Does keyword usage in the footer have an effect on how high a page ranks?
-
My client has a lot of text about their company in their footer. Is the text in the footer associated with the on page keyword usage and density for all pages or none of the pages?
-
Probably a safe way to go - even with images comprised mainly of images I'd be surprised if you saw a negative impact from the footer blurb, but I've been surprised before.
To clarify: yes it's a good idea to mention your target phrase a few times, outside of your Title and H1 tags, in as organic a manner as possible. However, the "keyword density" most people discuss is related to calculating some percentage, attempting to determine the "optimal" density of the keyword phrase related to other copy. This is the "waste of time" I was talking about - sorry for the lack of clarity there.
-
Thanks Mike and Charles. I actually am concerned about the duplicate content issue because the site is mostly images and not a lot of text, so I decided to convert the text in the footer into an image on all pages but the homepage.
I'm surprised that keyword density doesn't matter at all. In the on page optimization here at SEO Moz they still recommend using your keyword phase at least 4 times.
-
- I would not expect the footer text to hurt on-page SEO. "Duplicate content" does not mean any repeated content whatsoever across your pages. This flag only goes up for Google's filtration purposes when the vast majority of content on the page is duplicate to another page.
There are countless sites across the web with similar "template" content that occurs across all pages, and this does not impede them from ranking or draw any filters/penalties against them.
-
Keyword density is not worth focusing on. It can safely be dropped from your SEO work at this point.
-
I'd look at this from a usability standpoint. If you have reason (data) to believe the footer content is being read by users and therefor actually serving a purpose, I'd recommend leaving it as-is. If nobody is reading this content, or it simply clutters the page unnecessarily, it's a good idea to remove it in favor of a more straightforward user experience.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Ranking well for 3 keyword phrase but not for 2?
Hi all, We have a site that sells whisky and is ranking well for a specific 3 keyword phrase for example "glendronach hielan whisky" (brand, product, type) which is great but the site isn't doing well for 2 keyword phrase for example "glendronach whisky" or "glendronach hielan". I'm a little confused as to why it wouldn't rank higher for the 2 keyword phrases given that there present in the 3 keyword phrase. Is there a massive jump between ranking well between 3 and 2 keyword phrases? If so what could anyone suggest to try and rank on the 2's?
On-Page Optimization | | Jon-S0 -
Page Rank Lost After Website Transfer
Hello, I recently transferred a website from Ruby on Rails to Wordpress in order to help with the site's responsiveness. I kept all of the URLs the exact same, but when I transferred it only the homepage and one other page kept their page ranks, all of the others have lost theirs completely. Almost every page on the site was at least a PR 2, and now their not ranked, and not ranking in the top of search engines like they were before. I am not quite sure what might have caused this, like I said, I kept the URLs all the exact same and its strange that 2 pages were not effected. I crawled the site with Screaming From and all of the pages that lost their page rank have a status as "Moved Permanently". They are the exact same URL, but they are listed without www. in front, could this have something to do with it? The website is www.goenergylink.com, and you will see that the homepage and "Residential" page still have their page rank, but none of the others do. Any help would be GREATLY appreciated! Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | mcmckenna10 -
Can I use Same Keyword for Multi pages Title Tags?
Hello All, I am working on client website and currently they are targeting One Keywords for multi pages. As I have search with Allintitle: Search query and Google display around 37 pages of website which carry same keyword in "Title Tags". I have told to client to change the "Title Tags" but they want that keyword for all relevant pages. So I want to know is that harm in Search Engine Ranking? Note: They have not done the link building activities for multi pages with same Keyword, they are using only in "Title Tags" only
On-Page Optimization | | jemindesai0 -
Should you use long tail keyword phrases in page names
for example if I was trying to rank for "spokane furnace repair" is it good or bad to name the page something like "spokane-furnace-repair.html"
On-Page Optimization | | Superflys0 -
Fixed horrible title tag on home page, and lost ranking. Will it come back?
I was helping out someone on their site and its home page ranked on page 2 for their term, and the title tag was horrible. It was 160 characters long with lots of near repetitive keywords ([keyword] - adjective [keyword] - adjective [keyword] - adjective [keyword] etc.) -- typical title that Google would penalize when it got around to it. So I created a title that made sense, for the keyword, and that followed the best practices of Google recommendations. Now it's dropped off the index. (EDIT: sorry, still in index, just not even in top 1000) Is this something I should not have done? I was just trying to keep them from getting slammed. And, how long should I expect it to take to get my ranking back? This is the only page title I changed.
On-Page Optimization | | bizzer0 -
Boosting page authority/rank by linking from blog
We're developing several blogs and I was wondering if it would make sense to periodically create blog entries that 'naturally' link to certain pages on the main site. For example we have a large amount of 'partners' across the country, and we wanted to do an interview series on the blog, and insert a link into the interview, such as "partner bob services the Boston area", or something more elegant than that. Would have have any significant impact on the 'boston page aside from the pass through traffic from the blog?"
On-Page Optimization | | ilyaelbert0 -
My website is saying I have duplicate page content and page title. How do I fix it?
Hi, I created a website on webstarts.com. After I launched it then ran a scan through SEO it says I have duplicate page content and page title. The 2 pages it is reading are technically the same page. www.mobilemowermedicsinc.com and www.mobilemowermedicsinc.com/index . I am unsure how to get rid of on of these as it keeps saying this is an error in the SEO scan. Could someone please advise me of what to do from here. Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | bcarp880 -
Similar Keywords/Different Pages
My question is about my content strategy regarding keywords and page creation. For this example I will use the following keywords: "widget financing" "widget leasing" "widget loans" "thingy financing" "thingy leasing" "leasing loans" "whatchamacallit financing" "whatchamacallit leasing" "whatchamacalit loans" You get the idea. Now I have created a separate page for each of these keywords. There are about 70 keywords and their respective pages. Although all of these describe the same thing I have re-written each page. In other words I didn't use the same content and just substituted the keywords. Each page is roughly 200 to 500 words. I do rank very well for most of these keywords. I would post some of the pages from my site here but I didn't know if that is frowned on. My fear/concern is will I get in trouble in a "post Panda" world. Again, the pages rank very well I just want to be in good graces with Google going forward.
On-Page Optimization | | leaseman0