As for density, if you wrote an article about the New York Yankees – you would naturally use the term New York Yankees 2, 3, 5% of the time…this is without even thinking about it. If you are writing well conceived pages, with good subjects and interesting topics…your keyword density is going to build itself. But to suggest that it is bad to have 3% density is simply wrong….that is just common sense and good writing, and the SEO benefit is simply an add on.

Exactly. It’s all about connecting with the reader through your copy. Throw everything else out the window because conversion is the ultimate goal.

You’re exactly right. I think the reason keyword density is still pushed so hard in snake oil companies is because it’s such an easy concept to explain to customers who don’t know any better. It sounds reasonable enough to someone who doesn’t know any better, and they assume it really matters.

often, when something can be easily or cleverly measured, there’s an inclination to assume it’s significant and determinant…

give it a scientific sounding name and the propensity to instill it with meaning grows…

shoot, if you can assign it a greek symbol, it’s power (but not it’s validity) grows further… by the way, the greek letter rho is used for density… see… did you feel it.

make the environment complex enough and people want to overly simplify with great vigor, experts always telling us things aren’t that complicated and to keep things simple – so we assume others have too…

then there’s that whole Occum’s Razor thing…

of course, Ockham never had a megaflop computer in his pocket… further, his actual principle ironically suffers ignominious assault from the exact same mindbend that attributes high meaning to keyword density, people over simplifying his tenant. Six centuries of irony, poor Friar Bill!