Textalyser: Free, Helpful Internet Tool for Keyword Density

When you're writing content for the Internet, different rules will apply than those that apply to writing for print publications. If you're a web writer, and you're writing for profit (and not for a retail site), it is most likely that the revenue generated by the site that you are writing for is produced by on-line advertising. The powers that pay are looking for you to generate traffic to the site so that they can make their income, and thereby pay you yours. Keyword density is your literary call girl. Textalyser wants to be your madam.

For many, keyword density is a real burr in the saddle. Most writers find that repeating words and phrases (like keyword density… that's keyword density) interrupts the flow of the piece and strangles creativity. None-the-less, if no one finds the piece they have written, there will be no page views, let alone CTRs (click through rates- the mathematical equation that determines how often readers of a particular site click on through to the advertisers links), which make the piece valuable to the advertisers.

So, how does one determine whether or not they've written a piece with a solid keyword density? Doing the math is extremely time consuming and tedious, and if you're anything like me, confusing. There is a site that I have found to be extremely helpful in determining keyword density: Textalyser.

Textalyser (that's textalyser … textalyser) is a free website that allows users to copy and paste their content into a field on the site and with the press of a button, analyzes the keyword density of the piece. Textalyser allows you to set several parameters for your analysis, including minimum characters per word (defaulted at "3", which ignores words like "a" and "an" in the analysis), special word to analyze, if you're just wanting to hone in on a particular word of phrase, and the ability to ask it to ignore numbers. These are just a few of the keyword density special-use indicators that Textalyser allows users to control.

Once you've copied and pasted your text into the Textalyser analysis field, chosen your parameters (and if you're not sure what your parameters are, the default combination works beautifully for most web writers' keyword density concerns), all you have to do is hit the "analyze the text" button and Textalyser does all the work for you.

Let's analyze the sentences "Textalyser is a helpful tool for calculating keyword density. Keyword density is a tricky thing to calculate, but Textalyser can help writers to determine optimum keyword density for their articles." As run through Textalyser, the keyword density for the phrase "keyword density" and the word Textalyser (my keywords for this article) break down to 10% keyword density for "keyword density" and 6.7% keyword density for "textalyser."

These are very positive numbers, and obviously the control set was extremely skewed by this writer's agenda and literary license. The website I write for, Associated Content, considers a 1% keyword density result to be positive, with a 3-4% density to be optimum. Hopefully, this extremely unscientific example has provided you with some information about the use of Textalyser for gauging the keyword density of your web content.

One of the most positive things about Textalyser is that the site is free, and does not even require users to register. You can simply visit the site at www.textalyser.net and get started immediately with no log in names, password creations, or end user license agreements. There is simply a little note at the top of the main page that reads "Invest in Textalyser, please use the contact form or donate" and a PayPal donate link.

There is one small, relatively unobtrusive, hinky glitch with Textalyser: if you want to reanalyze a piece, you must reenter the site fresh. If you simple delete the text from the previous search and paste in the new text, the same numbers from the previous submission will continue to turn up. Reentering Textalyser will reset the analysis software and provide accurate results.

For your information, the keyword density for this article, as determined by Textalyser, is 2.6% keyword density for "keyword density" and 2.8% keyword density for "Textalyser."