A Question About SEO Tools.

[craigmn3]

If my suspicions are correct many of us run our pages through search engine optimization tools. There are many good free ones available and for the most part they all report the same thing regarding my pages.

One area in which they differ greatly in their reporting is keyword denisty.

One tool will claim my keyword density is as high as 6% and another reports under 2% it's some what disconcerting. I am wondering which one is more accurate.

The ones I use the most would be:

Web CEO
Site Report Card
sumbit-it
Sumbit Express
SEO Workers Tools
Scrub The Web

Some of these are complete tools, some check only parts of the page.

I tend to wash them through several of these to get a good average, but I would love to have a more accurate keyword Density report.

Any ideas out there?

[Webnauts]

Craig I see you are using our tool. :)

I think you can check that yourself how accurate the tool is, by searching manually for 2 or 3 keywords in the code of a page you tested, and count how many they are.

And with a software like word, copy and paste your visible text there, and see how many words you have all together, and then calculate.

If you do that, let me know if something is wrong with our tool.

Thanks.

[incrediblehelp]

Keyword density % is worthless. Write for the end users in mind. As long as your writing coherent copy that your visitors will want to read you will be fine with the search engines.

[untmarkb]

I am with incrediblehelp on this one. I do not and have never used keyword density tools to achieve any of the top rankings our clients hold. Getting the keyword phrases in the inbound links really negates any need for having these keyword phrases on a page in order to rank well. Worry about writing copy that reads well for visitors and not the search engines and it will work out well for you.

[NameCritic]

This might end up a long thread.

1. Yes, write with the end user in mind.

2. Do it while using your keywords and phrases often as you can without the text sounding spammy.

This will likely bring up the debate about whether links are king or whether content is king.

Answer in my opinion is both. Do one without the other and you lose.

[NameCritic]

Originally Posted by NameCritic

This might end up a long thread.

1. Yes, write with the end user in mind.

2. Do it while using your keywords and phrases often as you can without the text sounding spammy.

This will likely bring up the debate about whether links are king or whether content is king.

Answer in my opinion is both. Do one without the other and you lose.

That being said, no one can tell you the correct percentage this week and it would change by next week. Don't count the keywords, just use them where it makes some sense to do so.

[tony]

I know i've mention this site before and while I do know the guys involved I am not making any money from this product.

www.themezoom.com

It's whole a step beyond just keywords and density.
The bottom line is still going to be content but this will put a whole new spin on how you can find your place/market.

[craigmn3]

Thanks for all your replies.

Yes Webnauts I am always open to a good suggestions, so when you suggested this tool I bit, I like it.

I do try to write keyword rich consumer based text, although a bit canned, you have to make the sales pitch

I check keyword density mainly because I don't want to, in my effusiveness, trip the light spam-tastic which is why having an accurate percentage is somewhat important.

And Yes web-nauts the idea of doing a word count came to my mind.....and my mind firmly rejected the idea as something called work. I guess my mind has another think coming.
Thanks Guys

[CarolineBogart3]

incredibleHelp, that was my mantra too until one day I realized that my own site didn't say "freelance programmer," yet that's how I expected people to find me.

I had to read all my words and determine where I should insert the key phrases I wanted.

It was a little shocking to me because I always preached "forget the engines, write for the reader."

Writing is a part left, part right brain activity. Search engines are purely left brain. I think editing work written for users to accommodate search engines is a fair and reasonable activity. Write for humans, edit for search engines, then make sure the edits didn't compromise the human experience.

[incrediblehelp]

Good point CarolineBogart3, I was just assuming that if someone was building a page about "freelance programmer" they would include it in the text.

[haselhurst]

Hi everyone,
I have been reading this forum on and off for two years now. It is very useful! So firstly my thanks to you all.
Incrediblehelp - your name is very fitting, I like simple sensible answers (so sorry this is a bit of a ramble!)

About me.
I have a 3 year old philosophy website. It now gets about 60,000 page views a day, has 700 pages - half on philosophy of science, half on philosophy of sex (which get 80% of visits!). I am into evolution, both in terms of physics / philosophy (what is evolving), and culture and society (the relationship between our evolved biological instincts (e.g. sex and survival) and our cultural evolution of knowledge, how that has changed how we think and live (which is causing a lot of problems for humanity I think!)).

Anyway, thats a brief / abrupt summary!

In terms of this post and keyword density.

There is a good principle in science that if you know how something works, then you can deduce its behaviour. However, if that 'something' is very complex (like a human, or Google / Internet) and you do not completely know how it works, then you cannot deduce things, but must instead be empirical, observe results, experiment, see how your changes affect results.

For keyword density, what is best varies for different keywords / subjects. My experience is that for many academic terms you can have a high density without any problems.
On the other hand, for sex related keywords, your page will often get penalised (what i call 'spammed out') if the term appears too often.

So you must be empirical and observe what Google likes for your particular search term.
This is easy to do. Simply search Google for that term and go to 10 or 20 of the top ranked sites and see what their keyword density is.
Also compare keywords in links, headings, alt text, etc.
(This is simple to do if you have Google toolbar as you have option to highlight term in search box.)

There is one limitation to this method however. A page rank is probably now determined by three main factors.

1. On page content (and age / strength of website).

2. Off page content, i.e. other links to site, and obviously to particular page, and keywords in those external links is important as we all know.

3. Behaviour of users at page, number of links clicked / pages they view, percentage of repeating visitors, number of times favourited, etc.

Obviously point 1 above is very central to points 2 and 3.

So when you are looking at the top pages in google, you must realise that on page content is only a part of it - so results can vary, but this will give you a reasonable trend to start from.

Then you can put up page with similar density (and experiment with higher or lower density).

Finally, if you do experiment, you need to be patient with Google. I generally work on a 3 month period for any testing (and I think Google actually uses a mix of results from previous few years to determine page rank, so changes slowly grow into the results).

I think for some keywords, density is very important, but most of the time it is best to just make sure you have them in main elements of page, but write copy for people!

Hope this helps a bit.
Again, my thanks to the regular contributers here - you have provided lots of great help.
All the best,
Geoff

[incrediblehelp]

Originally Posted by haselhurst

Finally, if you do experiment, you need to be patient with Google. I generally work on a 3 month period for any testing (and I think Google actually uses a mix of results from previous few years to determine page rank, so changes slowly grow into the results).

Good post. Great point here.

[Calius]

Geoff:

What is your website? I am very much interested in philosophy.

[CarolineBogart3]

Originally Posted by Calius

Geoff:

What is your website? I am very much interested in philosophy.

Hey me 3, I majored in Philosophy (and Psychology) many many many years........ago.

[adbart]

This can be answered quite bluntly, but it's not the scientific answer you're looking for...

Google wants to rank pages based on how relevant they are to the search that any given user has conducted, NOT on how well your website conforms to the latest SEO technique.

In the long run, you're going to get high SERPs because your webpages reflect decent content that is unique, readable, and well organised (plus all your fantastic off-page optimisation, which is probably 90% of the battle).

The point is as far as on-page optimisation goes, you don't need to constantly worry about keyword densities etc. Google hates the fact that webmasters are trying to make their algorithms work for them. They want to work the algorithms on your website so that their users get the best possible results.

Build good pages based on the simple guidelines I mentioned in the paragraph before the last, and then concentrate on relevant link building, which is by far the most productive way to get rising up those wretched results pages!

Best of luck.

[espectations]

I must be honest in saying that I believe tools are just that - tools.

Does not mean you have to believe everything that you read either. I use questions asked by customers as topics for content. Yes, a Q & A could be done but I found a more in-depth explanation in the form of a 700 odd word article best.

I also reference to other related articles within this 700 word article with some related outbound links on the same page.

Keyword density is not something I really check as I answer the question which is the main topic on the page.

Works well for my sites, never been penalized for it so....

I think we tend to over analyze everything and using these tools sometimes do more bad than good.

This far my own sites received several compliments and I am pleased with my ranking - sales conversion is good so what more could I ask for?

[haselhurst]

I am a pretty radical philosopher, as i think that not only can we know truth and reality, we now actually do. i.e. We can correctly imagine and describe what really exists.

The error was to work from many things, i.e. particles and fields in space-time, rather than one thing, Space (that we all experience), where matter is a wave structure of space (space exists as a wave medium). From this foundation you find nice simple solutions to many of the problems of quantum theory (founded on wave equations), Einstein's relativity, and Cosmology (basically by understanding how everything in the universe is interconnected by waves in space).

But I am not here to convince people of truth and reality (though i find it very interesting and think it is the most important thing we can know!)

My website is at;

http://www.spaceandmotion.com/

But it is several years away from being complete - I know pages are too long - am slowly writing it up more simply. (So don't be too critical please.)

Have a nice Christmas all.
Geoff

"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication" (Leonardo da Vinci)

PS - For those interested there are a lot of nice images and quotes at our philosophy shop that are well worth browsing.
http://www.cafepress.com/philosophy_shop

[CarolineBogart3]

Originally Posted by haselhurst

I am a pretty radical philosopher, as i think that not only can we know truth and reality, we now actually do. i.e. We can correctly imagine and describe what really exists.

What's telling is that you think we can know reality. You don't know we can know reality. Is this a flaw of human communication or maybe you are subconsciously admitting that we cannot know that which we know?

Originally Posted by haselhurst

The error was to work from many things, i.e. particles and fields in space-time, rather than one thing, Space (that we all experience), where matter is a wave structure of space (space exists as a wave medium).

I'm not sure to which error you refer, I'm assuming it's the hypothesis that we cannot know. How do you know that we all experience space?

Originally Posted by haselhurst

From this foundation you find nice simple solutions to many of the problems of quantum theory (founded on wave equations), Einstein's relativity, and Cosmology (basically by understanding how everything in the universe is interconnected by waves in space).

You can take any foundation and build a terrific house of cards, but if that foundation is based on the knowledge that this entire thread is more than a figment of a brain in a jar even then you've supposed too much about what you can know versus what you think you know. It might not even be a brain. Or a jar.

I suspect I've gotten this thread closed down, thank you thread gods for putting up with me.

:-)

[ctabuk]

Originally Posted by haselhurst

I am a pretty radical philosopher, as i think that not only can we know truth and reality, we now actually do. i.e. We can correctly imagine and describe what really exists.

The error was to work from many things, i.e. particles and fields in space-time, rather than one thing, Space (that we all experience), where matter is a wave structure of space (space exists as a wave medium). From this foundation you find nice simple solutions to many of the problems of quantum theory (founded on wave equations), Einstein's relativity, and Cosmology (basically by understanding how everything in the universe is interconnected by waves in space).

But I am not here to convince people of truth and reality (though i find it very interesting and think it is the most important thing we can know!)

My website is at;

http://www.spaceandmotion.com/

But it is several years away from being complete - I know pages are too long - am slowly writing it up more simply. (So don't be too critical please.)

Have a nice Christmas all.
Geoff

"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication" (Leonardo da Vinci)

PS - For those interested there are a lot of nice images and quotes at our philosophy shop that are well worth browsing.
http://www.cafepress.com/philosophy_shop

Karene is lovely - how long have you been working on that? Just one tiny critism - forget the Alexa aspect.

[krisidious]

I'd like to know what the thought is on the cycle of the big bang... but back to SEO...

to use for instance spaceandmotion this site is brimming with content...

48 pages of Data
21,000 words
129,000 characters
794 urls... I've been down right chastizzed here for 284...

all this on one page... he's got more keywords than a dictionary... and he's got a PR of 6 and good ranking in the SERPS... I think he proves his point about google wanting a mix of the 3...

I think he's a good example for my post "when is it ok to break the SEO Rules" when you deliver the content, and the popularity...

nice site by the way... I will see more... I wonder why you are not using google adsense more...