This post is a response to a recent commenter that was wondering how many keywords they should put in their metatags.
I have heard lots of different numbers tossed around as far as what your keyword density (the percentage that a word or phrase takes up out of the total number of words on a page) should be, this is not just specifically for meta tags, but for your overall page content. About 1-5% is a number that seems to be pretty common and there are even programs out there that will analyze your keyword density (just Google it and you’ll find some).
My approach to keywords is this: write your website content for human beings, while keeping keywords in mind. Make sure that your important keywords go in your header tags, but always be careful that when you are writing your content it doesn’t start to look like you just wrote it for a search engine.
The job of search engines is to give a person a collection of websites to look at that will be interesting and useful to them, and increasingly search engines are getting better at figuring out tricks that web-designers will use to get their irrelevant, or poor quality content to be high ranking.
Even your meta description tag should be written to be read by a person as a description for your website, that’s what it is meant to be!
As far as the keywords meta tag, it’s becoming less and less relevant, and Google doesn’t even make use of it anymore:
Yes, i also heard that search engines don’t take the meta tag keywords in count. For me, i suggest to put around 6 keywords in the tags, no more than two same keywords.
Yes It is very important to manage keywords for getting not only a good rank in search engine but also for a good article. You explain every thing very clearly. Thanks
I think the best percentage of keyword density should 3% as lots of webmaster and seo agree on 3%.
I’d say 1-4% is a good number which isn’t like over doing it. One my friends site got banned because he tried to push it too hard on good by mentioning same keyword over and over. Don’t make that mistake good is now smarter so its time developers become smarter too.
It’s true what you say here. We don’t even use meta data in our sites except for the description tag – and if you don’t have one of those, Matt Cutts says that Google will grab content from the site that they think is good to use for a description tag.
I agree, it is hard to find the perfect answer, you just need to design your content for people.
Choosing the right keywords is the very first step when starting a website. It is important to choose the keywords wisely and not to choose keywords who have too high competition level on search engines. Like if you have a website on miami flordia real estate then it is wise to concentrate on keywords like miami florida real estate, miami FL real estate, real estate in miami Florida etc. with the location with the word real estate because if you go for the word “real estate” then it would be nearly impossible to get good positions in search engines
But now a days google search engine doesnot consider the meta tag keywords. Is this true
@eGrove Systems
Yes I have heard it straight from the horse’s mouth that it’s true.
However keywords outside of the meta tag (such as what words or in your headers, and paragraphs, and even your description) are still important.
Thanks for the insight. I have been researching density for awhile now and am currently on the lookout for some tools which will be able to calculate it. If you know of any would you be able to include it in your article as well? I’m sure a lot of other people would get a lot of use out of it. Thanks a lot
Sure, I’ll try testing some keyword analysis tools out and then do a write-up on them.
Personal preference for me is between 1 and 3%. It really depends on the page I’m writing and how well the keyword works on the page. If it’s a keyword that works well, I’m closer to 3%, some 4 word keyword combos are just tough to blend in, so I stick with 1 and 2%. I don’t know if I dare going over 3%, just because I don’t want to get penalized.
Researching for Keyword density is very essential for SEO works.
I seriously do not believe in this keyword density myth. Yes we need keywords placed in the copy but people get to deep into it. Just write for people, search engines are not stupid they do know when people stuff keywords in their copy
Mat
The keywords meta tag is still used by other search engines. Even though google ignores it, it can still be worthwhile to add the tags in.
I agree, you have to write content for people not search engines and if it is good enough resource or entertaining = the people who visit the site will promote it themselves by sending it around.
thanks for admin, verying sharing