Oct 28 2009
How SEO copywriters calculate ideal keyword density
How do we, as SEO copywriters, calculate ideal keyword density?
The truth is, we don’t bother.
Writing for people
Writing web content isn’t a science. It’s not about percentages, it’s about engaging people. The paradox is that if you write with people in mind and not solely for the search engines, you will be more successful in terms of search engine optimisation.
While it’s always a good idea to include keywords in the content you produce, the exact density is a very minor consideration. You could spend hours trying to gauge the optimal percentage of keywords, but the benefits are likely to be outweighed by just one additional inbound link.
If you write useful or enjoyable content, people will link to it and if people link to that page from a relevant website, your article and your site will naturally start to rank higher.
But don’t neglect keywords
This isn’t to say that keywords aren’t a consideration. Google will only know what your page is about through the words that you use. Include keywords in titles and use them where relevant in the text. This shouldn’t be difficult, but if you’re writing on a certain topic, your keywords should, by definition, be difficult to avoid.
Context is king
You should also ensure that you use other words and phrases with a close relationship to your keywords.
Have you noticed that when you perform a search on Google, you get “searches related to…” at the bottom alongside a list of other searches? Google is increasingly interested in the relationships between words and as its algorithm becomes more and more sophisticated, this is likely to have greater significance. Your web content needs to reflect this.
Alex Bowden
Writer/editor
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