What Is Keyword Density?
Keyword density is the percentage of times a target keyword appears on a page relative to the total word count.
The Formula
Keyword density is calculated as: (number of times the keyword appears ÷ total word count) × 100. A 1,000-word page that uses its target keyword 10 times has a keyword density of 1%.
Does It Still Matter?
Not in the way it once did. Early search engines relied heavily on keyword frequency to judge relevance, which led to widespread keyword stuffing. Modern search engines use far more sophisticated language understanding (semantic search, entities, natural language processing) and no longer reward hitting a specific density target. Writing naturally, covering a topic thoroughly, and using related terms and synonyms where they fit is a far more effective approach than chasing any particular percentage.
