Keyword placement is not about stuffing your keyword everywhere it'll fit. It's about putting it in the 6 specific locations where Google weights it most heavily, then letting the rest of the content read naturally. Hit those 6 spots and you've done 80% of the on-page keyword work. This page walks through exactly where to put the primary keyword, where it doesn't matter, and the common anti-patterns that tank pages that otherwise would rank.
Old SEO: sprinkle the keyword everywhere. Aim for a specific keyword density. Repeat, repeat, repeat. That era ended 15 years ago. Modern Google uses semantic understanding. It reads your content like a human. Stuffing the keyword into every paragraph doesn't help, and reads as manipulative.
Modern SEO: hit the 6 high-signal locations, use the keyword naturally twice or three times in the body, and let semantic variations and related entities do the rest.
Hit all six, in that order of priority, and you've nailed keyword placement without trying.
Non-negotiable. Primary keyword near the front of the title tag. This is the single largest on-page signal to Google. If you only optimize one thing, optimize this.
The primary keyword should appear in your H1, ideally near the front. Can be slightly reworded from the title tag since the title is for the SERP and the H1 is for the reader.
Primary keyword in the URL slug. Short, hyphenated, no fluff. /best-crm-for-insurance beats /the-complete-2026-guide-to-choosing-a-crm.
Your primary keyword should appear naturally in the opening paragraph. Not forced, just present. This reinforces to Google what the page is really about.
Using the primary keyword or a close variation in one H2 signals strong topical focus. If the H2 can double as a question a user might search, even better, that's query capture.
For at least one image on the page, include the primary keyword in the alt text, when it genuinely describes the image. Don't stuff the alt on every image.
Modern Google understands synonyms, related phrases, and entities. Repeating the exact keyword 20 times doesn't improve ranking. Covering related concepts at depth does.
If your primary keyword is "insurance CRM," Google expects you to also mention terms like "agency management," "policy tracking," "lead management," "producer compensation," "renewals." These related entities tell Google you're writing about the topic at real depth, not just mentioning it.
You'll see guides talking about "LSI keywords" (Latent Semantic Indexing). Technically LSI isn't how Google works, but the intuition is correct: cover related concepts. Use tools like Clearscope or Surfer to find what concepts the top-ranking pages cover for your query. Include those in your content.
Every page should target one primary keyword and 2 to 5 secondary keywords that are close variations. "Best CRM for insurance" (primary), "top insurance CRM software," "insurance agency CRM," "CRM for insurance brokers" (secondaries). Weave secondaries into subheadings and body. They earn you rankings on the long-tail variations.
If you hit the 6 locations with your primary keyword and write the rest of the page for humans, covering related concepts naturally, you've done 80% of the keyword placement work. The remaining 20% is mostly perfectionism that trades readability for imaginary gains. Stop optimizing at 80%. Spend the saved time on making the content actually better.
Pick one page you've been wanting to rank. Open it. Check each of the 6 locations. Note which are missing the primary keyword. Fix only those. Don't rewrite the whole page. This surgical pass takes 10 minutes and often moves rankings within weeks.
Next: image SEO, the layer most sites completely ignore and where some of the easiest wins live.