Keyword Prominence, Frequency, Proximity Tutorial

SEO Keyword OptimizationNow that we’ve discussed keyword density, it’s time you know the other factors when it comes to keywords in your on-site optimization. Understanding keyword prominence, frequency and proximity can help you leverage the power and placing of your keywords in your website. This is a tutorial for Keyword Prominence, Frequency and Proximity.

Keywords are what makes your site tick. It is the bread and butter that your readers are going to bite and chew. Knowing where to place them, how to use them and how often to insert them in a sentence is important.

Attention please

Keyword Prominence deals with how eye-catching your keywords are within a web page. The important keywords should be the most prominent in your webpage. For example, you can see that the title of this article is Understanding Keyword Prominence, Frequency and Proximity – that’s because those are my desired keywords for this article.

Here’s another example:

Keyword Prominence

Click to Enlarge

Do you see that the keyphrase I’m trying to target “Your sex drive is not the problem” is very prominent in the page as it is my article’s title?

It is at a good place in my webpage with good fonts and height. That spells out prominence.

Over and over again

Keyword frequency deals with the number of time you let your keyword or keyphrase appear in a webpage.

It is said that the more times a keyword appears in your webpage, the more relevance a search engine will likely attribute to it whenever a user would search for those keywords.

Again, there is a fine line between keyword stuffing and having a good keyword frequency. Watch how many times you repeat those keywords and make sure that your article makes sense. In fact, I would advise you to just be mindful of your keyword frequency – don’t force it or put too much emphasis on it.

Too close for comfort

Keyword proximity deals with the closeness between two or more keywords with each other. The idea is the closer the keywords are to each other, the better.

Let me give you an example:

“How your on site optimization will affect your search engine rankings”

“How your on site optimization will affect your rankings in search engines”

There ain’t much difference, is there? But if someone searches “Search engine rankings” it is more likely that the previous title will rank higher than the latter. This scenario is within the context and assumption that all else is equal for both pages.

It ain’t a huge factor, but knowing these little things matter.

Tips for keeps: Create great, quality, compelling content – that is of first importance. Just be mindful of these three things about your keyword. It’s good awareness but don’t make it the basis for your next article.


This entry is part of the SEO Hacker School series: Complete On Site Optimization Tutorial

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Sean Si

About Sean

is a Filipino motivational speaker and a Leadership Speaker in the Philippines. He is the head honcho and editor-in-chief of SEO Hacker. He does SEO Services for companies in the Philippines and Abroad. Connect with him at Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter. Check out his new project, Aquascape Philippines.