What is Keyword Stuffing? How to optimize keywords to support SEO
Keyword Stuffing used to be one of the SEO techniques that many SEOers spread among themselves to increase website rankings. However, at the present time Keyword Stuffing is no longer popular, even if you do not know how to optimize, there is still the risk of being penalized by Google. In this article, we will help you understand what is Keyword Stuffing, and how to transform Keyword Stuffing to benefit SEO.
What is Keyword Stuffing?
Keyword Stuffing means inserting a large number of keywords into the content of the article on the website as well as the meta tags to increase the search results rankings. This is a method used a lot in the past, but now this method is no longer effective, but on the contrary, it also harms the website.
Keyword stuffing is no longer a method used by many SEOers to optimize their time. Google has continuously updated many different algorithms to control the quality of content, so the act of stuffing keywords with the aim of manipulating website rankings in Google's search results is bound to happen sooner or later will get fined by Google.
Some features of Keyword Stuffing:
- Repeated keywords, an unnecessary key phrase.
- Add keywords that do not match the content.
- Insert a large amount of the same keywords.
- Add keywords out of context.
How does keyword stuffing affect the website?
If you've ever read paragraphs, articles stuffed with keywords and you will find it annoying and it is a terrible user experience.
Website content to provide information, share knowledge about products/services, if you stuff a lot of duplicate keywords, you only make search engines understand you, not users. This creates a bad experience for users, they will leave the page if they see crammed content, reducing the Time On Site rate and increasing the Bounce Rate.
There are 2 types of keyword stuffing:
- Seeing with the naked eye, reading the text you will recognize that keyword everywhere on the website. Website density is about 2-3%.
- Invisible to the naked eye, keywords are hidden by using the same color as the website background color.
Ways to Avoid Keyword Stuffing
Write for the user first
Write content naturally, provide content in the spirit of sharing for readers, do not try to make the article according to dry, restrictive formula. Google appreciates the website if the user experience is good.
Use synonyms
To avoid repeating keywords over and over, replace them with synonyms. Use exact synonyms, do not use synonyms that are difficult to understand for the reader.
The reasonable use of synonyms is also understood by Google for semantics and at the same time ranking keywords.
Use Long-tail Keywords
If you are using Long-tail Keywords then you are already on the right track. Long-tail keywords are keywords that are longer than normal keywords but are still closely related to your product or service.
Long-tail Keyword helps you avoid the Keyword Stuffing penalty
These keywords still provide the right information about the product for customers to find out before making a purchase. This case helps to minimize the cases of keyword stuffing, keyword repetition.
Write longer
Post length will help reduce keyword stuffing, although there is no known effective length standard. An in-depth, informative article would definitely be better.
How to optimize keywords to support SEO
Assign one main keyword to each page
The implementation of the article should start from a target keyword, the content of the article will follow, exploit and analyze deeply to bring practical value to the searcher. You also need to do keyword research to see how low or high the keyword competition is, how the chances of improving rankings are. You can use keyword research tools Ahrefs, SEMrush, etc.
Create longer content
Websites belonging to e-commerce, service, or news sites require at least 300 words of the main content. This will help with search engine rankings, as search engines will prioritize ranking information that is relevant to the user.
Use the right keyword density
Make sure the keyword density is within the allowable threshold
Allocate relevant target keywords throughout the entire content displayed on the page. Avoid keyword stuffing, the best keyword density according to foreign SEO experts suggest is 2%. To be sure, you can use tools like Yoast SEO plugin or Rank Math to check keyword density when posting.
Add secondary keywords, synonyms, and other variations
Instead of using a keyword and stuffing the article, you can use better ways, which not only enriches the content but also helps Google understand the semantics of your content better. Replace main keywords with secondary keywords, synonyms, variations of the main keyword.
You should use Google's help to find secondary keywords, types that are related synonyms. Place the keyword to the left of the title.
Make keywords as easy for the reader as possible:
- Page title
- Title tag
- Meta Description
- At least for one card of the image
- The first paragraph of the article
- The end of the article
In the process of SEO optimization, you need to insert keywords skillfully and not be judged as Keyword Stuffing but still keep the naturalness of the article. Please keep in mind our sharing to know how to optimize keywords effectively. Good luck.