Keyword Placement: Where Is The Best Place To Stick It? (Poke It? Cram It? … Uhm)

Writing by Nick Stamoulis Tweet

I have said plenty of times that keyword placement is more important than keyword density. But where exactly is the best place to stick your, uh, keyword? Well, I can tell you now, it isn’t in the gutter (where you’re thinking).

No, the best place to stick your keyword is your page headline. To be more specific, right at the beginning of the headline. And notice, I did say headline. Not title.

The difference between your page headline and title is academic, but important. The title is a meta tag, title tag. It goes under the hood. And while the mechanics under the hood are important, the decoration above the hood is far more important. Because, unlike an automobile, the fancy adornment at the top actually produces mechanical benefits as well.

Search engines look for that all important keyword. So a short headline right at the top of the page in big bold letters is very important. Those five to ten words are the most important part of your web page. And one or more of them should be your keyword – hint: keyword phrase.

By putting your keyword phrase right at the beginning of your headline you are saying to the search engines, “This is what I am talking about”. Then, repeat that keyword phrase in your body text a few times so the search engine robots will recognize it. It’s like cheese to a mouse. It optimizes your page better than anything else because that headline actually can become your search engine results snack food for searchers. And the humans reading your content, if you make that headline really stand out, will read your text based on it.

Of course, there’s no substitute for great writing either. Keywords or not.