How do you measure keyword density on your pages? Personally, I just count the number of times my keyword shows up. My count is done while viewing the code, so I can see inside meta tags etc. Is there a better way?
I don't it's a useless metric. Write copy for your visitors not the SE's and worry about spending your time making the site actually relevant Nigel
Listen to Nigel. Just write naturally and provide users with good content. If you do so, your keyword density for your targeted keyword phrase should end up around 1-2%. If you want to worry about keyword density, worry about it where it counts: <title>, <h1>, <h2>s, URL, anchor text of inbound links, etc. The keyword density for the "body" (main content) portion of the page carries VERY little weight compared to the keyword density of individual elements that are themselves ranking factors like <title>, <h1>, etc.
I have to agree here to some extent. It's a shame to hurt the quality of the site by writing specifically for search engines. Chances are you will rank with a few ripe spots for the keyword through the page, good internal nav structure, and good back links with proper anchor text. Of course it will depend on your keyword and the authority of your site.
There are Keyword density checker tool available. use it. otherwise count the total keyword and divide it by total number of words in a page and multiply it by 100.
Use a free software called Dupfree pro. It will easily calculate the keyword density, checks the uniqueness of the article, compares two articles. etc. This is a great tools for writers as well as webmasters.