09 May 09 SEO SIMPLIFIED – Keywords in Content Part – III

In the last two articles we talked about keyword density and keyword prominence respectively. Taking the discussion on how to use keyword in the content for optimal optimization forward we will discuss about keyword proximity in the article.

In the essence, Keyword proximity refers to the distance between two keywords in the sentence or paragraph. The closer the keywords will be the better ranking your webpage will get from search engines. Let’s understand this with an example. Suppose two important keywords that you will use to write homepage content for your website are “marketing e-Book” and “marketing course” then let’s make two sentences using the two keywords to explain keyword proximity:

Sentence 1

With the growing popularity of online marketing, marketing e-Book has secured a regular place in the suggested reading list of a marketing course.

Sentence 2

These days it is not uncommon to find a marketing course with marketing e-Book in its suggested reading list, as online marketing has gained popularity.

If we create two separate web pages that has the above two as starting sentences then the second sentence has better chance of getting top rank in the search engine than the first one for the keyword “marketing e-book.” The proximity of two related keywords tells the search engine that the articles in which these keywords are more relevant for the given keyword, thus it gets better ranking.

To get optimal proximity between two important keywords, you need to remove as many unnecessary filler words lying between them as you can. This can be done by carefully writing and rewriting the title and body texts.  The following examples will clarify the concept better.

Page Title

Bad Proximity: Importance of marketing e-Book in a marketing course.

Good Proximity: Marking course – marketing eBook is gaining importance.

Body Text

Bad Proximity

Marketing e-Book is becoming hot topic of discussion in business schools. It consists of 40-50 pages or less of condensed idea on the given topic. Seeing its growing popularity and importance one should not be surprised if it gets included in a formal marketing course.

Good Proximity

The short marketing booklet of 40-50 pages or less that is better known as marketing e-Book is gaining popularity, and its inclusion in a marketing course should not come as a surprise.

The bottom line is to keep the keywords as near as possible everywhere: in body, title tag, heading tags, meta description tags, and anchor text etc.

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