Content Keywords a.k.a. Keyword Density

[Laustin1878]

I'll start by stating that I strongly dislike the term, keyword density. I was researching some terms and noticed a few competitors websites outranking the site I was researching for. It was a broad term without a geo-identifier. If I change my search location to the town where the business resides, we rank. Looking at GWT for my site, I quickly realized that the keywords I was searching were not appearing in the content keywords in GWT.

Being that I cannot see GWT for the competitors, I used a tool from SEO Book (Free Keyword Density Analyzer Tool) to see if this had anything to do with it. Sure enough, both competitor sites have a higher keyword density for the search term than my site, so this tool says.

Has anyone factored in keyword density to their content plans lately? I know it's frowned upon and your content should be more for users and readability but this tool seems to fit what I was thinking... my site lacks the use of the search term where these other sites have it more consistently.

 

[Eric Rohrback]

Are you using your target term on page or are you substituting it out with more synonyms? Curious how the content is laid out.

 

[Laustin1878]

Frankly, the term doesn't appear much on the page or the site. One of the pages is targeting the root term along with one other term.

The content for the page is more in a bullet format as it describes a service and its features, with a short intro paragraph of 2-3 sentences.

I'm gathering this is why the site isnt in the search results for said search but I do not consider keyword density one bit when providing content advice. I always advise to write for the search engines but when I write the page content, I try to keep the search engines in mind as well. Hard to explain that to people who are not familiar with keyword density.

Is local being looked at differently when it comes to keyword repetition?

 

[Margaret Ornsby]

I've seen the keyword in the URL, Page Title, H1 and/or business name make a noticeable difference with local SEO, but haven't yet come across a case where the density in the content makes a difference.

Is this USA based? Wondering if this is attributable to pigeon-poo?

 

[djbaxter]

I don't think keyword density per se has ever been a real SEO factor but as WonderWoman says having the main keyword(s) matching in title and page content is critical. The URL is, in my opinion, still a factor but not quite as critical as it was a few years ago; that said, every little bit helps. Similarly, H1 tags have been overused and so have fallen in importance (along with bolding and emphasis tags) but I think H2-4 tags around keywords IF used properly in subheadings can still make a bit of a difference. In the content, repeating it a few times in a natural way ("build pages for readers not search engines") is still recommended but don't overdo it to the point where it looks spammy or manipulative.

Don't be misled by the various keyword density tools around. They have been there for 10 years or more and SEO sites still have them for people who want them despite the fact that the metric itself is pretty much a non-issue.

 

[leadjoint]

It was a broad term without a geo-identifier. If I change my search location to the town where the business resides, we rank.

I would primarily consider keyword density as a factor only while auditing the site for checking over-optimization. So as far as I am concerned, it is not a 'ranking factor', but a potential 'penalty factor'.

Your client seems to rank for the keyword while including the geoidentifier. But if it doesn't rank for the generic broad term, I would assume it's probably a matter of website authority. Did you look into other areas like the age of the competitors, their domain authority, etc.? It's probably because your client still doesn't have as much authority as the other websites and that is why it drops down when searching for the more competitive broad term without geoidentifiers.

 

[billbean]

What DJBaxter said.

And don't waste pages targeting slight variations in the keyword (e.g. carpet cleaners vs carpet cleaning).

 

[steven]

quick question, do you usually use keyword + city in url?

 

[billbean]

No.

Keyword in domain name can still be beneficial. Use words in the url that are helpful to the user, both concise and informative.

City+keyword in url will not help ranking.