Keyword Use Ranking Influences

Score

Keywords in Title Tag

4.9

Inserting the targeted search term in the web page headers title tag - this is the most important on-page SEO influence, it is also the text that gets bolded in the SERPS, so it stands out and is noticed by the browser.

Keywords in Body Text

3.7

Inserting the targeted search term in the body text of the web page - although it is good to use your search terms throughout your page, overuse will suppress rankings. New generation spiders analyze the page topic and don't just look for the search terms.

Topic Analysis

3.4

The relevance of keywords to the text content on a page - this is becoming increasingly more important as the search engines start to 'understand' the meaning of text and look for related key phrases.

Keywords in H1 Tag

3.3

Inserting the targeted search term in the H1 tag of the web page - this is no longer as important as it used to be and may even hurt your rankings if it repeats the page title and link anchor text.

Keywords in the Domain Name

3.0

Inserting the targeted search term in the domain name - useful if the search term is a single word, otherwise not that important, you can hyphenate multiple words, but to many hyphens may result in trust issues.

Keywords in Page URL

2.8

Inserting the targeted search term in the web page URL - Yahoo really likes this and it certainly helps with your click through rate as they will be bolded in the SERPS. Older trusted websites tend to benefit more.

Keywords in H2, H3, H4, H5, H6 Tags

2.8

Inserting the targeted search term in the Headline tags H2, H3, H4, H5 & H6 of the web page - although it is good to use headline tags other than H1, be careful not to use exactly the same search phrase.

Keywords in Alt Tags & Image Titles

2.6

Inserting the targeted search term in an images alt tag & as an image title - if you use images as links, then the alt tag becomes your anchor text, for non linked images they are not that important for web search, but crucial for image searches.

Keywords in Bold or Strong Tag

2.3

Inserting the targeted search term in bold or strong text - remember that the bold tag and strong tags are different, bold is for markup and strong is for emphasis, use sparingly, three search phrases per page.

Keywords in Meta Description Tag

2.0

Inserting the targeted search term in the header description tag of the web page - a good description will persuade the browser to click on it, especially if it contains their search phrase, must be unique for each page.

Keywords in Keyword Tag

1.2

Inserting the targeted search term in the header keyword tag of the web page - only Yahoo seems to give this a bit of weight, the other search engine overlook the keyword tag.