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"Copyright Joe's Widgets. Here at Joe's Widgets, we make great widgets which can slice and dice.
Please contact us: write Joe's Widgets, 2121 Irine St"
(alright, maybe a little more professional sounding)
If this blurb appears on every page, you have "widgets" (multiple times) "slice" and "dice" in proximity at the beginning of every page.
Am I correct? Are there any dangers in this?
Franklin, you'd also have the keywords in other places on the pages, in text as well as possibly in text links, so you'd have to watch that the density didn't get too high. Too much repetition in close proximity can make the copy read a little stilted to site visitors; it's best to have them distributed throughout the page, comfortably fitted in with the rest of the copy so it reads naturally and doesn't look artificial.
Contact information is normal to expect, as is copyright information, but without over-doing it, you'd have to place the words and information carefully within the HTML so that the distribution looks natural.
Using the word widgets 4 times within that small amount of text is imho a little too much; the density is too high and it's not natural looking.
It's very easy to move into over-kill. When I write copy (or edit and modify) I generally start with very high keyword usage to get them in all possible places, and run through at least two edits, removing a lot or altering to other forms of the words and different phrasing structure. I try to make sure not too many occurrences are too close together, and if a page is being optimized for a phrase, I won't use the exact phrase too much - I'll make sure one or two of the words are placed individually, or with a different modifying word. What looks somewhat OK when first done generally doesn't when editing the next day or two, but that second look gives a clearer perspective of spacing them apart, sprinkled throughout the pages.
Contact: Joe's Widgets..address, email..etc. and
Copyright (year) Joe's Widgets. All rights reserved.
look perfectly natural and normal to be on a page, yet I would not necessarily put them right next to each other. It depends on how much else is on the page, and how it's structured. The copyright could go at the very bottom, and depending on the page, contact info could go on the side. I've got pages that do it exactly that way. It separates them, giving 2 occurences of the keyword, but it's not overdone.
Someone made me aware of another possible danger with this: the words in the sidebar will be in tiny print, thus counting less. And there goes your opporunity to put high powered keywords as the beginning of your page. (He feels that, overall, the sidebar is *negative*, for this reason)
The sidebar is usually used for navigation, and is cluttered up with all sorts of stuff that has a function not necessarily related to search. It's hard to control. While putting your target phrases down at the bottom of the nav bar in a relatively small font may be helpful, and it's actually something I sometimes do, this is not a good way to start off a page.
Try to use something called the "table trick," which you'll have to search for... in the browsers and HTML forum... as a way of positioning the right content section of your page before the left nav bar. If you're dealing with very competitive content, it's a very good way to go.
As Marcia pointed out, the example you gave of nav bar content had the problem of too many repetitions of your target phrases too close to each other, even though they may read well for the user.
Then, still figuring on the table with two columns, there can still be some text under the table itself, with the copyright clause last thing on the page (except maybe last-modified), also in size 1 verdana font.
If there are only two uses of the keyword or phrase between the copyright and contact info, it's still not going into excess.
