How many times should you put a keyword into an article?

Are there any general rules of thumb for instance repeat X keyword 2 times per 500 words, etc.? Also, is it recommended to put multiple keywords that you're trying to rank for in one article? Or should you try to only use one keyword that you want to rank for per article?

There's no hard and fast rule about this, but not more than 5 or 6 for such a short article including headers etc.

Look at what the top 10 sites are doing for the keyword. Get an average and match it. Google is literally showing you what to do.

This is how i do it most of the time:
Main Keyword - Title + Url + H2
Longtail / LSI - In the first paragraph + H2/H3 (where you can)

It should not be more than 1 per 100 words so max 5. However do not inject the keywords for the sake of impressing google, It should look as natural as possible.

It doesn't matter how many times you put this. Make it natural, thats all.

I think its depend on article. You don't need to extra... Just doing natural

It depends on the length of the article. If you use wordpress you can through yoast and rankmath to have a guide and suggestions on how many times you should use the keywords in a text.

actually its depend on your article length, the article should be must 1000 to 1500 words. if article 1000 words then keyword should be 10 worlds.

The general rule of thumb is to include specific keywords no more than 5 times in a standard blog post. It can be considered spammy to the reader and negatively impact the user experience.

Generally, I put 3 Times on 1k Words.
I think it's good!

Black Hat Hunter said:

Generally, I put 3 Times on 1k Words.
I think it's good!

Click to expand...

i do 4 personally close enough

I prefer 3 for 600 words will be good and it should be naturally placed

3-4 per page/article will be fine.
Make sure your article us readable one as you create the one first of all for real users.

MisterF said:

There's no hard and fast rule about this, but not more than 5 or 6 for such a short article including headers etc.

Click to expand...

This. It's all context and the rules for one article could be different to another, even if the two posts are trying to cover the same topic.
The density of keywords placed throughout the article is a huge factor too, with readability being the most important thing for Google.

You can't rank by spamming rank keywords for ranking to rank with Google ranks, like this.

For any article:
- in title
- in url
- in first paragraph
- in one H2 or H3
- in the conclusion of the article

I don't do articles shorter than 700 words or longer than 3k words.

You are writing a 1000 word article, inserting the primary keyword around 7-10 times would be appropriate.

Stevink said:

Are there any general rules of thumb for instance repeat X keyword 2 times per 500 words, etc.? Also, is it recommended to put multiple keywords that you're trying to rank for in one article? Or should you try to only use one keyword that you want to rank for per article?

Click to expand...

There are no rules to define the frequency of a keyword to be used in an article. It depends on you.
In my opinion, you can use the keyword 5 to 8 times(depending on the size of the article) so that it doesn't look spammy to the readers and you can include nearly 3 different keywords more than which it looks crowded.

The question you’re asking really is ‘what is the right keyword density?’

The problem with keyword density is that it’s built on the philosophy that Googlebot is dumb.

Well, thanks to RANKBRAIN and its more recent core algorithm updates, we really can’t say that Google is as dumb as it was 10 years ago.

And given its heavy use of artificial intelligence and machine learning, it would really be dangerous for somebody to assume that Google was dumb, is dumb, and will continue to be dumb.

So, I would suggest that you stop thinking in terms of keyword repetition and keyword density.

Instead, focus on what your target keywords truly mean to the end user.

Ask yourself: why would somebody enter these set of words into Google when searching for information?

What’s stopping them from using other words?

And if they did use this set of words, what is the most likely outcome that they’re looking for?

Think in terms of questions!

What kind of problems would this person have?

What kind of questions would they have?

And if you start thinking along those lines, then you would produce those content that would answer those questions and also address related questions.

When somebody enters those keywords into Google, sees your content, and stays on your site, Google interprets this as a success.

The searcher found the answer that they’re looking for.

This should be your focus—not fixed ratios, percentages, or density.

Focus on the experience of finding value in a page.

That’s what I’ve been doing, and my recent projects have been doing quite well because of my focus on keyword search intent.

Keywords are still important.

But, you have to focus on what they mean for them to truly serve you.

I don't do more than three keywords per short article and it always worked fine for me.