Friday, October 19, 2007

Learning From The Old and Lame

The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.” ~ Albert Einstein, theoretical physicist (1879-1955)
Here's a free tool for you that might help you when you are optimizing your pages. On the other hand, it might not.

Either way, I think it's cool. Let me explain.

It's a keyword density tool.. you enter a URL and you'll receive a list of all the repeated phrases on the page and their frequency.

What is "keyword density" and why is this important?

That's the rub...

Keyword density is the percentage of words on a page that match a specified set of keywords. For organic optimization... making pages with a certain keyword density has been a goal by many in the industry to try and get their pages to rank high under a specific keyword or keyword phrase.

Some SEO consultants have been saying for years every page (article) must achieve a keyword density of 3 to 5 percent to be ranked high.

Notice I used the past tense...

Today, most smart marketers, myself included, don't believe that a certain percentage is required. The search engines use other measures to determine ranking, such as relevancy, traffic and back links.

Furthermore, keyword density has a terrible history of abuse.

For years it was easy pickins to the top of the rankings for webmasters that over used keywords in a pages. Not today. This multiple "unnatural" use of keywords with the intent to manipulate the rankings is known as search spam and/or keyword stuffing.

Please don't do it. The only result you will see is a negative one.

So... why am I giving you this tool?

I think it is still important to see the breakdown of the keywords on an optimized page. Whether or not you believe a page must meet a certain percentage of keyword density or not, the fact remains that an article which frequently mentions a keyword usually has a higher ranking than other content that does not, (holding all other factors constant).

And since this tool, in one click, will tell you how often the words on your page appear, it still might be useful.

And in the alternative... like I said, it's cool.

Take a look: http://www.seochat.com/seo-tools/keyword-density

While you're on the site please take a look at the other free tools. Some are good, some are old, some are lame... but try and understand what they are doing. Can you see it?

They have created pages of viral interactive tools. Good source of traffic, eh?

Sure it is... heck you're there aren't you?

And I'm pushing my CVoD readers there. Good viral interaction works by creating an application on your site and then the Internet does the marketing for you.

Would you say that are creating value for visitors?

Engaging them?

Entertaining and educating?

Hmmm.. imagine that. CVoD baby!

AP