Further questions arise: will meta tags following Dublin Convention ("D.C. tags") be counted in or not? And what about HTTP-EQUIV tags? Would you really bet ranch that TITLE tags in tables, forms or DIV elements will be ignored? Etc., etc.

Another fundamental factor generating massive fuzziness left, right and center, is issue of semantic delimiters: what's a "word" and what isn't? Determing a lexical unity (aka a "word") by punctuation is a common though pretty low tech method which may lead to some rather unexpected results.

Say you are featuring an article by an author named "John Doe" who happens to sport a master's degree in arts, commonly abbreviated as "M.A.". While most algorithms will correctly count "John" and "Doe" as separate words, "M.A." string is quite another story. Some algorithms will actually count this for two words ("M" and "A") because of period (dot) is considered a delimiter - whereas others (surprise!) will not. But how would you know which search engines are handling it in which way? Answer: you don't, and that's exactly where problems start.

The only feasible approach to master this predicament is trial and error. The typical beginner's inquiry "What's best keyword density for AltaVista?", understandable and basically rational as it may be, is best answered with fairly frustrating but ultimately precise: "It all depends - your mileage may vary." It is only by experimenting with keyword densities under standardized, comparable conditions yourself that you will be able to come to significant and viable conclusions.

To get going, here are some links to pertinent programs that will help you determine (and, in one case, even generate) keyword densities.

KeyWord Density Analyzer (KDA) ------------------------------ An all time classic of client based keyword density software is Roberto Grassi's powerful KeyWord Density Analyzer (KDA). It is immensely configurable and offers a fully featured free evaluation version for download. Find it here: < http://www.grsoftware.net/grkda.html > (Expect to pay appr. $99 for registered version.)

Concordance ----------- Concordance is a powerful client based text analysis tool for making word lists and concordances from electronic texts. A trial version can be downloaded here: < http://www.rjcw.freeserve.co.uk/features.htm > (Expect to pay appr. $89 for registered version.)

fantomas keyMixer(TM) --------------------- Our own fantomas keyMixer(TM) is world's first automatic keyword density generator, enabling you to create web pages with ultra precise densities to first decimal digit. Read more about this server based Perl/CGI application here: < http://fantomaster.com/fakmixer0.html > (Expect to pay appr. $99 for registered version.)

3. Unless proper name of your product or service is already well-known, emphasize its generic description rather than its name. For instance, write “proposal writing software” rather than “PropWritePro.”

4. Likewise, substitute keyword phrases for pronouns like “it” or “its” to increase their overall frequency in release.

5. Post your completed press release at sites that allow free posting, such as prweb.com, pressbox.co.uk and dozens of others that turn up in searches on phrases like “free press release submission” or “free press release distribution.” Through diligent and repeated searching, I found more than 20 general sites like that and more than 100 sites welcoming releases on a particular topic.

6. Wait a few weeks and check your standing in search engines for phrases in your release. Positionagent.com works well for this. Then repeat whole process for another message, another keyword phrase or another product or service.

Additional Notes on Press Release Optimization

Although these steps may appear simple, they are not intuitive or natural for anyone with experience in writing traditional press releases. Let's suppose you were launching a rental boat service in Truro, Massachusetts, which is on Cape Cod. Tourists would be much more likely to use "Cape Cod" as a search term than "Truro," so former is what should be repeated. And particularly if you happen to know Cape Cod, if you were not consciously writing for search engines, you would probably use "Cape Cod" only once and then revert to "the Cape," which wouldn't help enough when people are typing in "Cape Cod boat rental."

A bonus benefit of this strategy is that by placing your releases around Web, you may also boost rankings of your own site at search engines that count inbound links as a sign of popularity.

Assuming you’ve chosen your keyword phrases wisely, enjoy increased visibility and traffic that free press release posting sites have worked hard to obtain for you!