WebCEO question

[nozzmoking]

Hi

Hope someone can help. I've just started using WebCEO and am a bit confused about Keyword prominence and weight. I've read the help files and, although they explain what the terms mean, there doesn't seem to be any suggestion of what I should be aiming for. For instance, my body text prominence is 99.6% but the weight is only 8%. Same sort of thing with the title tag. 100% prominence and 66.7% weight.

Should I be trying to aim for 100% in both prominence and weight?

Cheers

Paul

[Dubbya]

B. Prominence

Prominence is how close to the start of the tag your keyword appears, for example:

<TITLE>WeatherScreen – Get a long-range weather forecast on your desktop</TITLE>

Prominence for the keyword "long-range weather forecast" in the Title tag area will be around 50%. If you do as shown below, it will be 100%:

<TITLE> Long-range weather forecast delivered on your desktop by WeatherScreen</TITLE>

In general, a keyword that appears closer to the beginning of a page element (Title, META Description and Keywords, visible text, ALT, etc.) will make your Web page more relevant. If your keyword prominence for a page element needs to be improved, you will see a warning in Web CEO's optimization report.



C. Weight / Density

Keyword weight shows the number of times a keyword appears in an area as a percentage to all words in the page:

<TITLE>WeatherScreen – Get a long-range weather forecast on your desktop</TITLE>

Keyword weight is calculated as the number of words in the key phrase multiplied by frequency and divided by the total number of words (including the keyword). To put it simply:

Weight = (Words in keyword/All words) x 100%

According to this rule, the weight of the "long-range weather forecast" phrase will be 36.36% (4/11*100%).

Logically then, the higher the weight of a particular keyword in a page, the higher the search engine ranking of the page for that keyword. However, repeating a keyword too often to increase its weight can cause the page to be penalized by the search engines. Using Web CEO you are able to see the keyword weight of your competition and adjust yours, if needed.

Keyword weight is sometimes referred to as 'Density' which stands for the same notion - overall percentage of some definite word relative to all words in the text.

Firstly, do not under any circumstances assume that WebCEO is the "end all, be all" solution to your SEO efforts. While it's a pretty good jumping off point and it's got some great monitoring tools, you'd do well to read the "getting started" stickies by Webnauts and Incrediblehelp.

I use the monitoring tools in WebCEO to keep tabs on how my sites are ranking across multiple Search Engines (SE's) for the same keywords or keyphrases and to find out where my competitors are placing links. In addition, knowing how well my sites are indexed compared to my competitors serves as a pretty good indicator as to how well I've optimized my site. IMHO, these are by far and away, the most valuable tools WebCEO provides.

You do want your targeted keywords/keyphrases to be as close to the beginning of your page title (most prominent) as possible but it's got to read naturally when read aloud. Of course 100% prominence is most desirable, just make sure the page title will be inviting to click on and a good representation of what users will actually find at your site.

In terms of keyword weight or "density", don't under any circumstances put too much stock in this as it's no longer as important a factor in rankings as it once was. In fact, if your density is too high, the SE's will penalize your site for being too spammy.

Rule of thumb? Try to keep the keyword weight/density between 1% and 5% and ensure that the text is readable, uses natural language and sounds natural when read aloud.

Here's a great article on keyword density from the gurus over at SEO Book:
SEO Tools : SEO Book.com

This one focuses more on SEO software in particular:
Why I Think Most SEO Software is Trash : SEO Book.com

As I said, don't put too much stock in what the software tells you. Search Engines are constantly evolving and finding new ways to evaluate sites. You need to develop a basic understanding of the SEO process and develop your skills to be able to test and manually tweak your pages to the top of the SERPs.

No single tool will do everything and each software package has it's individual strengths and weaknesses. Find a balance between a few tools that work best for you and discard the rest on the cutting room floor. I'd suggest that most SEO's rely on an array of similar tools to evaluate their SEO efforts.

.02

[nozzmoking]

Hi Dubbya,

Thanks for a great explanation. It's nice to know I don't need to work too closely to the numbers when dealing with weight/density. I'll also be checking out the articles you kindly suggested.

Thanks again, it's much appreciated.

Paul

[Dubbya]

Always glad to help!

Good Luck.

[newoptimizer]

where would i find a getting started stickie by incredible help?

[chrisJumbo]

SEO, Where Do I Begin?
-- By Incrediblehelp.

All you need for Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
-- By Webnauts

[newoptimizer]

thanks!

[incrediblehelp]

Here are some links newoptimizer:

SEO, Where Do I Begin?

http://www.jaankanellis.com/search-e...g-for-newbies/

[newoptimizer]

super!

[dreras]

If your looking to mainly track your keywords on search engines you can always use the free tool from SEO book, Rank Checker.

Its a great tool that's FREE.