Topical relevance is vital to ranking in search engines. While the body of a page must provide sufficiently optimized and resourceful content around a topic, other areas require intentional optimization.
Anatomy of a landing page
Let’s look at the anatomy of a landing page and the placements for which targeted keywords should be weaved in. The example of the keyword this page focuses on is “how to run Google ads.” You will see the terms and variations of it peppered into these areas on the page.
What are people searching for?
When constructing content, the aim is to try and imagine how your readers will find it. This article would attract more readers if it answered a question like:
- How do we improve patient safety?
- How can we improve the safety of patients in the future?
In this article, we are targeting people looking for answers on improving patient safety, so, with that in mind, it is better to frontload the keywords chosen in the copy so that the search engines find the page topically relevant more quickly.
- Patient Safety – Future-proofing health services
- Patient Safety- How can we improve it in the future?
Additionally, search engines are looking for signals to understand what topics pages are about. You can help this page be more relevant by also including the following (as shown in the page anatomy illustration earlier):
- Title tag: This is the title of the page as it appears on the SERP.
- Headers: The headings break up the text into sections and should either answer a question you’ve researched or target primary keywords. Ideally, a page would have at least two headers.
- Meta Description: The text underneath your headline in organic search listings. Add your target keywords there, as well as a CTA.
- Images: They help with visual appeal and search engine ranking. Ensure you’ve optimized alt-text; that’s the description of a picture for the visually impaired.
- Add your keywords and key points early: Search engines crawl the top of content more forensically.
Keyword stuffing is when we insert as many keywords as possible into the text without any thought to the reader.
In the past, it was possible to fool search engine bots by adding lots of keywords or even writing 100s of keywords at the bottom of the page and then changing the font to the same color as the background to be invisible to the reader.
Search engines are much more evolved now. It looks for these attempts to game the system and punishes them. Avoid doing the following:
- Repetition of keywords, especially in the same paragraph.
- A lack of natural language – Keywords seem to work in a natural flow; search engines can track if they’ve been shoved where they do not belong.
- Linking in your first sentence; never have more than three links in the same paragraph
Refer to Google Search Essentials for more information.