Keyword Prominence

[webtamers]

Hi Folks,

Could someone be kind enough to explain to me what "Keyword Prominence" is? I just ran a "Page Advisor" program from a
popular submission program, that gave me the following advice:

"On average, the keyword had a prominence of 32% in the top-ranking pages. In your page, the keyword had a prominence of 90%. We suggest having a prominence of 25 to 39 percent."

What in the hec is this? It's not Density, that is listed seperately. Help! I'm easily confused :)

Thanks in advance

[tedster]

My understanding is that prominence is a measure of how "up front" the keyword is positioned in an area.

For instance, if the keyword is the first word in the body copy, that's a 100% prominence. If the keyword is in the last position, that's 0% prominence. If there is more than one occurrance, the results are averaged, so first and last position in the same area gives a 50% prominence. Half way through plus at the end gives 25% prominence, etc.

So your message seems to suggest moving the keyword toward the last half of what ever area you are measuring.

That being said, I don't worry much too about prominence these days, except in the title tag where I go for first word as much as is possible. In general, I strive for natural copy, and make sure the phrases I want are in there somewhere and at a reasonable frequency.

On the first site I optimized, I used WPG and I had 6 different versions of a page, matched the top search engines "ideal" prominence, density, frequency and every other danged parameter. Those pages bombed and others that "shouldn't have" ranked well did any way. Hmmmmmmm...

I'm glad I learned all those concepts. It's good to look at a page from all those angles. I just stopped obsessing so much.

[eljefe3]

I'm in full agreement with Tedster. It seems that WPG is SEO with training wheels in that it helps in understanding the whole concept, but it is just a starting point. I've run every one one (well quite a few) of my high ranking pages through the critic at one time or another and according to the critic, my pages shouldn't be holding the rank that they are.

I would almost expect at some point in the future for WPG to incorporate "off the page" criteria which can be easily found (links pointing to the site). If they were really on the ball they'd incorporate a function similiar to Brett's reputation calculator.

[webtamers]

Hello,

Thanks for clearing that up. Really appreciate your help!
I have been taught by another SEO professional to always put the keyword phrase first in the Title, Keyword, and Description tags. The pages seem to rank really well that way, but this program sees it as a big "Mistake" I feel like
I should tell you, just FYI, that the program I am referring to is not WPG, it's AddWeb 4.0 - just released. The "Page Advisor" has some very interesting advice, like using VARIANTS of a word. Anybody heard of this? By their advice you should have one variant in each of the Title, Keyword, and Description tags! -And 5 in the body!
I have never heard of this before. Here is what they call
a "variant" (quote from page advisor)

"A keyword variant is seen as a word that contains your keyword in it. For example, fishing would be a keyword variant of fish. The key phrase 'fly fishing' would be a variant of 'fish'."

Any comments on this?

[drbill]

Webbtamers firstly welcome to WmW.

On the variant keywords I tend to use them often. I have felt that is give you more exposure in a wide area of the same sort of search.

Example:

fish, fishing

fruit, fruity,

Still very early so having trouble coming up with more :)

So this is what i do and get listed with your targeted keyword and also listed for a variant of the same keyword. I try and do at least 2 variants of a keyword.