Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is an important, albeit tedious, task for any blogger or website owner. Without a good search engine optimization strategy, it is extremely difficult for search engines to index and, more importantly, for visitors to find your website or articles. It is a well-known fact that most visitors looking for information will click on the links on the first page of any search engine results. Some may delve into the second, third and subsequent pages of search engine results, although these are a minority.
One of the most important aspects of good search engine optimization is choosing good keywords (words that reflect the content of your article AND that people actually type into search engines). Of course, choosing good keywords is only part of the battle. You should also consider the level of competition from other sites, their PR ranking, the strength of backlinks, the age of the domain, and the quality of their content.
Another important keyword consideration is keyword density and article length. What is keyword density? Keyword density is the metric of how often your particular keywords appear within your article. The placement of these important keywords in your article title, meta keywords, tags, meta description, image names and alt text, and judicious use of header tags complete the necessary steps to ensure that your Articles rank well in search engine results.
But how do you measure keyword density?
One of my favorite tools for measuring the keyword density of online content is a Firefox add-on called SEO Quake. With it, I can check the keyword count of my own articles and posts or competitor sites, which in turn allows me to tweak my own articles in an attempt to rank higher in search engine results. .
The downside to using SEO Quake is that your content must already be published and live before it can work its magic. A much better approach would be to measure the keyword density of your article from your Windows desktop before publishing it online.
I personally use WindowsLive Writer to publish my articles on my websites, but I usually start by writing everything in Microsoft Word. As powerful as Microsoft Word is, one tool that web publishers and bloggers like you and me are missing is one that enables keyword density metrics and analysis.
Fortunately, there are some capable applications designed specifically for the task of measuring keywords in text files on the Windows desktop. The following are 3 extremely capable keyword density tools for desktop use, and best of all, they’re free!
e3KWD Check 3.0 Keyword Analysis Tool
e3KWD Check 3.0 is a free, fast and lightweight program for analyzing keyword density in web and text documents, written for Windows platforms (95/98/2000/NT/ME/XP/Vista).
This tool allows you to run real-time scan tasks on your local copy while you write or edit. If you have an active Internet connection, it will also retrieve and analyze web documents online using the integrated address bar.
Pazintys Keyword Density Tool
Pazintys Keyword Density Tool is a particularly small, light and simple application to calculate the density of words in text files.
Text keyword density has a critical impact on search engine optimization (SEO) and determining placement on search engine results pages.
Pazintys requires no installation and at only 30KB it can be easily installed and running from your USB flash drive.
Duplication and Density Checker
Duplication And Density Checker is another desktop analysis tool from 30 Second Smile.
This simple piece of software is a double-edged sword, as it can perform two very important tasks for content creation.
This software will run on your desktop and will allow you to compare two articles for duplicate content and will also allow you to quickly see the keyword density of your text files.