As mentioned in Chapter 1, relevancy makes up a huge part of the search
engine algorithms. As a result of this, SEO companies have developed
tools to help make determining relevancy easier. The three I use the most
often are Dave Naylor’s Keyword Density Tool, SEOmoz’s Term Target
Tool, and Ranks.nl Keyword Density & Prominence Analyzer.
NOTE :
The name of these tools is a misnomer. The metric keyword
density by itself is not actually important to search engines. Don’t let
that confuse you; these tools are actually very helpful for determining
how relevant a webpage is to a given keyword from a search engine
algorithm perspective.
Dave Naylor’s Keyword Density Tool: This tool is available at
http://tools.davidnaylor.co.uk/keyworddensity/ and is shown in Figure
3-6.
Figure 3-6: Dave Naylor’s Keyword Density Tool
With Dave Naylor’s Keyword Density Tool you can see metrics about the
content and technical information about a given website. This is
tremendously helpful for spotting potential spam signals (a specific
keyword is used 300 times on a page whereas keywords are usually
used 10 times on similar pages) and technical problems (a page is
returning a 404 HTTP status code).
SEOmoz’s Term Target Tool: This tool is available at
www.seomoz.org/term-target and is shown in Figure 3-7.
Figure 3-7: SEOmoz’s Term Target Tool
SEOmoz’s Term Target Tool helps determine how targeted a particular
page is for a specified keyword by analyzing a variety of search engine–
related factors.
Ranks.nl Keyword Density & Prominence Analyzer: This
tool is available at www.ranks.nl/tools/spider.html and is shown
in Figure 3-8.
Figure 3-8: Ranks.nl Keyword Density and Prominence Analyzer
Ranks.nl Keyword Density & Prominence Analyzer is a robust tool thatoutputs a large variety
of search engine metrics for a specified page. It is shows more raw data than the other tools listed
in this section, so it is good for data junkie SEOs.
NOTE Ranks.nl Keyword Density & Prominence Analyzer shows more
raw data than the other tools listed in this section.
I use these tools when I want to:
Key Data Points
You can use each of these tools to focus on different important data points:
Dave Naylor’s Keyword Density Tool: This tool doesn’t have a
specific data point that is the most important. Instead, it provides a
lot of data points that are useful when looked at as a part of a bigger
picture. Some of the key sections I look at are as follows:
Keyword Analysis to make sure the keyword is included in all
of the appropriate places
Geolocation to see where the server is located
External Follow Links to get an idea about what type of links
the website is willing to send outwardly
I use this tool when I am trying to get a good idea of how the search
engine’s relevancy detectors see a specific page. That said, this tool
doesn’t provide enough data on anchor text, so although it shows the
best view of relevancy of any tool available today, it still misses a major
part of the equation.
SEOmoz’s Term Target Tool :
The Your URL Grade feature
this tool offers is great when you want to show a client a very
simplistic view of how relevant a page is. It is straightforward
and even the dumbest CEOs can understand its results. This
works particularly well in the United States where the education
system uses a scale of A, B, C, D, and F to grade students.
Because this tool also uses this scale, people who are
unfamiliar with SEO are able to use their prior knowledge to
understand if the tool is reporting a good score or a bad score.
Ranks.nl Keyword Density & Prominence Analyzer:
This tool has a Ranks Wizard metric that is tremendously helpful for
identifying the non-primary keywords on a page. This is useful
when you are trying to do long-tail keyword analysis for a client. I
use this when I am trying to leverage popular pages on a client’s
domain to attract new search traffic but don’t want to change the
primary keyword of the page.
Common Questions Relevancy Determining Tools Can Answer
These tools can help you answer for yourself (and explain to clients) the
following questions.
How Relevant Is a Given Page to a Given Keyword?
This is a big question that requires a lot of data to answer. If I am slim on
time (as many professional SEOs are) and am in a meeting with a client I
go directly to Dave Naylor’s Keyword Density Tool or SEOmoz’s Term
Target tool. The Keyword Density Tool provides almost all of the data I
need and loads very quickly, so I use it when what I need it for is a tangent
for a larger conversation. For example, if I want to show a client that they
are accidently devaluing their ranking ability by ranking out too many times
with the keyword they are trying to target, I use this tool to generate the
actual percentages and show them examples of the foul links.
I use SEOmoz’s tool when I am explaining the idea of relevancy to the
client. I find that the simple letter grade this tool provides quickly
communicates to the client how they are doing with regard to relevancy
with an example from their webpage using an actual keyword they are
trying to target.
What Does a Given Page Look Like from a Metric-Based Perspective?
This is similar to the first question except it changes the perspective a little
bit. This version of the question comes up mainly when I am writing reports
for clients. I use a combination of Dave Naylor’s Keyword Density Tool and
Ranks.nl’s Keyword Density & Prominence Analyzer to harvest as much
data as I can and then make judgments based on my findings.
