One of the main ways to boost your website’s organic traffic performance is by using relevant keywords.
Keywords are a single word or phrase people use to search for information via a search engine such as Google.
However, if you use too many keywords on your web pages, your website might suffer from keyword stuffing.
In the following paragraphs, we share what keyword stuffing is and how it negatively impacts your website and SEO. We also share some tips on how to avoid stuffing and get the most out of your selected keywords.
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What is Keyword Stuffing
Keyword stuffing is the term that describes the overusing of a single keyword on a single page, meta tag, anchor text, and alt tags to the point where it affects the content’s readability and credibility. Such a practice aims to manipulate the search engine result page (SERP) into displaying such stuffed content in higher positions. However, in SEO, keyword stuffing is considered a black-hat practice that violates Google’s spam policies for web search, and when Google detects it, it lowers the SEO score of the website and therefore ranks its content in lower positions.
Imagine this scenario: The owners of a guitar-focused blog have found a quite useful keyword they would want to use for their next publication: “oak electric guitar for beginners”. Now, knowing that this keyword is highly relevant, they start overusing it in the promotional content to position their website to such a degree that the text no longer sounds natural:
Such an approach makes the text not only unnatural for reading, but can also irritate and drastically lower the credibility of the entire organisation using keyword stuffing.
Why Keyword Stuffing Harms Your Website
Similar to keyword cannibalization, there are numerous reasons why keyword stuffing can harm your website:
- Stuffing has a negative impact on user experience. Repeating keywords unnaturally drives users away. Google’s algorithms are designed in such a way that they prioritise content that provides real value. This means that practices that lower user experience, such as keyword stuffing, are a signal that the website’s content is not of high quality and therefore it is not worth promoting it on high SERP positions.
- Lower SERP rankings. While there are people who believe keyword stuffing might be beneficial, this practice results in just the opposite – it results in Google lowering your rankings and, therefore, organic traffic performance. In fact, your website can even get penalised and not appear at all in Google search results.
- Keyword Stuffing lowers brand authority. Because of how obnoxious stuffing can feel, site visitors who stumble upon it might presume that the business itself is not worth dealing with.
How Did Keyword Stuffing Appear
In the early days of the Internet and SEO, webmasters discovered that search engines rely mainly on keywords to determine whether a website is worth showing in higher search positions. So, they began stuffing keywords in the content and therefore ranked for the target term.
Something more, many webmasters were aware that stuffing lowers the quality of content, so they came up with a different approach – keep the content free of stuffing, but include hundreds of hidden keywords within a single page. In other words, they used whole paragraphs comprised of the target keyword and matched them with the colour of the website’s footer or background colour, or included hundreds of keywords behind images, so the keywords are not visible to readers.
Such approaches were effective for a short period; however, after the introduction of the Panda algorithm, this practice became harmful for any website.
How to Avoid Keyword Stuffing on Your Website
Intentional keyword stuffing should be avoided, as it only brings harm to your pages.
However, there are situations in which SEOs unintentionally overuse keywords in website content. While their approaches might be with good intentions, the results aren’t. This is why you should regularly look for unintentional keyword stuffing.
Here are some tips on how to do so:
- Read your content aloud. Before you publish a new piece of content, read it aloud, as this can help you notice any instances in which your text doesn’t sound natural and a single word is used way too often.
- Check the number of your keywords on a single page. An effective trick is to use the CTRL + F function, which lets you search for a given word on a web page. Type in your keyword and see how many times it appears within your content. As a rule of thumb, the number of keywords in your content should be between 1% and 3%, which means that in a 600-word article, it should appear between 3 and 6 times and within a 1,000-word piece, 5 to 10 times.
- Always focus on high-quality content instead of using a given keyword over and over again. You can retain readers and convert potential buyers to clients only if you present them high-quality and useful content that satisfies their search intent needs. This means that you should always present information that such visitors want to see without trying to outsmart them or the search engines with shady practices.
- Focus on using one main and a few related keywords in your content. Follow the principle One Page – One Topic – One Main Keyword. It is helpful for both your readers and search engines, as such content structure provides clarity and a sense of order on your website, features both preferred by search engines and site visitors. For optimal impact, add some synonyms of your main keyword and some other related words. If you are interested in this topic, then read how to determine the most valuable keywords to target.
Conclusion
While keywords are essential for your SEO practices, using too many of them can result in keyword stuffing and therefore Google penalise your website. Throughout time, search engines have started prioritising genuine content that grants readers real value over the sole use of tons of keywords. This means that by overstuffing your content with keywords will only result in lower rankings in SERPS and even exclusion of your website from search results.
In such an environment, the key to success is to use relevant keywords, structure your content with care and keep your reader focused and well-informed about the topics you share on your website. By doing so, your website will perform better in search results and organic traffic.
