Doing keyword stuffing is one of the mistakes that an SEO article writer should avoid making. The reason is, this can have a negative impact on website ranking. Not only that, this practice of keyword stuffing can also have an impact on the quality of the user experience or user comfort when reading content.
Therefore, so that your blog articles are SEO Friendly and comfortable for users to read, let's learn what keyword stuffing is and how to avoid it. Happy reading!
What means Keyword Stuffing?
Keyword stuffing is the practice of entering keywords that are inappropriate or too excessive in an article. In addition, it can also be understood that keyword stuffing is the activity of intentionally entering keywords with the aim that search visibility on Google can increase by entering these keywords.
According to Web FX, keyword stuffing is the practice of inserting a large number of or excessive keywords in an article. The goal is to get a good ranking on Google pages in order to increase website traffic.
In fact, this practice is completely ineffective in the eyes of Google and has a negative impact on website SEO. On the other hand, repeating too many keywords also makes people uncomfortable reading your article.
To make it clearer, here is an example of keyword stuffing practice with the keyword "work from home":
"During the current pandemic, there are several workers who are forced to work from home. Work from home has recently become a trend among people.
There are those who feel comfortable working from home because they don't have to pay transportation costs. There are also those who don't like working from home because they feel bored and bored."
From the example above, we see that the use of the keyword "work from home" looks excessive and is automatically unreadable for humans.
On the other hand, this practice also violates the recommended keyword density practice. Keyword density is the percentage of keywords used in an article. If there are too many, as in the example above, the keyword density will automatically exceed the expected standard.
Next, we also need to identify what are the characteristics of keyword stuffing in your website content. The characteristics of content affected by keyword stuffing are as follows.
- Found a lot of words that are not connected with the contents of the sentence
- Found a lot of words that do not match the context of the sentence.
- Found many words that are less significant in the sentence.
- Found too many words that contain keywords in the article.
- When read, the article seems forced and not pleasant to read.
Does Google Penalize for Keyword Stuffing?
Google Penalties can be administered in two ways: manual or algorithmic. Manual penalties are given by the Google team manually searching websites and finding violations of their guidelines.
Algorithm penalties are given by Google's algorithm which automatically finds and penalizes websites that violate their rules. Manual penalties can be removed by correcting errors, while algorithmic penalties can be removed when the algorithm is updated.
How do you Check for Keyword Stuffing?
One way to avoid keyword stuffing is to know the keyword density of the target keywords in your content. Therefore, you can use the Word Counter tool from cmlabs to help you check keyword density.
The recommended keyword density for main keywords is no more than 1-2% of the entire article. If the keyword density in your content exceeds this number, it is feared that it will be considered spam by search engines.
What are the Negative Effects of Keyword Stuffing?
Keyword stuffing is a practice that has a bad impact on website SEO. Apart from that, this will also automatically have an impact on user experience (UX). People will not get education or new insights from your articles.
As a result, as reported by Big Commerce, people will stay away from your website and increase the bounce rate percentage. Your website traffic will decrease and content page views will certainly not increase because people are reluctant to share it on social media.
Not only that, there is even a possibility that you will lose customers because they are not comfortable with the content you provide. Indirectly, they also realize that you only care about ranking on Google rather than users. In fact, keyword stuffing is a practice condemned by Google.
Thus, if you do this practice, you will likely lose the trust of Google and users. Hence, avoid this practice as far as possible. Use the best method to optimize your website so that users like it and get attention from Google.
Is Keyword Stuffing Bad for SEO?
Keyword stuffing is considered dangerous for SEO use, why is that? Here's an explanation.
- Keyword stuffing is something that can have a negative impact on the development of your website. This is because Google will consider SPAM due to the many examples of keyword stuffing in articles.
- Your website will experience a decrease in ranking from the SERP (Search Engine Result Page). Here, the impact of keyword stuffing is that it will be difficult for users to find your website.
- Users will not visit your website again because they previously felt that the website was not comfortable to read.
- Making articles not user-friendly. Adding excessive keywords makes the content difficult for readers to understand. This can make them leave your website and cause website performance to decrease.
- Potentially subject to penalties by search engines. Content that repeats too many keywords can be indicated as spam and be penalized by Google.
- Makes the article uninteresting to share. Excessive keyword stuffing will make people reluctant to share your content.
How do I fix Keyword Stuffing?
1. Choose the right keywords
Remember, make sure the keywords you choose match the topic you want to talk about. One practice of keyword stuffing that is often carried out is using keywords that are not relevant to the content.
Apart from that, use keywords that have low keyword difficulty and high search volume to get on the first page of Google.
To find out all this, do research using keyword research tools such as SEMrush, Ahrefs, Ubbersuggest, and others.
2. Use concise language
Using concise and concise language is important to avoid the practice of keyword stuffing. Because, if you are too wordy, there is a possibility that you will repeat the same keywords in every point you want to convey.
3. Pay attention to keyword density
As explained above, an excessive keyword density percentage will result in your SEO experiencing bad results. Therefore, pay close attention to keyword density in each of your articles.
To make it easier, you can use a plugin like Yoast SEO on WordPress. There, you can read the keyword density whether it is in accordance with SEO or not.
So, if you practice this, your website will be liked more by users because it is easy to read. Automatically, Google will also place your content in a good ranking because it is considered quality.
How do You Use the Right Keywords?
After listening to the discussion regarding what keyword stuffing is, then next, you need to pay attention to how to use the correct keywords. The discussion regarding how to optimize keywords that are good and in accordance with SEO rules to avoid keyword stuffing is as follows.
1. Define Main Keywords
When you want to start creating content on a web page, make sure to first choose the main keywords that match the content you are going to create. You should also review keywords before using them in the content to be uploaded.
In this case, you can use various SEO tools to find the most appropriate keywords. Apart from that, you can also see the difficulty level of keywords, the volume of keywords, and so on.
2. Do not beat around the bush
Furthermore, the way to use the right keywords to avoid keyword stuffing is to use short, concise, and clear language. The goal is that the contents of your content are not long-winded and avoid repeating the same keywords.
3. Check Keyword Density
The recommended keyword density to avoid keyword stuffing is a maximum of 2% of the total number of words in the article. However, these numbers can vary depending on the tools you use. Therefore, you must pay attention to the percentage of keywords again to avoid keyword stuffing.
If the percentage of keyword density is excessive, then your SEO will get poor results. Therefore, the amount of keyword density must be considered carefully in all published articles. In this case, you can use several plugins like Yoast SEO on WordPress.
In this plugin, you can read keyword density and readjust whether it is in accordance with SEO. If you do this, users will prefer your website because it is user friendly. Later, Google will automatically place the content that you create in the top rankings.
4. Add LSI Keywords
LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing) are phrases or words that are considered relevant in creating content so that search engines know whether your content matches the keywords used. Now, so that your content has a greater chance of appearing on the first search bar page, using LSI keywords is highly recommended.
By using LSI keywords, search engines will also be assisted in identifying your content so that the most asked questions by users can be answered. As a result, your content ranking will have a great chance to rise.
5. Place Keywords on Certain Elements
Furthermore, how to avoid keyword stuffing is to place keywords in certain elements. So it's not just entering keywords in the contents of the content, but it is necessary to add keywords in other elements.
At least, insert one keyword in the title in the content, content subtitle, content title tag, content meta description, alt image, first paragraph of content, and final paragraph of content. The use of this method can have a positive impact on Google's search bar because the most important thing to pay attention to is to input the appropriate number of keywords.
6. Write an Article of At Least 500 Words
The recommended length of the article to avoid keyword stuffing is 500 words. This is done with the aim that the published articles can compete in the search bar on the Google search engine.
If the length of the article is longer than the standard set, it is not a problem, as long as the articles published must be of high quality. This step is taken so that when Google indexes the article, the discussion obtained will contain a complete and relevant explanation so that it is useful for the reader.
Therefore, the content that is created should be obtained from clear and qualified sources with the aim of optimizing the website's On Page SEO better. This is an explanation of what keyword stuffing is and several ways to avoid it.
From the description above, you now know that keyword stuffing is an activity that should be avoided in writing SEO articles. Apart from having a negative impact on rankings, keyword stuffing can also affect content quality, causing inconvenience to readers.
Conclusion
That's a brief explanation of keyword stuffing and how to avoid it. Remember, keyword stuffing is an activity that can be detrimental to your website. Instead of wanting to get rankings by increasing keywords, this is actually considered spam by Google.
So, pay close attention, OK, when inserting keywords into the article. Hopefully by reading this article you will understand better what keyword stuffing is and how dangerous it is for website SEO.