Is Keyword Density Dead Why It’s Not, And What You Can Do About It

It is, according to a lot of people. In fact, it seems that keyword density has been dying out an awful long death, because some people are claiming it just died last year…and some claimed in 2009 that it died in 2008…and some in 2008 claimed it had been dead ever since 2007…
These bringers of bad tidings are often the same affiliate marketers and “IM gurus” that will tell you AdSense is dead, or that the Internet marketing niche is not a good one to get into…
I’ve also had plenty of clients who cared about keyword percentage only because they didn’t want Google to think their pages were spammy. It’s a legitimate concern in itself-but often a misinformed one in certain ways. These clients typically like to keep their density below 3%.
The Other Side of the Keyword Density Coin
Then I have other clients who’ve experimented on their own and found out what percentage works best. 90% of the time, these business owners and SEO directs want to start at 3%.
The truth is, the “best” keyword density varies with each market-and often with each keyword. It can also vary according to where you publish your work–Ezinearticles and other directories typically want to see a lower density than you can get away with on your own sites. They have good reasons for this–just like there are often other good reasons for you to exceed this percentage on your own sites.
All you have to do is check the first page of Google for many terms (CTRL+F in Google Chrome will give you the quickest answer), and you’ll see that keyword density is not by any means dead.
(Do this enough times and you’ll see that the pages listed on Page 1 of Google may have wildly varying keyword percentages. This is sometimes true, and just goes to show that the number of times you work a key phrase into your content, is just one of many on-page SEO factors.)
Checking the first page of Google isn’t the only way to figure out what density is best for your keyword; it’s just the first step. Proper research takes a little while. And while it’s not most exciting research you’ll ever do, it will make the rest of your project or campaign much easier.
How You Can Deal with a Difficult Client?
Of course you’re going to run in to clients who don’t care how much expertise you claim to have-they want what they want because they’re scared of Google’s SPAM-stamp. And who can blame them? Google is a scary beast, and they have to be able to call the shots in their own business. Of course, they should probably listen to people who know better…
Any which way about it, it’s a frustrating situation. It sucks to have someone hire you-then tell you that you won’t be allowed to do your job to the fullest. And when things don’t work out like they want, you can bet they’ll blame you before they blame themselves!
But this situation doesn’t have to be a disaster. Even when your hands are partially tied by your client, you can still provide good on-page SEO. Even if you have control over nothing but the content, you still have several other on-page SEO tools & tricks at your disposal
How to Save Your Client’s Content-In Spite of Your Client
Times like this are when you should make double-sure to use keyworded subheads on the page. I try for at least three, as long as the content allows for it. Put your main keyword in one or two of them, and a good secondary keyword or two in a couple if at all possible.
If you can work with the designer or webmaster, make sure he or she will put these subheads in H2, H3, etc. instead of just in bold print (although you should also bold each keyword at least once in the body text). This will get a little more mileage out of each keyword occurrence.
Speaking of designers and webmasters, they can come in pretty handy in this step. They are usually responsible for ensuring all images have search engine optimized titles and alt text. They are also generally in charge of putting your client’s keywords in the URL, keyword meta-tag, and title tag. Make sure that they do.
(“Aha!” someone’s going to say. “But Google doesn’t care about this tag anymore!” This may (or may not…) be true, Yahoo and Bing do still seem to care. The keyword tag can definitely help you with the Yahoo-Bing complex, which comes to about 1/3 of all U.S.-based searches!)