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Search engine optimization, also known as SEO, is one of the your most important tools for generating traffic to promote your website. SEO enables you to create organic avenues of traffic to your website, reduce your advertising costs, and increasing your conversions. One of the key aspects of search engine optimization is keyword density, a quantitative measurement that every major search engine takes into account when assigning page rank.

While Yahoo! and Google and also take other factors into account, no aspect of your web pages is more important to their ranking than keyword density. What is keyword density It’s a simple percentage of the total words on a page that are keywords. Keyword density that produces high page rankings is generated by a small selection of highly searched keywords that do not have high competition. For the most frequently searched keywords, as many as 100,000 sites will be vying for position. Frequently searched keywords can bring you high page rankings, but they demand longer-term commitments and more resources.

Every site has to have enough text to allow for appropriately low keyword density. Unlike the standards of the’90s, modern search algorithms penalize sites, and sometimes penalize them severely, for cramming too many search terms, or even words that look like search terms, into too little text. Your content has to be long enough to dilute keyword density, but concise enough to captivate your visitors. This also means it is not possible to put every screen shot or image you might happen to have, no matter how attractive they are, on every page. The search engines have no way to index images. Words, not images, drive SEO. That is why every website designer has to give every site multiple pages with text that can be optimized.

Depending on the competition, your keyword density, which, again is the percentage of all the words on a page that are keywords, should be no less than 2% but no more than 5%. Sometimes 7% density will be alright, but any keyword that is used by other sites as spam will hurt your rankings with the search engines.

Another important consideration in placing keywords on your pages for purposes of SEO is where you place the keywords. Search engines give you more credit for keywords in titles and headers than within paragraphs. That is why it is important that you get put as many of your keywords in these prominent positions as possible.

How many keywords can you include your homepage Your list range anywhere from 3 to 10 or even 20, as long as you have enough content to keep the percentage keywords acceptably low. The most competitive niches almost always require a narrow focus to ensure that your content is what your visitors are searching for. On the other hand, an excessively narrow focus can eliminate certain visitors before they have a chance to search for your site, so be on the lookout for ways to place additional keywords on your page without triggering spam filters.

Always take care that the search engines do not mistake your content for spam. Beyond keeping within the 7% limit, your respect for your readers and your providing genuinely content will make all the difference in how well your site will perform.

Justin Harrison is a leading Internet Marketing consultant responsible for the Internet Marketing strategies behind some of the biggest online brands including Amazon, BBC, MasterCard and many others.