Over the last few weeks I have been monitoring my ranking for the keyword “google seo“, I noticed a huge drop in my rankings today and I have been testing a few things to figure out why.
I recently changed my title tag to “google seo consultant” in order to give me some relevance for the keyword “seo consultant” without losing my “google seo” relevance. I believe this is one of the reasons my rankings have dropped and it all relates to keyword proximity.
You see the order of the words we use in the important tags on our page (title, headings, meta etc…) matter a great deal. For example.
A site with a title tag “Google SEO” is going to rank higher than a site with a title tag of “Google SEO Services” simply down to the fact that the first is more focused. It is the same when we use what are referred to as “stop words” (and, or, a, as etc..).
So let’s stick with the above example, we are targeting Google SEO.
A bad title tag – “Google SEO and Search Engine Optimisation Services”
A good title tag – “Google SEO – Search Engine Optimisation Services”
The latter title is read as one phrase where as the better title tag is read as two different words giving it far more focus. When I say read, I mean by the search spiders.
So when optimising our pages we need to be thinking of proximity as well as density and prominence. A similar rule also applies in the content of our pages, the closer your main keywords are together the more relevance Google will award them. Look at these two paragraphs both targeting Google SEO.
Paragraph 1
“Google is one of the largest spider search engines, which if used correctly can drive thousands of organic visitors to your site. SEO is the technique used to optimise your site, in order for it show on the main pages of Google. Using Google and various SEO techniques to target high traffic keywords is the route to online marketing success.”
Paragraph 2
” Google is one of the largest online search engines and can be used to drive thousands of visitors to your site. Seo used in conjunction with Google is a powerful marketing technique involving on and off page optimisation. Using what is known as “google seo“ to target high traffic keywords is the route to online success.”
Which one is better optimised?
Well if you didn’t know it is the second, simply because the targeted keywords are closer together and there are less “stop words” between them. It doesn’t even matter about keyword density, if yours show a greater degree of proximity and prominence you win!
Now my page has dropped to Page two in the UK for the keyword “google seo“. I have changed my title tag, and have optimised this post in order to push me back onto the first page, where I was number 1. (I may have gone overboard a little actually)
Hopefully by tomorrow I will be back at the top 
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Interesting – the idea of keeping keywords close.
And the fact that you just changed your title tag and your position is lower suggests the two are more than coincidental.
Be interesting to see what happens and how long it takes to happen when you change the title tag again.
I checked my rankings this morning, Google has not updated my title tag as yet, however I am back on the first page in the UK, just. I am hoping this will change when my title tag is updated.
May be it is a little bit of the sandbox effect as my blog is only a few month old.
This is sooo helpful. I never would have thought that proximity had anything to do with anything. To know this “Golden”.
Thanks for the tip!!!
Glad you found it helpful, any on page optimisation is only going to do so much, but it may just be the difference between yourself and the competition. Best to cover all angles.
Interesthng read. One must use as many keywords as possible in the beginning of the post with less stop words.
Hi Ricky,
I like to include the keyword in the first paragraph and somewhere towards the bottom of the post.