SEO FAQ: How Many Times Should I Use Keywords on a Page?

How often should you use keywords on a webpage? This is one of the most common questions in onsite SEO, and it doesn’t have a hard-and-fast answer. But you can use keywords in a way to benefit a page’s SEO!

Learn how from Internet marketing specialist Laura Dye below!

Transcript Hi – my name is Laura Dye and I am an Internet Marketing Specialist here at WebFX. Today we are going to answer the question – How Many Times Should I Use My Keywords on my Web Page?

So how do we measure the number of times we use our keywords on our web page – we measure it with keyword density. Keyword density is defined as the percentage of times a keyword or phrase appears on a web page compared to the total number of words on the page. So great!

You may be saying – well then what does my keyword density percentage need to be on my web page? I’m glad you asked. There is no magic keyword density percentage or number of times to use your keywords on your web page.

As Matt Cutts, former head of the web spam team at Google explained in 2011, there is no hard-fast rule, and that still holds true in 2017. The 1st or 2nd time your keyword you mention a word that might help with your ranking but just because you can say it 7 or 8 times it doesn’t mean it will help you. And if you use your keywords too many times you get into keyword stuffing with refers to the practice of loading a web page with keywords or numbers in an attempt to manipulate a site’s ranking in Google search results. So what are we to do?

1st we write copy that is long enough to naturally work our keywords in. When writing copy for a web page you want your copy to sound natural, conversational. I would never say in a conversation – my blue shoes are my favorite blue shoes of all the blue shoes in the entire world!

However, I might say – my blue shoes are my favorite sneakers in the entire world! Sounds more natural and that is how your web copy should sound – I would suggest you read your copy out loud or have someone else read it out loud or you can even use a chrome extension to read the text out loud — all of this will help you determine how natural does my copy sound. 2nd we write copy with semantic search in mind.

What is semantic search? Semantic search seeks to improve search accuracy by understanding searcher intent and the contextual meaning of terms as they appear in the searchable data space, whether on the Web or within a closed system, to generate more relevant results. Why is it so important?

Well, Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. Google looks at several things to return the best results such as location and search history in addition to Synonyms and Variations of words, Context and co-occurrence. Let’s break it down.

Synonyms and Variations

Remember my blue shoe example? I said My blue shoes are my favorite sneakers in the entire world! Sneaker and Shoes.

Context

When writing copy is it best to ask yourself what information does the user coming to my page need. How can I best answer their questions? For example, if we are an HVAC company, and we are writing copy on our AC Repair Services our users need to know our service area and types of AC Repair we offer, residential, commercial, emergency.

Not only will the user get the information they need Google will better understand your web page.

Co-Occurrence

When you hear the words Africa, Animal, Mammal, King of the Jungle? What do you think of?

A Lion! When writing copy it is important to include these types of associate words related to your topic to help Google better understand our content. If I didn’t have any of these associate words in a content piece Google might think the page title The Lion was not about the animal but the movie.

So stop counting keywords and focus more on writing natural content that answers your user’s questions helps Google understand your web page topic because that copy is more likely to rank and capture organic traffic.