Keywords and Keyword Density

Although the general consensus is that Google does not give very much weight to the keywords meta tag for indexing purposes, the tag is still worth using as it is not completely ignored by modern search engines. The keywords used here will add to your overall keyword credit for those search terms. Keywords should always be researched before deciding which ones you are going to use by determining the following factors:

1 Are they relevent to your site content?
There is no point having “beans” as a keyword if your website is about sausages! The keywords must be mentioned in your content. Keyword density is a means of determining the relevence of a site for a given keyword and it is worked out by calculating the percentage of that keyword against your total website content. There are many theories regarding the “ideal” keyword density, it is generally accepted that around 1% is sufficient for google to index your site as relevant although 2 to 5% is deemed as the ideal density range.

2 How much traffic does the keyword carry?
There is no point being number one on Google for a search phrase that nobody
uses!

3 How competetive is the keyword and can I beat the competition?

Google is thought to index websites for relevent terms by using posting lists, to return the sites most relevant to a users search, by means of content analysis.
Below is an example:

Using this example, Pages 4,6 & 8 would be returned for a search on the keyword “blue pen” as they mention both words.

Keyword density checker