Search Engine Optimization: Is Keyword Density Still a Thing?

In this blog, we’ll talk about a classic search engine optimization topic: keyword density. We’ll take a look at its current role today and how that has changed over the years.

The old days

In the old days, keyword density was everything in regard to SEO. Businesses would write their entire websites in such a way to capitalize on this.

This, of course, led to some terrible content. Businesses were writing for search engines and not for real people. Google eventually realized that its emphasis on keyword density was leading to sub-par websites. It then changed course.

Keyword density today

Nowadays, keywords are less important. The only question left is whether they’re even necessary at all.

According to this recent Forbes article, keywords might not be as important as they once are, but they’re still an essential component of SEO:

“So does that mean you shouldn’t focus on keywords at all? No, but they are almost certainly less important now than they’ve been historically. Even though 18 percent of top-ranked pages don’t have the searched keyword in the body, the other 82 percent still do. Plus, for high-volume keywords, the vast majority of pages had keywords in their titles, descriptions, bodies, or some combination of the three.”

Relevance is everything when it comes to keywords. If you just shove keywords in your content and they sound unnatural, then they won’t have any impact on your site rankings.

But if you write good content around relevant keywords, then you’ll likely be in a good spot. Users from your target audience will search for those keywords and Google will direct them to your site because of its relevance and good content.

SEO isn’t as simple as it once was, so keyword density doesn’t carry the weight it used to. But it’s still worth considering in your SEO campaign. To talk more about search engine optimization, keyword density, or anything else, contact us today.