The actual definition of keyword density is how often a keyword or phrases show up throughout the text of a certain web page in relation to the total number of words on that page. Why is this important? Big search engines such as Google and Yahoo love good keyword density and use it as one of the determining factors as to where a website page will be ranked.

Knowing this fact, many began to stuff their web pages with senseless text that contained the keywords or phrases that they wanted to be ranked with and this led the search engines to change how they actually want to see keywords in relation to web pages. These days if you stuff your keywords meaninglessly into the text of your web pages you can actually be penalized by the search engines. Having good keyword density consists of much more than just picking a handful of keywords and phrases and cramming them into a web page text; you actually have to put some thought behind the whole process.

The first step in mastering keyword density is to come up with a master list of keywords and phrases and the trick is that they must be relative to your website and your specific pages. Once you have worked up a good, relevant list of keywords to use you then need to consider other factors such as:

Match Your Keyword Tag with Your Content: Be sure that the Meta keyword tag on the page is relevant and matches the keywords. The Meta tag itself needs to be held to about 900 characters which breaks down to around or about 25 words. Remember that the Meta keyword tag is not seen by anyone visiting your site and is for the spiders and web crawlers only. It is for this reason that the words within the tag must correspond with the text of the page otherwise you do yourself no good.

Use Proper Density: Using the proper keyword density throughout your text is vital. You should aim for your keyword density to be between 3 and 10 percent. You can check this with keyword validators to be sure that the percentage is correct. Avoid writing useless sentences just to squeeze your keywords in another time and also avoid using the same keyword more than once in one sentence. For example, saying “These phones are great phones and will be the best phones you ever had,is big time overkill for the keyword “phones”. This type of action can be considered SPAM by the search engines and there is no faster way to online death then to be known as a SPAMMER.

Use the Top Half: There are many spiders and web crawlers that will only search the first 25 to 50 percent of the web page for keyword density and relevance so it is important that you know and take advantage of this fact. While you should always maintain good keyword relevance and density throughout the page, you need to take your time and pay special attention to the top half.

Use Variations: You should also be smart and consider using different variations for your keywords and also take advantage of plurals. This will increase the number of keywords you can actually use and will still keep you in the realm of relevancy.

To ensure that your keyword density is correct you can always use a keyword density checker. This type of system will automatically sift through the text on your web page and highlight all the words that are used with the greatest frequency. Once you see the highlighted pages you will be able to tweak your web page until it is the way that the search engines want to see it.

As always, keyword density remains a vital part of any SEO planning but if not done properly your efforts will be all for not. You have to remember that the search engines have rules and regulations set up for a reason and regardless of those reasons, if you want your website to show up higher in the SERPs then you have to play by the search engine’s rules.

Scribd is a social networking website that is catching on at a rather quick pace which allows anyone to publish their documents and images and make them available for the World Wide Web. With Scribd you can easily turn almost any type of file such as PDF, Word Document, or Excel Document into a web document that can be viewed for the entire online world. Scribd offers the perfect solution for those that do not have a website and makes sharing your thoughts with the world a breeze.

Scribd has over 35 billion words in its arsenal which means it is many times bigger than such free publication sites as Wikipedia and others. The site has over 10 million documents publishes and boasts tens of millions of reader and viewers each and every month. So how do you get involved?

Membership to Scribd is free and creating an account is as easy as a few simple steps. Once you create your account you are given a number of ways in which to upload your files such as:

Copy and paste your text documents.
Type in the URL of existing work you have published on the web so long as you own the rights to it.
Upload files directly from your hard drive.
Use your desktop upload tool to publish multiple files at the same time.

Once you begin to contribute to scribe you can build a personal profile and then begin to build your social networking community. You can find others with similar tastes and interests and subscribe to their work and share thoughts, ideas, and even leave your comments. Others in turn will begin to subscribe to your works should they be interesting enough and they may even use some of your information in their own websites. Plus, published documents on Scribd are typically indexed rather quickly by the major search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Ping. It all boils down to your published work having the ability to go viral in a very big way provided it is good quality work.

This not only means increased opportunities for individuals spreading the word about their work, it also gives internet marketers in the know a distinct advantage.  Internet marketers can use Scribd as a whole new source of social networking leads and find others that are interested in what their clients have to offer. By carefully matching content with members, a win, win situation can occur as a member will get something they have been looking for and the internet marketer’s client gains further exposure.

As with any other social networking website that is online today, Scribd has some finer points and some not so finer points. Here is a breakdown:

THE GOOD

Use of iPaper: Scribd uses a technology that is powered by Adobe Flash called iPaper. iPaper allows document to be embedded on web pages much in the same way as videos from YouTube. What this means for you is that you do not have to know any fancy computer lingo, download any software, nor do you have to have a website in order to publish your work. With Scribd you can publish your work with just a few clicks of the mouse.
Privacy Settings: With Scribd, you decide who can and cannot view your files. You can choose to share a document with the entire world, or limit it to certain members within the site community; it is all up to you. You can set different parameters for each article or you can set a blanket parameter for all.
No Commitment: Once you decide that you no longer want your files to be viewed, you can easily remove them from Scribd. You can keep files active for a day or forever; again, the choice is yours.

THE BAD

Searchablity: Scribd is a bit unorganized and it is sometimes difficult to find what it is you are looking for. Scribd continues to make strides in this department and has various ways to navigate through the website, but you are usually left with a good number of things to sift through before you find what you are after.
Plain site: Compared to other social networking sites, Scribd is not all that flashy. While that is not necessarily a bad thing, some may view it as a negative.

Scribd is relatively new when it comes to social networking and has only been around since 2007. But the website and its community continue to grow by leaps and bounds. With the ease of uploading documents and the growing number of members it is easy to see why Scribd is rapidly catching on in the ever popular world of social networking.

Two-for-One Writing Assignments

Know that old saying about how you can please some of the people some of the time, all of the people some of the time, but never all of the people all of the time?

When it comes to writing for the internet, you’ll have to do better than that!

At least if you want to make money.

In the moment you sit down to write anything for the internet, you instantly have two audiences tuning in to see whether they want to stay with you or click elsewhere. And some of what they’re expecting to see is the same, but some of it isn’t.

Meet your two audiences:

Audience #1 is furry, creepy-crawly, and potentially nightmare-inducing, in a virtual way, anyway. It’s made up of search engine spiders that crawl all over the internet looking for snacks. They crave fresh, relevant content, and when they find it, they mark the spot where they found these munchies so they can come back for more soon.

Audience #2 looks a lot more like you, a human who goes online to find information, solutions for problems, entertainment, and even connection. People want to read informative, valuable, engaging, and conversational text. Understand how many options are at their fingertips when they’re reading your content and make it worth their while to stay put until they follow your call to action.

What makes for irresistible spider bait?

Unique content. Spiders are not interested in leftovers, rehashed, refried, or recycled. If they sense they’ve stumbled into the online version of the back of your fridge into that mysterious, unlabeled Tupperware container full of who knows what from who knows when they’re out of there faster than you can call for take-out.

Don’t even think about scraping, borrowing, or pasting content from another site. Original content is worth its metaphorical weight in gold, and will go a long way toward making your site the one where all the spiders want to hang out.

Relevant content. What you say your content is about better be exactly what it’s about. These spiders make a list and check it twice to make sure that when your content comes up on the search engines, they’re not embarrassed when you click and find something completely unrelated to what you searched for. This is where you need to have a solid understanding of keywords, and how to use them.

Don’t even think about keyword spamming, jamming your words into the text at some crazy high density rate. The spiders are onto that nasty trick. Some key places to use your keywords include the title, the first sentence, your anchor text, and then sprinkled throughout the content where it fits naturally.

What about for your human readers?

Conversational text not techy, insider, we-we-we ramblings. Write like people speak, like people like to read. Nobody wants to break out the dictionary when they’re reading online. They also don’t care all that much about you it’s nothing personal; it’s just that they’re there for their own reasons.

Valuable content. While clearly the primary reason you’re building a web presence anyway is to make sales and make money, you don’t want to beat people over the head with your sales message. The market is based on swapping equal values money for goods or services. If what you’re offering is truly valuable, your prospects will recognize it when they’re ready to. If you try cramming it down their throats, they will run away and never be seen again. Remember to give first, and see what happens.

So, if you were cutting your audiences like a pie, how should it look? A good rule of thumb is to write first for your human readers, and then come back and tweak to make it irresistible to your arachnid visitors. The proportions about 60/40 in favor of people.

Following that recipe, you’ll cook up some copy that pleases most of your audience most of the time and that’s not bad at all.

Written by Mark Bove’