct usage of headings, internal links, and related keywords.
Surfer SEO comes with a content editor to help you write high-quality engaging content. It also assists in the improvement of previously created posts. Moreover, this application has a free version to use. So, you can check all its features without any worries.
Price: Free version available. The premium plan starts from $49 per month.
- Seobility
Seobility is a website audit tool for analysis and optimization. It checks your website to report technical errors, content issues, and on-page SEO. This application has a standalone keyword density checker, which analyzes the existing content on your website and suggests improvements.
Seobility helps you create SEO-friendly content to attract more visitors. Once you enter the target keyword, it gives you hundreds of phrases to include in the text. Moreover, this application provides information about ten competitors. Hence, you can understand how often they use the keywords.
Price: Basic plan free. Premium starts from $50 per month
- Keyword Density Checker by SEO Review Tools
The Keyword Density Checker is an easy-to-use keyword density checker. Enter a URL, and select the option of I am not a robot to know the keyword repetitions. However, this application does not offer in-depth analysis.
SEO Review Tools Keyword Density Checker uses a color warning to show the high presence of keywords. So, you can easily reduce the keyword density. Moreover, it also shows the number of keywords by word numbers. You can include or exclude the keywords according to the results.
Price: Free
- SEMrush
SEMrush is an incredible application for SEO, social media marketing, content marketing, and competitor research. It comes with multiple PPC and SEO tools to improve the results of your digital marketing campaign. This software has a built-in algorithm in its SEO checker to analyze the existing pages of your website, compare them with your top ten competitors, and suggest the usage of the keywords accordingly.
SEMrush recommends terms and phrases to increase the visibility of your website. In addition, it has an SEO writing assistant to review and evaluate your content. The assistant suggests the usage of keywords, phrases, and terms to boost its readability and SEO-friendliness.
Price: Starts from $119.95 per month
- Keyword Density Analyzer by Seobook
Seobook Keyword Density Analyzer is free to use, but you need to create an account to enjoy its features. Apart from analyzing the keyword density, this application allows you to search for a particular keyword in Google, shows five of your competitors using the same keyword, and analyzes yours to see how it can perform.
The Keyword analysis application by Seobook lets you include your meta description and helps you to exclude stop words like a, does, the, etc. It also allows you to set a minimum word length. Hence, you can get words that have a certain number of characters.
Price: Free
- SEOlyze
SEOlyze is a tool for website monitoring and optimization. Sign Up on its website to enjoy a trial of 30 days. After registration, you can access several content analysis functions based on the algorithm of TF-IDF.
SEOlyze compares your platform with ten of its competitors for a particular keyword to show you the weight of your keyword, recommendations of other phrases/words you can use, and relevant keywords for better performance. Moreover, it checks the readability of your content and also compares it with your competitors. What’s more? This application comes with a Content Creator to check your content and suggest improvements.
Price: 39.90 pounds per month
- Copywritely
The keyword density checker by Copywritely displays the frequency of the keywords and codes them with different colors. It’s a perfect tool for beginners. However, this application does not have any option to exclude stop words and meta descriptions.
Copywritely is the perfect keyword frequency reviewer if you need a fast and easy-to-use application. You can sign up on its website for a free trial. The premium plans are available according to the number of pages you check every month.
Price: Starts from $29 per month (for 50 pages)
Final thoughts
Now you know everything about keyword density, keyword stuffing, and keyword density analyzer. Use relevant keywords to boost your SERP ranking and improve the value of your site. However, balance the keyword usage. Assess the keyword frequency on your website to make it SEO-friendly and avoid penalization by search engines. Take the help of the application we discussed above to ensure the appropriate distribution of keywords.
