by Jon Wuebben

The most important and most basic thing to understand for on page optimization is that your keyword phrases need to be used on your page in order for the page to rank. This is fundamental to high quality SEO copywriting. But what are all the other “query” factors that play an important part in your site copy?

Keyword Frequency

Keyword frequency is the number of times your keyword phrase occurs on the page. Typically, you are looking for the keyword phrase to be used at least three times throughout the page (assuming you’re not writing 600 words or more). You’ll probably have a couple more keyword phrases that you’ll want to use too, so if you have a total of three keyword phrases that makes nine places that you’ll be using your phrases on a certain page.

One secret – you don’t always have to repeat the exact phrase time after time throughout the copy. You simply need to use the words that make up the phrase as many times as necessary throughout the page. If your keyword phrase is “outdoor lawn furniture,” you need to repeat the word “outdoor” three times, “lawn” three times, and “furniture” three times. Your goal of course should be to use the complete phrase as it is written, but you can do it this other way and still benefit in the search engines.

Keyword Density

Keyword density is the percentage of the total words on the page divided by the number of times the keyword phrase appears. What do the search engines look for on keyword density? Between 3-8%. So, if you have 350 words on the page, you’ll want each word of the keyword phrases to add up to 18-25 total occurrences. When working with your keywords in the copy, make sure all those keyword phrases are spaced out well.

Keyword Prominence

The first word of the page’s title, or header is the best and most prominent place for keyword phrases to appear. So, titles, headers and sub headers are perfect places for keywords. Another good place on the page is at the very end. You’ll also want to scatter them a few places throughout the body text. Keyword prominence is important, but not as important as the other factors.

Deciding on a Page to Optimize

How do you start? Look at your keyword phrases. You probably have a list of at least twenty. If you are a large company with many products or services, you could have hundreds. You’ll have general keyword phrases and more specific phrases. You’ll see phrases that seem like they would go together, and some that are more popular than others. If you are optimizing the home page for a watch retailer, you’ll optimize for “watches,” “watch accessories” and “watches for sale.” If you are writing the products page, you’ll optimize for “Rolex watches,” “Tag Heuer watches” and “Breitling watches” for example. Some keyword phrases will appear on multiple pages. If you are an exclusive Rolex watch retailer, “Rolex watches” could appear on the home page and the products page.

There will always be a phrase or two that won’t seem to fit on any page – just because the phrase came though as a possible good one during the keyword research process does not mean you have to use it. One thing you can do is search for that phrase on Google and see how other sites are using it; this may help get the ideas flowing.

If you can’t find a way to make it fit, then don’t force it. If you can create a new page, however, and find enough to write about around that phrase, then definitely do it! You could generate new traffic to your website in a very short amount of time.

One of the goals is to match a set of keyword phrases to what that page is specifically about – so if you are a fish market and you have a product page on shellfish, you want to use the same – themed keyword phrases of “fresh lobster,” “soft shell crab” and “fresh ocean shellfish” all on that page. The more general keyword phrase “San Diego fish market,” for contrast purposes, would go on the home page.

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