What Is Keyword Prominence?

Date First Published: 11th December 2022

Topic: Web Design & Development

Subtopic: SEO

Article Type: Computer Terms & Definitions

Difficulty Level: 6/10

Learn more about what keyword prominence is in this article.

Keyword prominence refers to how prominent a keyword is within a webpage. The prominence of keywords is determined by how close they are to the beginning of the page and whether they appear in the title, meta tags, and the opening paragraph. The important keywords (e.g. the main title of the page) should be most prominent on a webpage.

Difference Between Keyword Prominence and Keyword Density

Keyword prominence is not the same thing as keyword density. Keyword prominence refers to how prominent a keyword is within a webpage. If a keyword is prominent, it means that it is easily noticeable by search engines and visitors, but it does not have to be used lots of times to be prominent. Keyword density is the percentage of words that match a specific keyword on a page and it is calculated by dividing the number of times a keyword has been used by the total number of words on a page and multiplying it by 100.

Is Keyword Prominence A Google Ranking Factor?

Keyword prominence is a confirmed Google ranking factor. Google has said that using a keyword towards the beginning of a page is much better than it appearing further down the page. Using a keyword less prominently is said to reduce the chances of ranking for that keyword. John Mueller of Google said: "I would recommend, if there's something that you want to tell us that your page is about, to make that as visible as possible. So don't just put that as a one-word mention at the bottom.

But rather, use it in your titles, use it in your headings, use it in your subheadings, use it in your captions from images, all of these things to make it as clear as possible for users and for Google when they go to your page that this page is about this topic.

So that's kind of the direction I would take there. I would not worry about like, can Google get to the word number 20,000 or not. Because if you're talking about the word 20,000, and you're saying this is the most important keyword for my page, then you’re already doing things wrong.

You really need to make sure that the information that tells us what this page is about is as obvious as possible so that when users go there they're like: Yes, I made it to the right page, I will read what this page has to tell me."

John Mueller strongly recommends making the most important keywords obvious in the titles, headings, subheadings, and near the top of the page. The titles of the page greatly influence organic click-through rate as they are the first thing that searchers see when browsing through different search results. In order to increase the chances of ranking for a keyword, it is recommended to include it in a prominent position, but to not use it too often as that could lead to problems, such as keyword stuffing.

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