location for a keyword on a page?

[BenVitale]

What is the best location for a keyword on a page for Google ranking?

Is it

(a) near the top
(b) at the bottom of a page
(c) both

And, how does it work with other search engines?

[Compguy Pete]

All that truly matters if the keyword is outside of a heading tag is that it's used well within the content.

if you plan on wanting that keyword just hanging out on your page try to use it in a H1 or H2 tag.

[SEO_guru]

Actually it's not so simple. Where the keyword phrase (I hope you're using phrases and not just single words!) is located on the page is not the only factor that matters.

SEO has to be looked at like a process and a puzzle. You can have the most important single piece of the puzzle positioned in an "ideal" location, but if you don't have the rest of the pieces in place, it won't matter.


General rules for on-page placement - phrases should be high up - the higher the better, in an H1 - H3 form, AND they should be within the content, AND they should be at the very bottom of the page.

But that requires providing enough additional content so that it is a complete page - in natural language descrptive paragraphs so that the page isn't just or even mostly those phrases.

And the phrases need to be matched to the page title, and meta description, and alt fields in image tags and in links both on the page and on other pages that lead to it if you want maximized results... And the list of white hat SEO fundamentals (http://www.search-marketing-answers.com/blog/white-hat-seo-fundamentals/) goes on.