Keyword Weighting or Density Explained...
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First of all - exactly what is keyword weighting - or keyword density as it's also known?
Here's the simple Non-Techy explanation...
Every page has a total number of words...so, for example, let's say your web page has a word total of 250, not counting all the HTML code ( roughly 1/3 to 1/2 of your web page will be the code - so just deduct that number of words from the total ).
Use a Word Processing program to find out your total word count. Paste the HTML source code of the page into a blank document, then choose File> Properties >Statistics >Word Count ( your programs Help file will give specific instructions for viewing page statistics ).
If you are optimizing that page for a single keyword...you need to figure out how many times that particular word is repeated within the 250 word total.
You can manually scan the page and count every repetition of your keyword or your Word program should also have an Edit and Replace function...paste in the code and then type in the keyword in both the edit box and the replace box. The program will replace each occurence of the word with itself...and produce a total count for the number of repeats.
Let's assume for this exercise that you have used that keyword 10 times on your page.
To calculate the keyword weighting - take that figure and divide it by the total number of words on your page.
So in this case 10 divided by 250 = .04
Keyword weighting or density is always referred to as a percentage of the total word count for the page. So now you need to multiply .04 by 100 to get the percentage figure.
Your calculation would look like this;
.04 x 100 = 4%
The page has a keyword weighting or keyword density of 4%.
For effective optimizing that will boost your pages into the Top 20 spots on the major search engines you are aiming for a keyword weighting of between 2 - 5%.
There are many software programs that will help you work all this out, some better than others.
Click Here
for the ones I recommend.
What you have just been shown is about as simple as it gets for working out the keyword weight of a web page.
To recap then the formula looks like this;
10 divided by 250 = .04 x 100 = 4% -or-
keyword count divided by total word count x 100 = keyword weighting in %
To save time, don't stress too much over exactly matching the weight or keyword density of your page to the Top listed pages.
Algorithms fluctuate constantly at the major search engines so it is much simpler to optimize a few pages for different weightings or densities. A few pages at 2%, 3%, 4%, and 5% will mean at least one of your pages should rank well on the major search engines.
Warm Regards,
Chris Oakley
This article was submitted by Chris Oakley, Dedicated to Top 20 Search Engine Optimization SUCCESS. To subscribe to her Free SEO Plus E-zine go to
Copyright © 2003 Chris Oakley. All rights reserved worldwide.
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