As the name suggests is the count Keyword of keyword occurrences in a piece of text. This matrix is formulated on the basis of exact presence of a keyword. Keyword frequency is a major contributing factor towards all search engine algorithms as it defines the web page content and gives a clear idea what the page topic is focused around. The more frequently an exact keyword is present, the more likely is the content relevancy for users looking for that particular keyword. Having said that, the rule “excess of everything is bad’ still applies and excessive use of a keyword leads to keyword stuffing and is treated as spam by all major search engines.

Let’s take up an example:

In this phrase “KK-WebServices, a group of Web Marketing experts offer quality Web Marketing services” the keyword frequency for “Web Marketing” is 2 while that of “Web Marketing experts” & “Web Marketing services” is 1 each.

Keyword Density

Computation of how many times a keyword is present in a particular area of the page like the visible content, title tags, headings, anchor texts, etc. Keyword density is a ratio of the keywords over the total page content and that’s how it’s different from keyword frequency which is simply a count.
While evaluating keyword density, each word in a key phrase individually contributes to the computation. An optimum balance of keyword density is preferred where the keyword usage is enough to make the content valuable but do not excessively over promotional to manipulate search results. This balance also varies from search engine to search engine.

Example Title Tag: “KK-WebServices a group of Web Marketing experts offer quality Web Marketing services”

Keyword weight (density) for “Web Marketing” will be:
2 (Number of words in the phrase) * 2 (Occurrence of exact phrase) / 12 (Total words) * 100 = 33%

Keyword weight (density) for “Marketing” will be:

1 (Number of words in the phrase) * 2 (Occurrence of exact phrase) / 12 (Total words) * 100 = 16%

Apart from increasing the keyword usage, decreasing the total number of words is also an effective way of increasing the Keyword density and vice versa.

Keyword Prominence

Usage of important page specific keywords at the most appropriate sections of a web page. Adding target keywords or keyword phrases to the most prominent areas adds value to the content, user friendliness and hence impacts the rankings. Adding keywords above the fold on a webpage at-least once or twice (as per the keyword frequency and density balance) makes absolute sense as the visiting user find exactly what they are looking for.

Another interesting example for this is the keyword prominence in the Title Tag. Using target keyword in the initial part of a title is considered more search engine friendly than towards the later end.

Author:

Kapil Khaneja
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