Ever meet someone who was just too much? They wore too much makeup; sprayed too much cologne; spoke too much about the same thing; you get the picture.
Too much of anything is annoying, and too much use of a keyword in your site’s copy is no exception.
Yes, it is a wise optimizer who uses relevant terms throughout a Web page’s content, tags, and titles, but not to excess. And this is not about Keyword Stuffing, that tried-and-failed, spammy, black hat crud that destroys a site’s reputation by hiding keywords all over the place to trick spiders. This is about using restraint; less is more.
So, how much is too much?
I’ve yet to hear of a magic, one-size-fits-all approach to proper keyword density. Some say that no more than 10% of copy should be keywords (and they’re right, keyword density of 10% looks ridiculous; see below), while others believe that you should use keywords as often as makes sense. Though it’s unabashedly vague, I’m partial to the latter. Just do what makes sense. If you read your optimized content and think it might be too much, then it probably is.
Let’s consider the following two excerpts, each optimized for the keyword “book” (the keywords are highlighted in red for emphasis). The first shows a keyword density score of 2.75%, while the second’s score is 8.77%.
The Bumby Book Shop
The Bumby Book Shop first opened its doors in 1926. Founder Willard J. Bumby was an avid reader and hoped to provide the children of the town with a wealth of reading resources. From its humble beginnings, when only children’s books graced the shelves, Mr. Bumby soon recognized the need to equip townspeople of all ages with literature. To that end, The Bumby Book Shop expanded, eventually occupying a city block of store front, providing all works from picture books to Shakespeare. Mr. Bumby passed away in 1976, but his son and daughter continue the tradition and love of reading they learned from their father.
The Bumby Book Shop
The Bumby Book Shop opened its doors in 1926. Book shop founder Willard J. Bumby was an avid book reader and hoped to provide the children of the town with a wealth of book resources. From its humble beginnings, when only children’s book titles graced the book shelves, Mr. Bumby soon recognized the need to provide a book for townspeople of all ages. To that end, The Bumby Book Shop expanded, eventually occupying a city block of store front, providing book supplies from picture books to Shakespeare. Mr. Bumby passed away in 1976, but his son and daughter continue the tradition and love of reading they learned from their father.
Not only is excerpt number two a bit over-the-top, it clearly violates the number one rule in SEO: optimize for the user. When a keyword saturates every nook and cranny of a page’s copy, readers are distracted from engaging with your site. Instead of learning more about your company’s products or services, they’re inundated with meaningless word-junk.
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Nice job, Joanna!
Very interesting read. I’ve never done much directly with percentages of keyword density. I’ve always just written what sounded the best from a reader’s perspective around a certain topic (ie. keyword) and that has worked out well.
You’ve gotten me thinking about this in different ways though and in doing a bit of research, WebProNews states that they feel that Google wants no more than 2% while MSN & Yahoo are more lenient at around the 5% mark. Granted, those numbers are a few years old.
I’ve gone back to some old personal posts that I’ve written and ranked well for in Google and that I would consider almost spammy. Surprisingly enough, each of these weighed in at less than 2% when put through a keyword density checker.