Keyword density is a measure of how often a keyword or keyword phrase is used in your web page. Google uses this as a factor to determine how relevant your web site is in a search.

I get thousands of questions about search engine optimization but this is one of the most popular. First of all - exactly what is keyword weighting - or keyword density as it is also called?

Here's the simple Non-Techy explanation for calculating the keyword density of your pages.

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 ).

Let's move on. If you are optimizing that page for a single keyword, you need to figure out how many times that particular word is repeated within that 250 word total.

Manually scan the page and count every repetition of your keyword. Your Word program should also have an Edit and replace function. Paste in the code and then type in the keywords in both the edit box and the replace box. The program will replace each occurrence 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 density - 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 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 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 density of between 2 - 5%.

What you have just been shown is about as simple as it gets for working out the keyword density 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 density in %

To save time, don't stress too much over exactly matching the density of your page to the Top listed pages on the search engines.

Algorithms fluctuate constantly at the major search engines so it is much simpler to optimize a few pages for different weighting or densities. A few pages at 2%, 3%, 4%, and 5% keyword density will mean at least one of your pages should rank well on a major search engine.