Keyword stuffing is the process of including one keyword or key phrase in an article an excessive amount of times in the hope that it will improve a page’s search engine ranking. This is a common practice among black hat SEO companies, but it is frowned upon in most circles of the web. While the idea behind keyword stuffing has some validity to it, the actual practice usually does more harm than good.
With all of this in mind, the guide below shows how to use the basic principles of keyword stuffing to improve your SEO.
The Theory Behind Keyword Stuffing
When you think about it, keyword stuffing is built on a pretty solid theory. Webpages need keywords to show up on search engines. The more the keywords appear, the more the pages will appear…right?
While there is a great deal of value in placing a high volume of keywords on a page, you have to make sure that the content is still readable in the end. Google and other search engines take the reader’s experience into consideration. If someone visiting your site cannot get value from a page, that page will not rank well.
Reasons To Avoid Keyword Stuffing
When you start to look at the big picture, keyword stuffing will not get you far. Here are a few reasons why:
- Your content will read like spam, not information.
- Your readers will quickly leave your pages, increasing your bounce rate and decreasing your page rank.
- Your audience will not promote your content because there is nothing to be gained from it.
- Your website will be flagged and possibly even deleted from search engine results.
According to Google’s guidelines, “Filling pages with keywords or numbers results in a negative user experience, and can harm your site’s ranking.” They wouldn’t say it if it wasn’t true. Avoid keyword stuffing on your website if you want to stay on Google’s good side.
Good Ideas To Take Away From Keyword Stuffing
Even though you should stay away from keyword stuffing, there are some positive principles to learn here:
- Maintain a high keyword density that does not detract from the value of your content.
- Keep a focal keyword or keyphrase in mind for your content, especially when constructing targeted landing pages.
- Be aware of your readers as you write, and construct the content based on what they want to read.
If you can do this and maintain other solid SEO strategies, you should be in good shape.
