Optimum SEO Keyword Density – A Real-Life Case Study

So you’ve built your website, you know what keywords you want to target (i.e. what words your customers are searching for), and you’re ready to write your copy. You’ve been told that you should use your keywords frequently so that you appear in search results for those words. But what does “frequently” mean?

How many times should you use your primary keyword? This case study helps answer that question.

Some background on ”Keyword Density”

In order to understand optimum keyword usage, we first need to have some way of measuring keyword frequency. In the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) world, frequency is actually referred to as density. Keyword density is a measure of the number of times your keyword appears on a page expressed as a percentage of the total wordcount of that page. For example, if your page has 100 words, and your keyword phrase appears 5 times, its density is 5%. So when you hear someone say “keyword density”, that’s normally what they’re talking about. (TIP: You can automatically check the keyword density of your page at http://www.live-keyword-analysis.com.)

However, there is another, more complex measure of keyword density which takes into account the text components in the HTML of the page (i.e. the meta tags: Title, Keywords, Alt Text, Description, and Comments). When using this measure, you don’t just count the words your visitor sees; you also count the words in your meta tags. For example, if you have 100 words on your home page, 10 words in your Title tag, 20 words in your Description tag, 70 words in your Alt tags, and 10 words in your Comments tag, your total wordcount for the page is 100 + 10 + 20 + 70 + 10 = 210. Similarly, when counting keywords, you don’t just add up the number of times a visitor will see your keyword, you also count the number of times that keyword appears in your meta tags. For example, if your keyword appears 5 times in the home page copy, 3 times in the Title tag, 5 times in the Description tag, 30 times in your Alt tags, and twice in your Comments tag, your total keyword count is 5 + 3 + 5 + 30 + 2 = 45. So with a total wordcount of 210 and a keyword count of 45, your keyword density is 45/210 x 100 = 21%. It is argued that this measure of keyword density is more relevant as the search engines measure density in this fashion. (TIP: You can automatically check the keyword density of your page using this more complex measure at http://www.gorank.com/analyze.php.)

As you can see, you need to be very aware of which measure you’re talking about when you’re talking “keyword density”. But let me reiterate; mostly when people talk about keyword density, they’re talking the simple measure.

What is the optimum keyword density

And now down to business… What keyword density (of either kind) should you be targeting on your website?

There’s a lot of debate surrounding this issue because the search engine companies don’t disclose the details of their algorithms (as that would allow people to abuse the system). Instead, people working in the SEO world are left to figure it out based on their experience.

A recent article by respected SEO and Blog expert, Wayne Hurlbert, (see http://www.webpronews.com/news/ebusinessnews/wpn-45-20050501KeywordDensitySEOconsiderations.html) suggests that Google sees pages with a keyword density of greater than 2% as spam. It was this article which prompted me to analyze the keyword density of my copywriting website.

CASE STUDY

The Website: This case study analyzes the website for my advertising copywriting and SEO copywriting business, Divine Write – http://www.divinewrite.com. For my primary keyword, my site is now on page 1 of Google.com (out of approximately 900,000 search results).

Number of pages on site: At the time of writing, my website contained a total of 53 pages.

Primary keyword phrase: “copywriter”

Average keyword density: Using the simple measure of keyword density discussed above, the average keyword density of my copywriting website is 1.9%. Using the complex measure it’s 4.9%.

Keyword density range: Using the simple measure, my density ranged from 0.4% to 7.6%. Using the complex measure it ranged from 1.6% to 17.5%

Some comments on the figures

• The figures and corresponding ranking detailed in this case study may not be directly relevant to every site. There’s a lot I don’t know about the algorithms and there are bound to be other factors at play which I don’t know about.

• With regard to Wayne Hurlbert’s article, it would seem that he is referring to keyword density as calculated using the simple method discussed above.

• The range figures are noteworthy because they suggest that you don’t need to be paranoid about having some pages with a very high density and some with a very low density.

Conclusion

A simple keyword density of 1.9% can be enough for a first page ranking in Google.com (assuming you have enough quality backlinks – see http://www.divinewrite.com/SEOCEO.htm and http://www.divinewrite.com/seoarticles.htm for more information).

Happy SEO writing!

About the Author:
* Glenn Murray is an SEO copywriter and article submission and article PR specialist. He is a director of article PR company, Article PR, and also of copywriting studio Divine Write. He can be contacted on Sydney +612 4334 6222 or at glenn@divinewrite.com. Visit http://www.DivineWrite.com or http://www.ArticlePR.com for further details.
Article Source: www.iSnare.com

3 Amazing but little known "Secrets" to blastyour Website to the top of Search Engines!

3 Amazing but little known "Secrets" to make your Website Blast to the top of Search Engines!

I know you hear all of the squabble about links being the number 1 factor in getting your website top search engine positions. I have had many clients come to me and say, I have hundreds more links than the top 10 sites for the keywords I am targeting, and all of my links are from related sites, Why is my site not in the top 10?

The reply is always the same. There are 3 factors that you are not doing or allowing for in your campaign. We will now cover the 3 things that professional SEO's do not want you to know about links.

1. Anchor Text: Anchor text is the clickable text of a hyper link. To show you how it works, go to Google and search the phrase "Click Here". The number 1 site in the natural search results will be Adobe.com. Now ask yourself, why would the adobe site rank number 1 for the term "Click Here" when "click here" is not on the page or in the source code of that page? Here is the reason. Have you ever visited a website and they had a downloadable file in PDF format? It has wording similar to this "You can download this file for free, you will need the adobe reader to read this file, If you do not have the adobe reader "Click Here" to download the adobe reader for free" and click here is the clickable text that links to the adobe site. Starting to get the picture? Your anchor text for your website should contain the phrase or word you want your site to rank for. This is the number 1 reason that people never get their sites to rank for their keywords.

2. The second mistake is in calculating how many links you will need to get top positions in Google. Google only gives a sample of the links they have credited to a website. This is as simple as it gets. I use Yahoo to get an average of links compared to the links showing on Google. Let me explain. If you go to yahoo and check a sites links and they show 497 links. Then go to Google and see how many they have credited, it will be much less than Yahoo, but let's say for our example it is 50. Then, if you do a comparison, you will need to have over 500 links on Yahoo pointing to your site to catch up with this site you are trying to beat in Google. This should give you close to the same amount on Google.

3. The final factor that is most common in causing a "miss" is not calculating or allowing for the top sites continued link building campaign. With Yahoo and Google, updates are completed on a cycle. These cycles are not carved in stone. Google averages 90 day cycles for major updates, Yahoo averages about 50 days. So, you have to allow for the fact that the top 10 websites know that other sites are looking to take over their positions. If a new site gets into the top 10, they know that one of them drops out of the top 10, so they are constantly building links. They may not build at the rate that someone climbing is building. But rest assured they are building. When you decide the total number of links you will need, add 30%. This should put you in a position to overcome their link popularity and gain web traffic.

Note: There are many other factors that affect your sites positions due to links, like the PR (Page Rank) of the page your link is on, the title, Content, Keyword density, position of link on the page, ECT…. This article is to help the Average website owner or webmaster clear up the most common problems with link building.

About the Author:
Jim Corkern is an accomplised SEO with over 200 clients with websites recieving Web Traffic in the top 10 of all major search engines for 1000's of keywords. learn more by visiting his website http://www.traffic-specialist.com
Added: 16 Oct 2006
Article Source: http://articles.simplysearch4it.com/article/39444.html

Link Building And Its Use In SEO

Link building has long been heralded as one of the most important aspects of any effective SEO campaign, and with good reason. The major search engines certainly give some weight to the number and quality of inbound links that a website receives. It’s also true that with good links from high traffic websites you can generate a very good amount of direct traffic from your links. However, the evolution of SEO and search engine algorithms means that gaining links from your site has become a different challenge when compared to link building of old.

Reciprocal Link Campaigns – Dead?

Originally, the most commonly used and potentially advantageous method of building links was using a reciprocal link program. The concept is a simple one. By including a link to another website on your resource or links page, they would reciprocate with a link to your own site. However, numerous algorithm changes have made this a less attractive way of gaining links. Too many links on your resource page and you will be flagged as a lank farm or spam site and search engines now tend to give a reciprocal link much less weight than a one way inbound link.

Buying Text Links – Ineffective?

Buying text links from websites also became a popular method to build a strong base of links. Again, though, this is now frowned upon by many of the search engines. They want to see links that have been gained because your site, or you personally, create and publish high quality information and content and provide a top quality service. In an ideal world these links would be gained organically. Webmasters would visit your site through the search engine listings or any other marketing methods and see top quality content, subsequently posting a link to one or more pages on your site. In reality, though, there are several problems with this.

Organic Links – Unobtainable?

Organic links are well and good but you have to have a popular site before you can begin to expect this kind of accolade. If you have no visitors then how can you hope to attract Webmsaters to post links to your site on the pages of their own site? The answer is, you have to drive customers to your site. Another problem is that even the best content in the world will struggle to gain organic links because Webmasters won’t offer something for nothing. You need to be able to provide some benefit, apart from quality information, to persuade Webmasters of popular sites to link to you.

Article Directories – Effective?

This is where article directories come in. Article directories are large directories filled with articles written by people looking to promote products, gain links for their site, and generally promote themselves and their services. Every article is allowed an About The Author section at the foot of the article (just like this article has) that can contain one or two links to a website. Some directories allow the use of HTML hyperlinks and in terms of SEO it is vital that you choose these sites to assist with linking. Don’t forget that you need to be able to add keywords to your anchor text in order to help promote your site with search engines.

The Importance Of Link Anchor Text And Some Common Mistakes

A common mistake in linking is the poor use of anchor text. Many people mask their URL behind text like “Click Here” or even their domain name. While the latter provides a little more value it is still unlikely to really help with any link-building program. When a search engine sees a valid link that they follow they use the anchor text to determine the subject of that page. They will then include this page in results for searches that are based on or very close to those keywords. Therefore, using anchor text of “Click Here” means you will be increasing your search engine visibility for anyone searching for the term “Click Here”. On Google the term “Click Here” currently 391 million results. Even if you genuinely wanted to compete in this area you would have no chance.

Using your domain name as anchor text poses similar problems. It is helpful with brand recognition and also ensures that should a surfer explicitly search for the name of your service they will be shown your site first. But how many people do you think find your site by searching for your domain name? The answer, unfortunately, is very few indeed. Always use keywords as your anchor text and make sure that this keyword is included on the page of your site that the link points to.

Using an irrelevant but popular keyword may seem like a good idea but it is a very dangerous game. Adult and online business keywords are among the most popular but when conducting any link building you MUST use keywords in anchor text that directly relate to that page of your site. I might notice that the term “blue widget” (a surprisingly popular choice of keyword for these purposes) receives a lot of searches and use that as the anchor text to point to this article. If I hadn’t included the search term above then Google and other engines would give the link no weight at best. At worst, and if I were to do this regularly, they would flag me, my page, my site, and my IP address as spam. A much better choice of keyword, and therefore anchor text for this article would be “link building”.

Ideal Article Length For Submitting To Directories

Articles submitted to directories can range in length from blog post sized 200 word articles to much more substantial articles of 1,000 to 2,000 words. Anything larger is unlikely to attract any substantial attention but these longer articles less than 2000 words in length are good ammunition for e-zines and electronic newsletters. Even these can gain good links if each issue is archived. They will also usually gain a very good amount of direct traffic.

Choosing Beneficial Article Directories For Your Article Submission

So, the article directories you choose should allow the use of anchor text. They should also offer either a high PageRank or a lot of traffic. PageRank can be viewed using the Google toolbar and anything below PageRank 3 is virtually useless unless the site receives a lot of traffic or is brand new and looks set to become popular in the near future. Alexa is a very good site to help determine the amount of incoming traffic that a site receives. Use as many directories as you can possibly find and submit your article to each one. Try to alter the About The Author section for each directory that you submit to.

Why You Should Consider Altering The Text Around Your Link

Google quickly recognizes that a lot of your links are from identical pages. You will still receive the benefit of your link building and you don’t get penalized for this but you won’t receive as much weight as you can. When you use the Google search engine you will usually notice that when you come to the end of the list you receive notification that a certain amount of results that are very similar to those you have already seen have been excluded from the results. Google does something very similar when compiling the list of inbound links to your site. By changing the text that is found around your link when you submit to each directory you will increase your link popularity.

Conclusion, Summary, And General Notes

There are hundreds of article directories and while you should post to all the ones that offer anchor text and have either a high PageRank or a lot of traffic you shouldn’t bog yourself down too much. Certainly include niche sites because these give you a targeted section of readers. There are also some major general directories that cater to all tastes and are certainly worth adding to your article directory database.

Links are said to be the currency of the Internet and are certainly worth investing some time and/or money into. They will help to boost your search engine rankings and will usually drive direct traffic to your site. By building a database of directories you can ensure that your articles and therefore your sites receive the kind of exposure they rightly deserve.

About The Author:
Matt Jackson
WebWiseWords offers unique link building packages that include article writing and submission. Packages range from basic one off submission to the pro+ package that includes four submissions per month to over 70 directories. Because WebWiseWords is a Platinum or Expert copywriter with many of these directories your article receives even more exposure.
Article Submitted On: October 28, 2006
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/

Without Search Engine Optimisation Your Website Could Be Lost

Building a great internet site is a wonderful achievement. But it could also be a complete waste of your time and money unless potential clients can find it. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is one way to ensure your site is seen in the most crowded marketplace ever conceived.

SO WHAT IS SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION (SEO)?

To understand Search Engine Optimisation you must first consider how people actually look for – and eventually find - products and services on the web.

Research shows that more than 80 per cent of the world’s 290 million internet users (10 million of them in Australia) use search engines to find what they’re after.

There are many search engines available to consumers – the better known include Google and Yahoo! – but in general they all work the same way. Typically a person will enter a keyword or phrase into the search engine and immediately receive a list of recommended web pages.

Internet users are impatient, which means they seldom scan though more than a page or two of search results, and generally only access sites listed at the top of the page. If you want to be seen, your site must not only appear on a list of search results, it must rank towards the very top.

Open a search engine and type in a word or phrase someone searching for your company might use – if you fail to appear in a prominent position, chances are your site has not been search engine optimised. Without optimisation, your site is about as effective as an advertisement floating in the middle of the ocean.

HOW DO SEARCH ENGINES RANK INTERNET SITES?

Search engines regularly dispatch ‘spiders’ or ‘robots’ (aka bots) to collect information on websites. Using an algorithm – a set of complex formulas or rules – the search engine evaluates each website’s relevance and then ranks it accordingly.

These algorithms are unique to each search engine, they are highly secret and they change all the time. But in general they all obey a basic set of rules. That means it is possible improve your chances of a better ranking by ensuring your website has the most appropriate content, and that the content is structured in a search engine-friendly way – this process is known as Search Engine Optimisation.

Search Engine Optimisation is not an exact science. It requires trial and error, and there is never a guarantee of success. But without Search Engine Optimisation your website is almost guaranteed of not being seen.

Of course there are other ways of reaching potential clients. You could, for example, spend money to advertise on a search engine, and only have your advertisement appear when people search for particular keywords. That is valid way to increase your chances of reaching customers. But studies have shown people using the internet tend to trust and visit the free listings more than paid listings.

HOW DO YOU GET STARTED ON SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION?

First you need to find out if your site is actually being indexed by a search engine.

Open a search engine and type your company name in the search box. If you appear in the results it means that spiders or robots have located your site. They will place the site into a memory bank, and visit it from time to time to update their information.

If your site it not listed you could consider submitting your site to search engines. This will not guarantee that they will list you, but it won’t hurt to try. A word of advice - do not submit your site multiple times as this will only annoy the search engine people, and you need to be on their good side.

Some search engines will not accept submissions – they prefer to find your site themselves. And some simply draw their information from other search engines (a disclaimer should alert you to this practice), which makes it pointless submitting your site to them.

Once you are confident your site is being indexed, you need to identify keywords – these are the terms a potential visitor might enter into a search engine when looking for your product, service or company.

Finding the right keywords is a pivotal component of Search Engine Optimisation. There are applications that allow you to test each word by showing how popular it is and how often it is used – the result might surprise you.

A good way to find keywords is to visit a competitor’s website and see what it has listed. To do this, open their site and click on ‘view source’ - a heap of what looks like gibberish will come up, but find a line which says ‘

About the Author:
Gerald Chait is GM, Marketing of SDG Technology, providing IT Solutions, such as Website Development and Application Development. Contact gerald.chait@sdgtechnology.com.au or visit www.sdgtechnology.com.au.
Content Provider: http://www.my-articles.com