[How To] Keyword Density in 2014

Lalalaenhund said:

Great post, thanks SeoCrap

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totbweb said:

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I think you're on point with looking after payday loans because they've mentioned it. Based on the way the convo is going, there is a way to auto scan text to determine a reading level too. I never really used it, but ms word has options to use the Flesch Reading Ease test. Would it be worthwhile to notice a pattern there too?

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seocrab said:

Collect your own data and see what you find - the main thing I've come to learn is that metrics are much more useful when we perform competition analysis rather than apply generalised rules.

We don't know a) if google uses density as a statistic or b) what the preferred density is. BUT we can see the impact of LSI so that's the thing to focus on.

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seocrab said:

I think there's no exact number we can quote. My tiny research sample shows wildly different results. If you want to be safe 2% seems ok but you have to do research into your own keyword to get a better idea.

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ranga said:

I do my own analysis, and as per me Keyword Density is crap, I have one website ranking no 1 for tough city local seo keyword with only a h1 tag with keyword and a random video i.e. keyword density of 100%

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seocrab said:

UPDATE:

How do 'Readability Scores' affect Google rankings?

'Readability' refers to how easy a text is to, well, read.

Readability has 2 strands:

1) How words are displayed
2) How words are organised

When we display text on our websites, we choose whether it's large or bold or in comic sans etc. There must be a preferred practice when it comes to pleasing Google. The better web readability project seems like a good place to start:



[Source: https://code.google.com/p/better-web-readability-project/ ]

Now onto how words are organised: there are many different algorithms that measure readability, but the Flesch Reading Ease Formula is most commonly used.

Here's the algorithm:

Code:

Calculate the average number of words you use per sentence.
    Calculate the average number of syllables per word.
    Multiply the average number of syllables per word multiplied by 84.6 and subtract it from the average number of words multiplied by 1.015.
    Subtract the result from 206.835.
    Algorithm: 206.835 - (1.015 * average_words_sentence) - (84.6 * average_syllables_word)

The types of books we might have learned to read with go like this:



The above selection gets a Flesch Reading Ease score of 108.8, meaning that pretty much anyone can read it. As text gets more complicated, the score lowers.

Here's an extract from a scientific journal:



The above text gets a Flesch score of 24.4.

Most websites are going to fall somewhere between these 2 values, but is this information useful for SEO?

Firstly, I will search for broad topics and see if, as I suspect, the readability scores are high for the top results.

Google.com Top 5 Results for "buy bananas"
(ignoring YouTube/image results)

#1 70.70
#2 67.88
#3 70.19
#4 62.30
#5 49.97

Google.com Top 5 Results for "how to make a cake"

#1 64.3
#2 85.5
#3 78.1
#4 69.3
#5 73.9

Now for a more technical subject:

Google.com Top 5 Results for "install new ram in pc"

#1 76
#2 71.5
#3 53.45
#4 56.05
#5 53.63

and something in the medical niche:

Google.com Top 5 Results for "vitamin health benefits"

#1 42.41
#2 43.58
#3 46.80
#4 41.19
#5 37.85

It appears that some niches require more authoritative content with lower Flesch scores. For example, the health niche is less 'readable' than the cookery niche.

Conclusion:

For SEO, we need content that matches Google's niche and keyword expectations.

We can figure out what G wants by researching top-ranking sites for our niche/keywords.

Free Resources

Readability test tool: http://read-able.com
And another: http://juicystudio.com/services/readability.php

You can check the readability of your domain by following these steps:

1) Google "site:yourdomain.com" (without quotes)
2) Select "Search Tool"
3) Click "All Results" and change it to "Reading Level"

You will now see an overview of your site's readability.

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