by Tammy Frost

Created on: August 01, 2010   Last Updated: August 02, 2010

When applying page optimization to your web site, researching keyword density, prominence and frequency is highly recommended. If you are unfamiliar with search engine optimization (SEO), keyword density, keyword prominence and keyword frequency may all seem confusing to you. SEO experts will analyze keyword density, prominence and frequency when working on web sites. This is to make the website more search engine friendly. This also helps to target website visitors through organic web search.

What is Keyword Density? Within web pages there are certain keywords or keyword phrases that are included to get listed in the search engine page results. Certain key words are inserted within other text to make up the contents of the web page. Keyword density is the percentage of times that the keywords are included compared to the number of other indexable words. There is a keyword density ratio that many webmasters follow. Each search engine has a different recommended ratio to follow. A good key word density ratio to follow is 2-8%.

What is keyword prominence? Prominence is how close the keyword is to the start of the web page or article. Does the author of web page use the key word within the page title or meta tags?

Including your keyword or keyword phrase at the top of the page will help in keyword prominence. Many webmasters include the main key word phrase within the web page title so that the search engines know what the page is about.

What is keyword frequency? It refers to how many times a website developer or author includes certain words that they want ranked for. These are words that the searcher types into the search box usually. The number of times it is used is called the frequency. The more number of times the word appears within the page the better usually. However, you must not repeat words intentionally to try to get indexed and ranked better.

Over using a word in an article or webpage is called keyword stuffing and the search engines punish site owners because of it. You need to remember that you are not only trying to impress the search engines but you must write your articles for people. Make your web page people friendly as well as search engine friendly.

An overview of keyword density, prominence, and frequency is needed when writing and planning out your web pages and websites. Paying close attention to your keyword placement is highly recommended if you want your website to rank well in the major search engines. The three main search engines are Google, Yahoo, and Bing (MSN). If you are able to optimize your web pages to fit the major search engines guidelines, then you should have no problem in getting indexed by the other small search engines.

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