Keyword density is the percentage of times a target keyword appears relative to total word count. If you have a 1,000-word page and your keyword appears 10 times, that's 1% density. Most competitive pages rank well at 0.8–2% density, so if you're below that range, strategic additions help. Start by running your existing content through a keyword density checker or manually counting occurrences. If you're under 1%, look for natural insertion points: introductory paragraphs, subheadings (H2/H3 tags), conclusion sections, and image alt attributes. Add the keyword where it genuinely clarifies meaning or answers a user question. For example, if your target is "Ottawa roofing services," a sentence like "Our Ottawa roofing services include emergency repairs" reads better than "We offer services in Ottawa for roofing and roofing-related services." Avoid these mistakes that trigger over-optimization penalties: - Repeating the exact keyword phrase back-to-back or in every sentence - Stuffing keywords into meta descriptions beyond one mention - Forcing keywords into anchor text for internal links where a synonym works better - Exceeding 3% density unless you're in an extremely keyword-dependent niche like legal disclaimers At Ottawa SEO, we balance density with semantic variations and related terms. If the keyword is "SEO audit," we'll also use "technical SEO review," "site analysis," and "search optimization assessment" throughout the content. Google's algorithm weighs topic relevance more than raw keyword frequency, so a page with 1.2% density and strong topical coverage typically outranks one with 2.5% density and thin context. The real goal isn't hitting a magic number—it's ensuring the keyword appears enough that search engines recognize the page's focus without making human readers feel like they're reading spam. If you read your content aloud and it sounds repetitive or awkward, you've gone too far. Adjust by replacing some exact-match instances with pronouns or synonyms, then recheck density. Most tools show density per keyword and per phrase length (1-word, 2-word, 3-word), so monitor all three to catch over-optimization early.