Introduction
The use of keywords was once the determining factor for search engine ranking. And even though search engines have gotten more sophisticated, and you need more than a set of keywords to win at SEO, keywords still are an essential part of writing for the web.
What is a Focus Keyword?
A focus keyword is the most straightforward word or combination of words that summarizes the topic you are looking to read, write about, or rank for with a specified page.
Search engines and web users look for these focus keywords and other factors to determine the authority a particular web page has on a topic.
What is a keyphrase?
A keyphrase is the group of keywords and words written in a particular order that web users regularly use as search terms. For example: “best business schools in Dallas”
Target Keyword Density
Google and other search engines also look for repetition of the keywords throughout the text. Not too much, not too little. 1-3% of keyword density leaves the article seemingly natural and not “spammy.”
User-Focused
All and all, keywords should help your reader understand your content. Most ranking factors focus on the user experience and not the crawler bots experience. As a rule of thumb, SEO writers must create easy-to-read content focused on the web user, aka the reader.
Keyword Placement
Where the writer locates the keywords dictates their importance. SEO writers best practices state to place keywords as follows:
- Page title
- Permalink
- The heading
- At least one of the subheadings
- On the first paragraph of the copy
- On the last paragraph of the copy
- On the file name and Alt tags of at least one image
- Meta description
- Title tag
Words Words Words
Words are at the center of everything. Every landing page should have at least 300 words and your focused keyword. Google and other search engines look for them, read them, evaluate them, and store them to display them for users. Pages with low word count will not hold the same value and will be more challenging to rank.
Contact the Jindal School SEO Web Content Writer with your questions or suggestions.