You already know your target keyword. What trips people up is where it actually needs to go, and where it doesn't. This guide gives you a copyable placement map for one page, then walks through each row so you know why it's there and what to skip.
The short version: put your primary phrase where it accurately identifies the page, in the HTML title, the visible H1, and an early, natural explanation of the topic. Use related terms in subheadings and body copy where they genuinely help explain a section. Use the phrase in a URL slug or image alt text only when it describes that URL or that image. There's no required density, no magic repetition count, and no hidden formula that Google has published for how much weight one placement carries over another.
The keyword placement map
Copy this table into your next brief or use it to review a page you already wrote.
| Page element | What to put there | What not to assume or force |
|---|---|---|
| HTML title element | A concise, distinctive description of the page's actual subject, including the primary phrase when it fits naturally | Don't stack close variants as a list. The HTML title isn't always the title link Google shows in results. |
| Visible page title (H1) | A clear heading naming the page's main subject in the reader's own words | The H1 doesn't need to match the HTML title word for word, and it isn't a place for a list of variants. |
| Introduction | Answer the reader's question promptly, using the primary term where it belongs in that explanation | "First sentence" or "first 100 words" rules are editorial habits, not documented ranking thresholds. |
| H2 and H3 subheadings | Name what each section actually answers | No section needs an exact-match keyword. Don't swap in an awkward keyword just to hit a heading. |
| Body copy | Explain the topic fully in plain language, naming the subject and using related terms where the discussion calls for them | No fixed repetition count or percentage target, and no need to work in every possible variation. |
| Image alt text | A brief, accurate description of what an informative image conveys | Alt text isn't a spare keyword slot. A purely decorative image should have an empty alt attribute. |
| URL slug (new pages) | Readable, descriptive words that reflect the topic, separated by hyphens | Don't rework an existing URL just to chase an exact match. No slug guarantees a ranking. |
| Link text, where relevant | Text that describes the destination when a link belongs naturally in the copy | Don't rewrite every link to carry your own target keyword. |
That's the whole map. Everything after this is context for filling it in.
What each field is actually asking you to do
HTML title versus H1 versus the title link Google shows
These are three different things and it helps to keep them separate. The HTML title identifies the document. The H1 is the main visible heading a reader sees on the page. The title link is the clickable headline Google generates for a search result, and Google can pull that wording from the title element, the visible heading, other headings, or nearby link text. Putting your phrase in the HTML title doesn't guarantee Google displays that exact wording as the title link.
The practical move is to give the HTML title and the H1 the same clear topic, then let each read the way a person would actually say it. There's no established rule that they need to match exactly, and no proven benefit to placing the phrase at the very start of the title. If you're stuck on exact title formulas, that's really its own piece of work, separate from placement.
The introduction and what "keyword prominence" actually means
Keyword prominence is a useful shorthand for how clearly a page communicates its subject in the places a reader looks first. It isn't a published scoring formula. Your introduction should state the subject and the answer without a windup. If your target phrase fits naturally in that first explanation, use it. If forcing it in there makes the sentence clumsy, use ordinary language that answers the same question instead. There's no sourced rule that says it has to land in the first sentence or the first hundred words. Those are conventions people repeat, not requirements anyone has documented.
Subheadings and body copy
Let each section's actual purpose decide its heading. A section about image accessibility should be named for that, not forced to repeat a broader page keyword it isn't really about. Readers search in different words depending on how much they already know about a topic, so think about the language your reader would use rather than compiling a list of synonyms and spreading them evenly.
In the body, name your subject plainly and give real detail. Related terms like on-page keyword optimization, where to put keywords, and keyword prominence can each fit somewhere useful, but they aren't interchangeable labels for the same idea. Placement is about where a term shows up. Optimization is the broader practice of making a page clear and useful. Prominence is about how easily a reader (or a crawler) can tell what the page is about. You don't need all four phrases crammed into every section, or even into the same paragraph.
Alt text and images
Alt text's first job is to describe an image to someone who can't see it. Google also reads alt text as context for understanding the image itself, and its own guidance is blunt that stuffing alt attributes with keywords creates a bad experience and can be treated as spam.
Before you add a keyword to alt text, work out what kind of image it is. An informative image, a screenshot or a diagram, gets a short, accurate account of what it shows. An image that acts as a link or a button gets text describing where it goes or what it does. A purely decorative image, a divider or a background flourish, should have an empty alt attribute rather than a keyword shoved in for the sake of it. If you're illustrating a placement map like this one, the alt text should describe the diagram's actual content, not repeat your target phrase because there was a spot to put it.
URL slugs
For a brand new page, a short, readable slug that genuinely describes the topic beats an opaque string of numbers or an unrelated phrase. Hyphens between words are the convention. None of this means you should go back and change an existing page's URL every time you retarget its keyword. Reworking established URLs just to chase a tidier match tends to cause more disruption than it's worth, and there's no evidence it earns any ranking benefit on its own. Migrations and redirects are a separate conversation from where to place a keyword on a page you're writing today.
A worked example
Say you're writing a page that answers exactly this question: where should writers put keywords. Your primary phrase is keyword placement. Here's how the map plays out on one coherent page.
- HTML title: "Keyword Placement on a Page: Titles, Headings, and Body Copy"
- Visible H1: "Keyword Placement: Where to Put Terms on a Page"
- Opening answer: Keyword placement means putting a page's main term where it clearly describes the subject, then using related language only where it helps readers follow along. Start with the title and heading, make the opening answer clear, and let each later section use whatever words its own topic calls for.
- H2 options: "Where should the primary term go?", "How should headings and body copy use related terms?", "When does a keyword belong in image alt text?", "How descriptive should the URL be?"
- Body language: Work in on-page keyword optimization while discussing the practice as a whole, and keyword prominence when explaining why a clear title and heading matter. Include where to put keywords if it fits a real reader question, not because it's on a checklist.
- Slug:
keyword-placement - Figure: if the page includes a diagram of the map, the alt text describes what the diagram actually shows. If there's no diagram, there's nothing to do here.
Notice what this example doesn't do. It doesn't repeat the exact primary phrase in every single H2, and it doesn't prescribe a set number of appearances anywhere. If a heading or a sentence sounds off when you read it out loud, fix it for meaning. Don't keep it just to hit a quota.
Adapting the map for a content team
If you're the only writer, this map works as a quick checklist while you draft and again when you review. If you're running a bigger operation with freelancers or a rotating team, put the primary phrase, the reader's actual question, the page's scope, and a small set of genuinely relevant related terms into the brief itself. Then review the finished page field by field: is the title and H1 accurate, does the intro answer the question promptly, do the section headings actually label their sections, does the body read naturally, is alt text specific to each image, is the slug descriptive if it's a new page.
Treat the related terms in a brief as context for the writer, not a checklist of strings that must all appear. A marketing lead reviewing a draft should be able to tell whether the page actually answers its assigned question without counting how many times a phrase shows up. That's a faster review, and it produces better pages than one built around hitting placement cells.
It's also fine for a cell to come back empty. A page might not have an image worth an alt-text keyword. A heading might read more clearly without the phrase. An existing URL might not need to change at all. None of those are gaps in your process. They're the map working as intended, which is to stop a placement checklist from turning into a stuffing template. Managing this across a real backlog is exactly the kind of thing DeepSmith's Deep IQ brand context is built to carry: the primary term, the reader question, and the related vocabulary live once, attached to the piece, so every draft the pipeline produces already reflects the placement map without a writer re-deriving it from a brief each time.
How much repetition is too much
This is the question people actually want answered, and the honest answer is that there's no official target to aim for. In a January 2023 Google SEO Office Hours session, Google said directly that it has no notion of an optimal keyword density. What matters, according to that same answer, is being explicit about your subject. Mentioning every possible variation of a phrase does not.
Google's spam policies describe keyword stuffing as filling a page with keywords or numbers in an attempt to manipulate rankings, and its examples include out-of-context word lists and phrases repeated so often they stop sounding natural. Using a term more than once isn't stuffing on its own. Intent, context, and whether the writing still sounds like something a person would say are what separate normal repetition from a problem. Google's guidance separately warns against stacking keyword variants in title elements and against alt attributes packed with terms, which are reasons to write descriptively rather than evidence for any particular safe repetition count.
If you want a working definition, keyword density is the share of a text made up of a given term, calculated from how many times it appears against the total word count. That's a definition, not a target. The real editorial check is simpler: does repeating this phrase add meaning, or does the sentence start to sound contrived. If a page already reads as over-optimized, fixing that is a different job from placing keywords on a fresh draft.
Does any of this change for AI search
Not in a way that adds a new placement rule. Google has said its standard SEO practices remain relevant to AI Overviews and AI Mode, and that there are no additional special optimizations required to show up there. A page generally needs to be indexed and eligible to appear in Search with a snippet before it can support an AI answer at all. There's no documented trick, no special heading format, and no alt-text pattern that guarantees a citation in an AI-generated answer. The practical takeaway is the same one this whole map is built around: make the page's question, its answer, and each section's subject clear for a person reading it, and the placement choices that help a reader tend to be the same ones that hold up here too.
Putting it to work
The placement map above is really a clarity map. Identify the page plainly in its title and its main heading. Answer the reader's question in the body. Let headings, images, and the URL each describe their own job instead of all trying to repeat the same phrase. Pull the table into your next brief, run a finished draft back through it before you publish, and you'll catch most of the placement questions that would otherwise slow down a review.
