Webwriting may seem boring and uncreative, but in reality, writing texts for SEO requires a lot of experience and flair. Your content should include keywords, but if you overdo it, search engine robots may detect so-called keyword stuffing, an unethical practice that will lower your site’s search engine ranking. But what is the right keyword density, or keyword density? If you don’t have time to analyze it, just contact me – I will take care of phrase selection and content development for you.

How many keywords should be included in the text?

There is no rigidly fixed number of keyword repetitions that is recommended for SEO. Keyword stuffing is detected by indexing robots operating according to Google’s established algorithms. Instead of focusing on counting phrases, it’s a good idea to simply read the text, and preferably give it to someone else to review. If it sounds unnatural and phrases appear in practically every sentence, it’s a sign that you’ve exaggerated the number of keywords.

Reading such a text, it is immediately apparent that the author wanted to fit as many key phrases as possible into the shortest possible content:

It is advisable to choose ceramic pots, because a ceramic pot is weatherproof and looks elegant. Ceramic pots perform much better than plastic garden pots.

However, Google search engine does not approve of such practices, so if you do not like or do not have time to write, it is better to use the copywriter exchange or order texts from an agency or freelancer, instead of creating content on the spur of the moment. The days when Google turned a blind eye to listing comma-delimited phrases and creating content that was virtually impossible for humans to read are long gone.

Google argues that unnatural blocks of text reduce the user experience on the site. The content is supposed to be useful to the user first and foremost, and keywords should appear in the right context, not randomly. Lowering your ranking can, for example, result in listing multiple local phrases/places to position yourself for those cities.

How to calculate keyword density?

The number of keywords doesn’t tell you much yet, as you can naturally include more in a long blog text than in a short category description. More important than the number, therefore, is keyword density, or so-called keyword density. It can be calculated in a very simple way: just divide the number of occurrences of the keyword by the total number of words on the page, and then multiply the result times 100%.

This will give you a specific number, but you still need to interpret it properly. Unfortunately, here, too, there are no clear guidelines as to what keyword density is ok, and what already falls under SEO keyword stuffing. Some experts say it should be between 0.5 and 2.5%, but I’m going on the assumption that it’s best to just stick to under 3% phrase saturation.

Is it worth using content editors?

An experienced copywriter should be able to create SEO-optimized text “by eye,” not counting keyword density. However, even professionals are aided by content analysis tools, especially in particularly competitive industries. For example, you can use SurferSEO, Senuto Writer or SEMStorm Editor. All these tools are based on the same principle: they analyze competitors’ content to indicate what keywords are worth including in the content and what the length of the text should be. They also often consider images, headlines or internal linking.

I can show this with the example of Senuto Writer, into which I pasted a sample blog article from the addiction treatment industry. What appears here is the so-called Content Score, which shows how you compare to your competitors in terms of length, number of keywords and headlines:

Of course, you should strive for the highest possible values, but do not forget about common sense. Competitors often post very long blocks of text, loaded with keywords, so it can be difficult to “crank out” a high score by creating content that is actually useful to the user.

Senuto also suggests keywords to include in the text and a suggested number of repetitions. However, I know from experience that it is better to stick to these lower values: the range from 3 to 61 is very wide, and it is difficult to create natural-sounding content in which a phrase will appear more than 60 times.

Also worth a peek is the small section below the text:

Here again, however, I recommend sticking to the lower values – the text would have to be really very long to require the inclusion of 19 headings.

Text analysis in SEMStorm is a bit different. Their editor does not suggest keywords, but you can search for matching, searchable phrases yourself in the same tool, and then check how many times they should appear in the text so that the search engine does not suspect you of keyword stuffing:

In addition, the editor suggests what else can be done to make the text more optimized for SEO. The tool grades your content in terms of:

However, the editor focuses more on the correctness and readability of the text than on phrases. It analyzes, for example, the FOG factor, i.e., the comprehensibility of the content to a person who has no knowledge in the field. However, you don’t always have to worry about this, because in the B2B sector, for example, building an expert image is more important than providing basic information.

As you can see, golden measures are hard to come by in SEO, including when it comes to copywriting. It’s definitely worth assisting with tools, but you can’t treat them as if they were an oracle, because Google’s algorithms are learning better and better every year to assess the value that content brings to the user. Don’t have time to do your own keyword analysis and content development on your site? No problem! Me and my team will be happy to take care of it – write or call!