Blog Post
Keyword Density
Guide
(2022 Edition)
Your blog post keyword density refers to how often your target keywords are put into your blog posts.
Keywords are essential for search engine optimization, even in 2022. But you mustn’t stuff your content full of too many keywords. Too many keywords can damage your search engine ranking and hurt your future content.
But it can get confusing in terms of how many times you need to input your keyword. That can be overwhelming if you’re trying to get your blog to perform better on search engines.
Luckily, it’s not rocket science, so it doesn’t take a genius to understand what the best blog post keyword density should look like.
I’ll show you how to do it in this article!
Blog Post Keyword Density Step 1: Placement
The first step of keyword marketing is knowing where to put your keywords. It would help if you had a rough idea of where they will be placed before writing your content.
It is always good to include your keyword for every 100-words of copy that you create to avoid keyword stuffing.
But it should also be in your title and as close to the beginning of it as possible, if not right at the beginning.
Put it in your first heading wherever you’d like, beginning, middle, end – wherever! Any header after that doesn’t need the keyword repeated in it.
The ALT tags of your first image should also have your keyword in them.
But when it comes to where you insert your keyword into your content, this is where the tricky part comes into play – making it blend in and not easy to notice.
Now I recognize what keywords bloggers rank for in their posts, but I’m a marketing strategist and know what to look for. The regular person usually does not. But if they do and it turns them off, that means you’re either keyword stuffing or doing it entirely the wrong way.
Your blog post keyword density needs to blend in with the content as if it is supposed to be there. In the end, you should always write for a human rather than a search bot. That’s what search engines want you to do, too!
Shorter Posts vs. Longer Posts
If you’re writing a short post such as 500-words or less, plan on using fewer keywords.
For longer posts such as more than 1,000-words, plan on using more keywords.
I’d recommend adding a keyword every 250 to 300 words for shorter posts. For longer posts, choose every 100 to 250 words strategy.
If you plan to use many headers, you might add your keyword to another header or two. Definitely the first header. Maybe the middle one after that and then the last heading.
With a shorter post, it is easier to make the mistake of keyword stuffing versus placement during longer posts.
You can always consider using keyword variants as replacements for your keywords. Different words mean the same thing as the keyword or roughly the same thing. For example, if my keyword was “Blog SEO,” I might use “Blog Search Engine Optimization” a few times instead of the target keyword.
Use Tools to Help You Judge Your Blog Post Keyword Density
I blog with WordPress, and I’ve gladly purchased the Yoast SEO premium plugin version. It has been around for a very long time. It is one of the best WordPress search engine optimization tools. They have an excellent free version as well.
I highly suggest using this for blog post keyword density measurement. Creating a blog post that targets a keyword will tell you your strengths and weaknesses.
It even has a tool integrated that will tell you how readable your content is.
If you want something a little bit better, check out Grammarly. I use their premium version, and I love it. It is one of the best software platforms I’ve ever invested in.
Having some SEO and readability score system will only help improve your content.
Be sure to test the strategies above by adding and taking away keywords. Do a lot of A/B testing until you find the best way for you to rank your keywords. If you enjoyed reading this article, please share it with others who might enjoy it.
Shawn Gossman
Founder, OnlyBlogging.com
Shawn Gossman has been blogging for nearly 25-years. Shawn is a digital and social media strategist and enjoy content writing, search engine optimization, and social media marketing. Shawn is a certified Digital Marketing Strategist and has an MBA from Colorado Technical University in Colorado Springs, Colorado.