I still see SEOs, including some well-known ones here in Hawaii, pushing Keyword Density as a key to rankings.
They claim to analyze pages and then craft incredible SEO content that has the perfect amount of repetitions of a keyphrase to catapult you upward in the rankings.
Unfortunately they’re selling outdated and even blatantly wrong ‘search expertise’ to their clients.
It’s absolutely true that you want your keyphrase(s) to appear on a page, and in key places. However, the days of reaching a point where the search engines register a Jackpot and lift your rankings are long gone.
So what do successful, knowledgeable SEOs do?
For years now, quality SEO copywriting has integrated terms that have the same meaning as the keyphrases you’re targeting.
For example, if your keyphrase is ‘Honolulu Car Sales’, you’d also see in the text phrases like ‘Deals on autos in Honolulu’ or ‘Oahu car deals’. It’s about copy that is natural, not stuffed.
If you don’t believe me, then you should listen to Matt Cutts, Google’s official mouthpiece about rankings and best practices for search engine optimization.
He recently made clear that the Google bots also take in account those synonyms for your keyphrases when ranking sites. They want to see variation, not endless repeating of one phrase.
In fact, he made it clear that there was a point where they considered it keyword stuffing if they saw the same collection of words over and over.
In short, they want well-written content, not the equivalent of a piano playing the same note again and again.
So if an SEO tries to sell you on Keyword Density, it’s time to look elsewhere for someone to handle your search engine optimization.
It’s your business we’re talking about – Remember?