Keyword density and most repeated phrases

How to use the tool

Paste the URL of a live page and click “Fetch”: the tool reads its text, title, meta description and H1 heading. By default it keeps only the page’s main content; an option adds the menus, header and footer. You can also paste a text directly, for example an article you are still writing.

If you list keywords to track, the tool counts their occurrences, works out their density and, for a live page, checks whether they appear in the title, the H1 and the meta description. Without keywords, it ranks on its own the words and phrases that come up most often: switch tabs to see phrases of two, three or four words.

What is keyword density?

A keyword’s density is the share of the text it takes up. You divide its number of occurrences by the total number of words, then multiply by 100. A word used 15 times in a 500-word text has a density of 3%. This is the formula SE Ranking uses in its density tool,¹ for example, and the one this tool applies, to single words and phrases alike.

Some tools multiply the result by the number of words in the phrase: “seo consultant” found 10 times in 500 words comes out at 4% there instead of 2%. Compare figures from the same tool with each other, not from one tool to another.

What Google says about repeating keywords

Google approaches the question as one of repetition. Its SEO Starter Guide notes that excessively repeating the same words, even in variations, is tiring for users and goes against its spam policies.² Those policies describe keyword stuffing: filling a page with keywords or numbers to manipulate rankings, with examples such as cities listed over and over to rank for local searches, or words repeated so often that the text no longer sounds natural.³

The same guide states that content length does not matter for ranking, and that varying your words in natural language increases your chances of showing up in results, because the page then covers more terms. It adds that Google’s systems understand how a page matches queries worded differently from the text.²

SE Ranking writes that most SEO professionals aim for a density of 1 to 2% for the main keyword, while noting that Google has never given an ideal value.¹ The figure is mostly a warning sign: a word that comes up far more than the others deserves a read-through out loud, and that is often where the text sounds off.

Why look at phrases rather than single words

A single word says little about what a page covers. “Seo” can come up twenty times in a text about audits, writing or hiring. Two- or three-word phrases, such as “seo audit” or “local seo”, show what the page really deals with and which searches it is likely to answer.

Google advises anticipating the terms your readers search for, noting that experts and newcomers do not use the same words: some will search for “charcuterie”, others for “cheese board”.² The phrase ranking lets you check that your customers’ wording shows up in the text, not only your trade vocabulary.

Reading the results

• Stop words (articles, prepositions, pronouns) are left out by default, otherwise “the”, “of” and “and” would top the ranking. A phrase cannot start or end with one, but can contain one in the middle, as in “cost of seo”.
• Capitals and accents are ignored to group forms together: “SEO” and “seo” count as one. Singular and plural stay separate.
• Punctuation breaks phrases: two words separated by a full stop, a comma or a line break do not form a phrase.
• The part of the page analysed changes everything. Menus and footers repeat on every page of a site and inflate the same words everywhere. Google assesses the main content first, a notion spelled out in the definition of main content Google published in October: that is why the tool sticks to it by default.

Where to place your important keywords

For a live page, the tool shows whether each tracked keyword appears in the title, the H1 and the meta description. The title is the main source of the result title in Google, and the page’s visible heading, usually the H1, takes its place when Google finds the title unsuitable. The meta description can be shown as the snippet below the title. Having the main phrase in all three places helps searchers recognise their query before they even click; their length can be checked with the title and meta description length checker.

In the body text, the main phrase does well to appear early, then in one or two subheadings, without being forced. Variants and related terms do the rest: that varied vocabulary is what Google’s guide links to better chances of showing up.

The tool’s limits

The tool counts; it does not judge quality. A page can have a perfect density and answer no question, or a low density and be the best resource on its topic. Nor does it group synonyms or words from the same family, which Google does connect.

Reading a live page relies on the HTML returned by the server. A site that only displays its text after running JavaScript will look almost empty: in that case, copy the text from your browser and paste it into the field provided.

Frequently asked questions