The search phrases you are targeting on each page of your site need to be distributed throughout the text content on the page. Each search phrase should generally be used anywhere from 4 - 9 times on the typical site page. If the page does not have alot of text on it, then each phrase should be included less. If the page has alot of text on it then you want to use each targeted phrase more. This is what is known as the keyword phrase density or keyword phrase ratio on the page.
All of the search engines calculate keyword density/ratio in partly determining how high the page should be ranked for the keyword phrases targeted. There is rampant speculation among the webmaster community as to what the ideal density should be. The fact is that only the search engines know and they periodically tweak whatever the ideal is to ensure that nobody is ever able to pinpoint it exactly. *Note - This is not the only thing the search engine use to figure out how high you get. There's alot more to it. Keep reading.
Our best advice is to write the content of the page any way you want it, while keeping in mind what the targeted keyword phrases for the page are. Then after you are done writing, read over what you wrote and sprinkle in the targeted phrases as much as possible wherever they reasonably make sense. They should be throughout the page. That means don't cluster them all at the beginning, or all at the end. You want them evenly distributed and at the same time the content needs to make sense. Don't just randomly put them anywhere.
Your pages have to please 2 different audiences to be the most effective. They have to please the search engine robots and they have to please the humans that will be your visitors. If you try to please the robots too much then your content will not make sense to your human visitors. If you write 100% for humans than the page likely won't get indexed very well. You want to find a balance between the 2 and the easiest way to do that is to write for the human first and then go through and strategically place the targeted keywords wherever you can as long as the overall content still makes sense.
*Note - The keyword phrase density may be one of the things you'll have to come back to and modify later if the page doesn't get listed high enough for the phrases targeted. But keep in mind, each page is targeting 3 - 4 phrases and it is highly unlikely that the page will get a top listing for all of them. If you get a top listing for 2 and a bad listing for the other 2 then you could negatively affect the top 2 trying to get the other 2 higher by modifying their density. Sometimes you have to be content with what you get and leave well enough alone.
For an excellent example of all of the above, just look at our home page. We specifically targeted 2 top-line keyword phrases, which are in the title, and several secondary phrases. See if you can figure out what they are. The 2 top-line phrases we targeted got us listed in the top 5 on all the search engines for one and top 10 for the other. We have held those same positions, give or take a few places every now and then, for almost 8 years now.
In the next part, you'll learn how to get outside help to get your site pages indexed quickly and listed as high as possible.
