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
-
Miffed about why the page isn't ranking!
HI all - hope you can help We seem to be dropping back and fourth completely on one of our key terms and I really don't get it. The home page seems to now be ranking for another but I have made a page purely for this main term and whilst it was starting to rank well , we have now dropped off for it. Anyone able to lend some advice?
On-Page Optimization | | KellyDSD860 -
What tools or tactics do you use to identify which ranking factors Google is weighting for your industry or keyword?
Google ranking factors are increasingly more complex and less universal. Google is emphasizing different ranking factors for different scenarios. What tools are available that can help identify which ranking factors Google may be weighting for a given query or industry? For example, are there any tools that provide correlative analysis of Google's rankings for a given keyword?
On-Page Optimization | | AdamThompson0 -
10 Mobile Pages. 5 Desktop Pages. Canonnical to where?
I have a mobile site with more pages than the desktop site. Normally I would just point the page equivalents to the desktop site using the rel canonnical tag. What about the 5 pages? Do I just leave them be? Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | Imajery0 -
Imiges on own page???
Can somebody help me to explain why when I click on an image in a post it goes to its own page?? And why if I click on other image it does not go anywhere?? this is one of the posts: http://villasdiani.com/beach-wedding-at-a-luxury-boutique-hotel/ what is good or bad?? On most of the images SEOmoz is reporting that I am missing meta description!
On-Page Optimization | | VillasDiani0 -
Site is not ranking for a particular keyword !!
One of my site is ranking for all the main keywords except one. This keyword is just a variant of those keywords which are all ranking in top 10 (page 1) in Google. Why is it happening? Does Google punishes site for one keyword. I know competition of keyword matters but other keywords with similar competition are ranking. And even the site is very well optimized for this keyword (titles and site copy without any stuffing) Any Solutions ?
On-Page Optimization | | Personnel_Concept0 -
Page title changes based on results per page
I have a product listing that allows customers to set a results per page option. This ads a GET variable to the URL. I've added the page number to the title of this page if they go past the first page. If this results per page variable is added to the URL then google see it as a different page. Do I need to change the page title for this?
On-Page Optimization | | BedInABox.com0 -
Impact of mobile pages on current rankings
Morning all - I've been getting a bit of traffic recently for mobile phrases, so am thinking of putting a mobile optimised page on my site which users will be automatically directed to when they visit my site. My question is though, how will this affect the rankings of those current pages which are trying to target mobile users. For example, let's say I've got a page at www.betting.com/iphone which is ranking really well for those users looking to place a few bets on their iPhone. Once I stick my mobile optimised page up anyone clicking through to this URL will be re-directed to a generic mobile landing page at a different URL. Is this likely to effect my rankings of the original www.betting.com/iphone page at all given the fact that all visitors are being immediately re-directed elsewhere? Thanks very much for your help
On-Page Optimization | | theshortstack0 -
On page Analysis... how does seomoz choose to match a keyword to a url?
On my "On Page" analysis report it show me a couple pages that have D ratings... one key phrase is "my destination lodging" and it is matching it up with a url like mydomain.com/my-destination-hotels.html. It says I'm ranking 37th for this term.... Is it just suggesting that I optimize this url because it is already ranking for that term? So should I create a different page with a different url to better match this phrase? Thanks for any ideas.
On-Page Optimization | | PillarMarketing0