Is Keyword Density Dead?

November 18th, 2011

It is, according to a lot of people. In fact, it seems that keyword density has been dying out an awful long death, because some people are claiming it just died last year…and some claimed in 2009 that it died in 2008…and some in 2008 claimed it was 2007…

These bringers of bad tidings are often the same affiliate marketers and “IM gurus” that will tell you Adsense is dead, or that the Internet marketing niche is not a good one to get into…

I’ve also had plenty of clients who cared about keyword percentage only because they didn’t want Google to think their pages were spammy. It’s a legitimate concern in itself–but often a misinformed one. These clients typically like to keep their density below 3%.

The Other Side of the Keyword Density Coin

Then I have other clients who’ve experimented on their own and found out what percentage works best. 90% of the time, these business owners and SEO directs want to start at 3%.

The truth is, the “best” keyword density varies with each market–and often with each keyword. All you have to do is check the first page of Google for many terms (CTRL+F in Google Chrome will give you the quickest answer), and you’ll see that keyword density is not by any means dead.

(Do this enough times and you’ll see that the pages listed on Page 1 of Google may have wildly varying keyword percentages. This is sometimes true, and just goes to show that the number of times you work a key phrase into your content, is just one of many  on-page SEO factors.)

Checking the first page of Google isn’t the only way to figure out what density is best for your keyword; it’s just the first step. Proper research takes a little while. And while it’s not most exciting research you’ll ever do, it will make the rest of your project or campaign much easier.

How You Can Deal with a Difficult Client?

Of course you’re going to run in to clients who don’t care how much expertise you claim to have–they want what they want because they’re scared of Google’s SPAM-stamp. And who can blame them? Google is a scary beast, and they have to be able to call the shots in their own business. Of course, they should probably listen to people who know better…

Any which way about it, it’s a frustrating situation. It sucks to have someone hire you–then tell you you won’t be allowed to do your job to the fullest. And if things don’t work out, you can bet they’ll blame you before they blame themselves?

But this situation doesn’t have to be a disaster. Even when your hands are to some degree tied by your client, you can still provide good on-page SEO. Even if you have control over nothing but the content, you still have several other on-page SEO tools & tricks at your disposal

How to Save Your Client’s Content–In Spite of Your Client

Times like this are when you should make double-sure to use keyworded subheads on the page. I try for at least three, as long as the content allows for it. Put your main keyword in one or two of them, and a good secondary keyword or two in a couple if at all possible.

If you can work with the designer or webmaster, make sure he or she will put these subheads in H2, H3, etc. instead of just in bold print (which you should also do at least once for your primary and secondary keywords). This will get a little more mileage out of each keyword occurance.

Speaking of designers and webmasters, they can come in pretty handy in this step. They are usually responsible for ensuring all images have search engine optimized titles and alt text. They are also most likely the ones in charge of putting your client’s keywords in the URL, keyword meta-tag, and title tag. Make sure that they do.

(“Aha!” someone’s going to say. “But Google doesn’t care about this tag anymore!” Well, they say they don’t. And while it doesn’t seem to make a whole lot of difference with them, the keyword meta-tag is definitely worth paying attention to when it comes to Yahoo/Bing.)

The Final Steps to On-Page SEO Content & Copy

You probably already know that you should have your main keyword in your headline, in the first sentence or two, and somewhere close to the end, as well. And most people will understand you when you say it can be useful to throw the main keyword into the article a couple of times.

But you can also enhance your main key phrase by throwing in a couple of strong secondary ones, and pumping them up to roughly the same keyword density.

Finally, don’t forget to link out! That is, when it’s possible. Sometimes it won’t be.

Many webmasters and business owners are still afraid of “giving away link juice” by lining to an outside site. And when you’re talking about a business’s home page, lead-gen, or direct mail-style sales page, off-site links are rarely appropriate.

But many pages can benefit from a well-placed Wikipedia link. Believe it or not, Google really likes to see you sharing the wealth. The Big G generally tends to have more trust in sites that link out towards non-commercial, high-trust sites like Wikipedia and Google Knol.

(As you probably already know, it’s a good idea to turn your keyword into the anchor text for this link, when at all possible.)

On-Page SEO is Still Possible–Even when Your Client Builds a Fence Around You

If you follow all of the steps above, you should have pretty darn good on-page SEO for the content or copy that you write. In fact, all the steps I mentioned above, will often outdo a page that only has keyword density working for it.

All the same, though, it’s always great when you can take a screenshot of your client’s competition, that shows the competitor’s (better-ranking) page with keywords highlighted (our good friend Google Chrome again).

If that still doesn’t help, then hopefully this article will.

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