Keyword Density

We can't emphasize enough the importance of including keyword-rich content on your site to increase your ranking potential. Simply put, keywords are the words and/or word phrases people use when searching. As we've mentioned throughout the site, search engine spiders love content. Therefore, the more keyword-rich content you have, the better. When a search engine spider crawls your site, it won't recognize pictures or images.

So, if you have limited amounts of text (or none at all) and you've got a lot of beautiful pictures or Flash animation, the spider may deem your site unworthy of listing.

What Is Keyword Density? Keyword density is the ratio of a keyword or key phrases to the total number of words on that page. It is one of the most critical aspects of successful search engine optimization. To improve your search engine ranking potential, your keyword density must be just right. To calculate your keyword density, divide the total number of words on your page by the number of times your primary keyword or key phrase appears. Keyword density is critical when outlining the keyword portion of your search engine optimization strategy.

Naturally, there is a fine line between strategically scattering these keywords throughout your content versus grouping them all together, separated by commas. The latter is known as spamming and you will get penalized for doing it. Don't think you can fool the search engines -- they have the technology to figure out these little tricks. Using Keyword Density To Improve Your Search Engine Ranking The best way to increase your search engine ranking potential is to develop your keyword strategy by researching the most relevant (and most searched for) keywords or keyword phrases before you even begin building your site. So, you've already built your site? No worries -- you should still consider reviewing the keywords you have selected and make any necessary changes to your meta tags and site content. No matter how nice your site looks, you won't get high search engine rankings without the right keywords. And remember, if your site has a lot of graphics or Flash animation with little content, we encourage you to consider a redesign. We understand that most site owners who fit into this category have spent a lot of money for these beautiful sites, but what is the purpose if they aren't getting the high rankings?

That being said, here are a few tips on using keyword density to maximize your search engine ranking potential:

1. Use our Search Term Suggestion Tool (powered by Overture) to research your keywords. This powerful tool will direct you to the most popular keywords for your specific business based on how many times that keyword or keyword phrase is searched for each month. You can then take that information and develop your keyword strategy based on those results.

2. Incorporate these keywords or keyword phrases in your meta tags as well as your site content. People often forget that search engines will spider the heading meta tags first because they preceed and stand out from your main site content.

3. Write keyword-rich content that not only satisfies the search engine algorithms but is equally informative for customers visiting your site. This is the most difficult part of writing your content - but also the most critical.

4. Try to write at least 300 words for each page on your site. Again, the more content you have the better chance you will have to include those all-important keywords you diligently researched and ultimately selected.

5. Too often we see content saturated with too many keywords that, as popular as they may be, just don't relate to the site itself. Avoid doing this - it will only irritate potential customers.

6. Web sites should be updated on a regular basis -- don't let them go stale. Add new products/services, update users with new information and tools, do what you can to change your content (keyword-rich content, that is!) and keep users coming back for more.

About The Author

As Submit Today?s copywriter and editor, Kristy Meghreblian has written online content for many successful companies, including Monster.com. She has successfully combined her excellence in journalism with the delicate art of keyword density as it relates to search engine optimization. As a result, she has helped many Submit Today clients achieve top ranking. Submit Today is a leading search engine optimization, submission and ranking company located in Naples, Florida.

kristy@submittoday.com

More Web Design Articles

3 Simple Ways To Dramatically Improve Your Website
Before you start worrying about marketing your website on the internet it always pays dividends to look at the website itself and get the fundamentals right before looking to shout about it from the virtual mountain-tops.You may already have thought about the following 3 ways and some of you may already have them in place on your website.

Speed Up Or Lose Out! How To Improve Your Websites Download Speed
So your web site's online and you've got high rankings in the search engines attracting lots of visitors. But the statistics tell you most of them are leaving after viewing just one page, what's gone wrong?One possible cause could be a slow download speed of your web site's homepage or the web site as a whole.

Breathe New Life Into Your Half-dead Website By Using Words That Sell
This article may come as a surprise to you.Especially since it is written by a web designer.

How to Create A Homepage That Works
Want to know what the worst thing to say on a homepage is?"Welcome to our homepage." And yet, time after time, we all come across such homepages on the Internet.

Content is Crucial!
Content is undoubtedly the most important element of a website. It is the defining factor for a website, that which catches the interest of your visitors and keeps them hooked to your site.

Top Six Ways To Make Your Visitors To Hate YOU!
We will take a look at why your visitors may hate you maybe already do! There are many things that make YOUR visitors dislike you, but we take a look the top sex things that make your click the back button on their browser.1.

How to Make Your Site Attractive to Potential Link Partners
Every now and then, I receive a link exchange request from someone who wants a link from my directory (my high-ranking directory directly accessible from the index page), and in exchange, they're willing to link to my page from one of their zillions of link pages about 18 jumps away from the home page. Needless to say, the proffered page has a Google PageRank of 0, and chances are it's not even indexed by any search engines.

Size Does Matter!
In this article we will be looking at why you should keep your web page size small.As any good webmaster knows you should keep the web page size small, but why? It's really simple, both spiders and visitors hate web pages that take forever to load because it's harder to spider the web page or for the visitor they just don't have time to wait for your web page to come up, after all most web sites are not that great, so why wait if your the visitor?You should keep images down in size, the best way to do this is with image compressors.

Web Design: Use it to Showcase the Message
If you are designing a web site for which the achievement of high conversion rates is a priority, focus your design efforts on showcasing and highlighting the content and copy.For sites where conversion rates are a priority, the primary purpose of design should be to present the message in such a way that it delivers the maximum impact.

Caveat Scriptor: Use the Advice of Those Who Know Before You Build a Site
~A man [woman] is a success if he [she] gets up in the morning and gets to bed at night, and in between he [she] does what he [she] wants to do. Bob Dylan~I?m smart.