Using keywords in the text of the page
By Yelena Shapiro
There are many issues
to consider in keyword placement.
Since each engine is different, so are the algorithms. They rank based
on different specifications and you have to keep in mind all of them.
Text and keyword placement are important because most of the engines index
the full text of a page.
A few general rules:
Make sure that your main page is full of keywords. It has a higher chance
of being indexed, and with some engines, it is the only page that will
be indexed.
Some engines rank higher if the page has at least 100 words, so
make that your minimum. Directories rank based on the quality of the content,
so make sure that your pages are more than a list of keywords.
When creating your
pages' content, keep the following four concepts in mind:
Keyword Prominence
The best place for keywords in the text is on the top of the page,
preferably the main page. The closer they are to the beginning of the
page or the sentence, the better. This concept is known as "keyword
prominence", you'll see it used to describe engines' algorithms.
Some engines
also mention that the bottom of the page should contain keywords as
well.
Beware of how engines
view pages differently than people do. Here's an example:
At Widgets
International, our business is selling widgets
You
may think that you did pretty well with the keyword "widgets"
by placing it at the top of your page. A search engine, however, sees
your page this way:
Home
About us Products At Widgets International, our business is selling
widgets
Now your keyword placement
is not as good as you thought it was before. Try to place keyword rich
text on the very top of your page. If you are using images on the top
of your page, make sure to include ALT
tags.
Keyword Proximity
Some engines, such as Google,
use the concept of "keyword proximity" as a part of their ranking
formula. As suggested by the name, "keyword proximity" means
the closeness of keywords to each other. Here's an example to further
illustrate this concept:
The two keywords used
are "puppy" and "food." If a user searches
for "puppy food," the first sentence will rank higher
because its keywords are closer to each other.
Donner Brothers
has been selling puppy food for over 50 years.
Donner Brothers
has been selling food for your puppies for over 50 years.
Put your keywords
as close together as possible, and make sure that your sentences are
clear.
Keyword Density
This concept, also known as keyword weight, measures the
relationship of keywords to other text.The higher the percentage of
keywords in relationship to other text, the better. Here's an example
of how it's measured.
Puppy food
is our primary business.
There are four words,
since "is", "our," and other stop words are
usually not counted. Let's assume that our keyword phrase is "puppy
food." Now there are three "words" in the sentence:
"puppy food," "primary," and "business."
"Puppy food" makes 1/3 of the sentence - 33%.
In reality, keyword
density is not this high. The recommended density is 3-7%. This
means that for every 100 words, your keyword should repeat 3-7 times.
Sounds easy? Just consider having 10 keywords, and trying to repeat each
one 3-7 times. This is practically impossible to do, so instead, pick
two or three most important keywords and try to use them 3-7 times for
every 100 words.
Keyword Frequency
This measures the number of times you repeat a keyword and is tied
to the concept of keyword density. Search engines want to see more than
one repetition of a keyword to make sure that it's not an isolated case.
The recommended repetition is 3-7 times.
Avoid the use of
spam
Don't be tempted to put keywords at the beginning by using tiny, or invisible
text (same color as the background). Search engines define this behavior
as spam, and can reject your site if you use this technique.
An overview
Keywords in the
text:
- At least 100 words in the text
- Keywords at the beginning
- Keywords close to each other
- Repeat keywords 3-7 times for every 100 words
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