What is Keyword Density?

Keyword density is the percentage of times a target keyword appears in your content compared to the total number of words.

How to calculate it

The formula is simple:

Keyword Density = (Number of keyword occurrences / Total words) × 100

For example, if your keyword appears 15 times in a 1,000-word article, your keyword density is 1.5%.

What's the ideal keyword density?

There's no magic number, but most SEO experts recommend staying between 0.5% and 2.5%.

• Too low: Search engines might not understand what your content is about
• Too high: You risk keyword stuffing, which can hurt your rankings

The key is natural usage. If you're forcing keywords in, readers will notice - and so will Google. Write helpful content first, then check density.

Why it matters less than it used to

In the early days of SEO, keyword density was a primary ranking factor. Stuff enough keywords in, and you'd rank.

That's not how it works anymore.

Modern search engines understand context, synonyms, and related terms. They care more about:

• Does your content answer the searcher's question?
• Is it well-written and useful?
• Do you cover the topic comprehensively?

Keyword density is still worth monitoring, but it's not something to obsess over.

How to check keyword density

Most SEO tools include keyword density analysis:

• Yoast SEO (WordPress plugin)
• RankMath
• Surfer SEO
• PostGenius (built-in SEO panel)

Or calculate it manually: search for your keyword in your document, count occurrences, and divide by total word count.