A keyword is a term that is used to match with the query a person enters into a search engine to find specific information. Most people enter search phrases that consist of two to five words. Such phrases may be called search phrases, keyword phrases, query phrases, or just keywords. Good keyword phrases are specific and descriptive.
The following concepts related to keywords, help in optimizing the keywords on a web page.
Keyword Frequency
This is calculated as how often does a keyword appear in a website title or description. You do not want to go overboard with frequency, however, since on some engines if you repeat a word too many times, you are be penalized for "spamming" or keyword stuffing.
In general though, repeat your keyword in the document as many times as you can get away with, and up to 3-7 times in your list of metatags.
Keyword Weight
It refers to the number of keywords appearing on your web page compared to the total number of words appearing on that same page. Some search engines consider this while determining the rank of your website for a particular keyword search.
One technique that often works well is to create some smaller pages, generally just a paragraph long that emphasizes a particular keyword. By keeping the overall number of words to a minimum, you can increase the "weight" of the keyword you are emphasizing.
Keyword Proximity
It refers to the placement of keywords on a web page in relation to each other or, in some cases, in relation to other words with a similar meaning as the queried keyword.
For search engines, that grade a keyword match by keyword proximity, the connected phrase home loans will outrank a citation that mentions home mortgage loans assuming that you are searching only for the phrase "home loans".
Keyword Prominence
It is a measure of how early or high up on a page, the keywords are found. Having keywords in the first heading and in the first paragraph (first 20 words or so) on a page are best.
Keyword Placement
Where your keywords are placed on a page is very important. For example, in most engines, placing the keywords in the Title of the page, or in the Heading tags will give it more relevancy. On some engines, placing keywords in the link text, the part that is underlined on the screen in a browser, can add more relevancy to those words.
Best Places to Put Keywords
Here is a list of places where you should try to use your main keywords.
- Keywords in the
tag(s). - Keywords in the .
- Keywords in the .
- Keywords in
or other headline tags.
- Keywords in the keywords link tags.
- Keywords in the body copy.
- Keywords in alt tags.
- Keywords in