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It seems like the tool calculates the percentage of phrases as a part of that specific length of phrase. In other words the KW% of a given 1 word phrase is calculated as a percent of all of the 1 word phrases on the page while the KW% of a 2-word phrase is calculated as a percentage of all the the 2-word phrases on the page.
Brett had suggested an 8% keyword density for Google but how does this apply to 2-word phrases using this tool? For example if I try to optimize the page for "widgets" and "blue widgets" I can only hit 8% for either the 1-word or the 2-word phrase since there are always many fewer 2-word phrases on the page than single word phrases. Does this make sense?
Thanks for any help!
Welcome to WmW. My apologies for not getting to your post sooner. Brett's usually pretty quick about answering SEW tool questions, but he's been pretty busy lately, so I'll take a quick stab at it.
You are correct regarding the way in which the tool is calculating the density. In general, KWD isn't nearly as important as it used to be, and with Google in particular, the ranges of top ranking pages are quite often all over the map. Off-page criteria trumps most other factors.
Still, 8% is a pretty good target, because pages within that density range can still read well. But going a little higher or lower won't make much of a difference.
I think it is always best to focus your KWD efforts on a single keyword phrase rather than a single word. However, if you really feel you need to optimize the page for both, then I'd try to split the difference.
for example, if "blue widgets" has a KWD of 8% then "widets" by itself will start off at 4%. If you add a few single occurences of "widgets to the page, the two densities will come together somewhere in the middle. You won't ever get them exactly the same, but you can get them in the ballpark.
