What is Keyword Proximity in SEO?
A search term or keyword phrase is a combination of words.
Keyword proximity is the basic concept of SEO that tells the shorter the distance between the search terms individual keywords in the page content the higher the relevancy of the page for that search request.
Keyword Proximity Example:
For the search term “benefits of social media marketing” the keyword proximity for pages with the headings “Benefits and Types of Social Media Marketing” & “benefits of social media marketing” is 0 words. The lesser the distance between keywords the higher the relevancy and weightage to the content of a page for ranking in SERPs.
Why is Keyword proximity important?
Keyword proximity helps search engines understand the core topic of the page or post and improve your rankings in SERPs.
Keyword proximity also helps in finding the inherent relationships between two paragraphs in the content.
The closer the distance between the keywords of the phrase the easier it is for search engines to understand the topic of the page or post. It is necessary to maintain the close proximity between the keywords in a phrase but not always.
Best practices of keyword proximity?
On page elements where it is necessary to maintain the close proximity between the keywords in a phrase are:
- Title of page
- Meta Description
- Headings (H1 & H2)
- Introduction paragraph
Keyword proximity is highly helpful when the other metrics like keyword density and keyword prominence of the page are also equally optimized for the target keyword.
