Which Keyword Density tool?

[funkyville]

I'm trying to get a handle on keyword density on my landing pages. Please comment or refute:

As far as I can tell "best practices" (If there is such a thing) says...
- your keyword(s) should appear in your Adwords ad copy, the landing page title, page description and also in the H1 tags, as well as the actual page text.
- Keyword density on the landing page should be between 5-7%.

The problem is that every keyword tool seems to report different results. Some weight the occurrences if they are in the title, etc. Some report what you might call "broad match" and have a very loose definition of your keywords. Depending on the tool I can get variations of 5-10%.

Has anyone had good luck with AdWords using a particular keyword density tool? It doesn't seem like it should be that difficult, but I guess there a lot of ways to calculate this.

I realize that there are many other factors for AW success...readable page copy, good synonyms, ad quality, etc. But I just want to focus on KW density for a minute. Thanks.

[smallcompany]

Keyword density

While it's obvious you should have keywords you bid on (and have in ad text) included into the content of your landing page, I don't believe you should spend much time about measuring stuff.
Keyword density has always been more discussed on organic side. I believe that even there, the density is an old school. Just my opinion.

If someone could confirm that a sole content change (including keyword density) on the landing page has helped with QS - that would be a ground for taking further action - anything else - pure guessing and waste of time.

And certainly, if there is anything from Google (which I doubt), you can use that as a reference.

Try using your common sense and pay attention to usability. Also, pay attention to the part of the page that you see when you just land onto the page. Use the resolution that is the most common of your visitors, probably 1024x768. ;)

[pavlovapete]

funkyville,

I agree with smallcompany that density is an older measure with limited utility. Things have moved on. Try searching for "collocation" and "phrase based indexing". Not simple measures of single word repetitions but analysing just how words work together on a topic.

You are better off writing and testing for better sales copy IMO.

One of the reasons you get different results is the stop word list. If a word is designated a stop word it may be removed from the density calculations. Different lists will give you different densities.

HTH

Cheers

[gn_wendy]

the density may also vary depending on if the tool calculates titles and metas as part of the page or separately. use a page to calculate manually and then compare with different tools and then stick to one you are happy with.

either way - i wouldn't be too concerned with KWD on landing pages (unless you are also trying to get them to rank organically).

focus on your users and on the conversions.

for your landing score though it is important for your broad match keywords to be present in your meta and on your page, and that the ad matches the content.

I have had more success using "common sense" and putting words/text the user expects into ads rather than optimizing for keywords. A KWD of 5-7% in the body is totally unnecessary in my opinion.

optimizing the keywords in order to 'improve' LS might come at the cost of conversions - which at the end of the day would lead to a more expensive campaign overall. At least for the type of campaigns I am running.

[netmeg]

In addition to what's been said above - relevance relevance relevance. Make sure your keywords, your ad and your landing page are all focused on *exactly* the same thing. Eliminate (or at least minimize) ambiguities.

[gn_wendy]

great addition netmeg. probably wasn't too clear on that.

oh. and i obviously meant Quality Score ... and not Landing Score... must've gotten my wires crossed. landing page quality score.