Keyword density
The purpose of this article is to show you how to get keywords into your webpages and how to moniitor it...
Sections in this article
- Introduction
- What is the correct keyword density?
- Copywriting tips
- How do I check keyword density?
- Checking keyword popularity
- Competitor backlink keywords
- Folder and file name keywords
Introduction
Every webpage on your site is talking about something like “Diving watches” for example. Your keywords for this page will of course be “Diving watches”. But, you also want to try and cover 1 or 2 more keyword terms per page if possible.
The best idea for this "Watch selling" site would be:
- Term 1 – Diving watches
- Term 2 – Buy diving watches
- Term 3 – Cheap diving watches
See how all the terms are related but different in their own right? By covering different terms like this and optimising the keywords on the page and anchor text on both internal and external links, will help you to rank higher in the SERPs.
What is the correct density?
Well, that is the million dollar question. I would say try and go for at least 5% keyword density on your page but make sure it reads well!.
Keyword density needs to be in all of the following areas.
- Meta title tag.
- Meta keywords (your choice, Google don't use them, Bing use them to catch spammers!)
- Meta description.
- H1, H2 and all the rest of the tags.
- Title tags on links.
- Alt tags on images.
- Image names with the keywords.
- In the website copy (text) of the web pages.
If your competitors have 6% density and they are sitting above you in the SERPs, you could try and go for 6.5%. But, remember, the copy has to be readable. Don’t put too many references to your keywords in there if the copy does not flow properly afterwards.
Also, if you stuff keywords in too much then you are likely to get some form of penalty with Google’s algorithm now, or in the future if they tighten this ranking caveat.
Copywriting tips
When writing copy for your website, talk about the product you want to sell or subject that you are discussing quite often and use appropriate keywords or synonyms where you can.
Refrain from writing:
- We can…
- It is…
- The item is…
Always use your company name, product name & subject that your keywords are based on wherever you can. This will increase the relevancy of this page for your keyword term.
If you want to try and get some more words in your copy, based on synonyms of your keyword, then do that as well. These words will be in the right neighbourhood of your page's topic and will do you no harm.
If you are lacking a mental synonym dictionary then type your word into Microsoft Word and press SHIFT + F7. All the synonyms for this word will appear. Just choose the one that fits best.
How do I check keyword density?
To check for keyword density is simple. You just need to download an SEO plugin for your web browser. See the article on Browser plugins for information on how to show keyword density.
Once you have an SEO plugin installed, there will be an option to show Keyword density, in the case of SEOQuake, you left click on the icon and choose Keyword Density. The screen will then show you all the 1 word, 2 word and 3 word “keyword” terms that you have on your page, with a density figure next to them. Just keep tweaking your page until you hit the percentage that you are after.
Also, if you’re clever about this, you can do the same thing on a competitor’s site and see what their density is and also see if they have any other keywords on their page that they are ranking for, that you have not used yet. Sometimes, if you can’t beat them, join them:-)
Checking keyword popularity
Google have a tool called the Adwords Keyword tool. The tool shows you how competitive keywords are at the moment and who is bidding on them in paid search (PPC). See the article on Keyword research for more information on this.
You will be able to see what’s hot and what’s not in search land, both locally and globally. If you run a Pay Per click campaign (PPC) you’ll know that keywords with a high competition rate cost quite a lot extra per click!
Competitor backlink keywords
If you want to see which keywords your competitors are going after for certain pages on their sites, the easiest thing to do is follow the steps below.
- Go to http://www.backlinkwatch.com/index.php
- Copy and paste the competitors web address into the box
- Click on the Check Backlinks button
Depending on the number of backlinks a website has, this could take some time! Once the report has been generated, you will be able to see all the links coming to that page and the anchor text used. These are the keywords that you might want to consider if your competitor is ranking higher than you.
SEOmoz have some great tools for doing this also. Get a free 30 day trial here.
Folder and file name keywords
As well as having a great domain name with hopefully 1 or 2 of your keywords in, you also need to name your folders and files properly.
- Folders are essentially the category your products fall into. i.e. /Diving/
- Files become your product. i.e. /3000-meter.php
- Put it all together and you have:
- www.active-watches.xyz/diving/3000-meter.php
See how all the keywords come together and you cover 4 major keywords to be searched for? Adopt this practice and you won’t go far wrong.