Welcome to the SEO tutorials, and today we will discuss keyword stuffing. Do you know the use of the keywords in your pages is very much important? But the overuse of the keywords will be harmful for your site as well. Yes, that is why we have decided to write a tutorial on the keyword stuffing. Many new webmasters don’t have an idea to use keywords or they are misguided by the self proclaimed SEO experts.
Keyword Stuffing – Define
The keyword stuffing is the process of overloading web pages with the primary, secondary or the focused keywords. Because of it, the search engines will consider it as a relevant result and hence you will get a chance to improve the search results for your blog/website.
Let’s understand it with the simple example, Have you seen the overloaded truck? The transporters used to overload the truck to save:
- Time – By overloading they could avoid an extra round of the truck to the destination.
- Money – The transporters need not to pay extra for duty, tax (interstate), petrol and other miscellaneous expenses.
Now it seems good, but do you know the danger of overloading?
- Risk – Risk of life, because the overloaded truck is like a drunken man, can hit anything or anybody.
- Penalty – The overloaded truck will be penalized by the traffic police directly or indirectly.
Same thing applies to the keyword stuffing as well. Many new bloggers will think that overuse of the keywords will help them. Yes, it will help you, but in a negative manner.
Read: Why keyword research is important?
Keyword Stuffing – Who should enjoy?
Nobody will stop you from using the primary or secondary keywords. Even nobody will stop you from keyword stuffing as well. Why? Boss, it’s your website or blog, and you can do anything with it. But answer my few questions:
- Did you create a blog or a website for fun?
- Blogging is your hobby?
- Are you time passing blogger?
- Want to mess with the major search engines?
- Want to test your dare?
If your answer is no, then it’s a good thing to here. But in case, any of the above question’s answer is yes, then enjoy keyword stuffing. Because you are not dependent or don’t want to make money from the blog.
Read: Why to avoid blackhat SEO activities?
Keyword Stuffing – Who should avoid?
Now let’s see the importance of not to use keyword stuffing. The keyword stuffing is not at all for you, if you are a:
- Serious blogger – If you are a blogger, who is making good money from your blog, then for sure you should avoid using keyword stuffing.
- Online business – If your business depends on the online users, then you cannot take a risk of ruining your business, by the means of the black hat SEO like keyword stuffing, link wheels and etc.
- New Blogger – If you are a new blogger, then for sure you don’t want to be penalized by the search engines in your early days.
- Organic Traffic believer – If you want an organic traffic, then you need to avoid keyword stuffing. Because, the penalty will degrade your ranking, and hence it will affect your search results as well.
Keyword Stuffing – Example
Let’s see the example of the keyword stuffing, this is important to understand for the new bloggers. We have taken a small example, where we have used the ‘SharpLesson’ as a keyword.
Look at the above picture, you can clearly see that the sharplesson has been used 8 times in a 54 word paragraph. Which is quite high, and this is just like you yourself is asking for the trouble. Instead of writing the matched ratios of the keyword and the total words, we have tried to act over smart. This practice is not at all helpful for you, if you are looking for the long run.
Read: What is keyword density?
Keyword Stuffing – Example by the Google –
Below are the some examples, given by the Google as an keyword stuffing.
- Lists of phone numbers without substantial added value
- Blocks of text listing cities and states a webpage is trying to rank for
- Repeating the same words or phrases so often that it sounds unnatural, for example:We sell custom cigar humidors. Our custom cigar humidors are handmade. If you’re thinking of buying a custom cigar humidor, please contact our custom cigar humidor specialists at Custom.cigar.humidors@example.com.
Note: The overuse of the keywords will not only put penalty, but it is not a natural looking content as well. This will irritate your readers as well, why not to avoid such Black hat SEO practices to gain trust and authority?
What percent of keyword is not keyword stuffing?
If you want to avoid the keyword stuffing, then better maintain the ratio of the keywords as compared to the total words used. Let’s take an example to understand it in a better way.
If you have written an article of 500 words, then the best practice is to use keywords 8 or probably 12 times only. Because, in general the percentage of the keyword should be around 2%. In case, your content demands more on it, then you can go closer to the 3%, but not more than that.
Note: The percentage of the keyword should be around 2, this is good practice to have.
Conclusion
We have just covered the importance of keyword stuffing, and how to avoid using it. In fact, we have seen many people who have been removed from the indexing of the major search engines. Since you have started your blog to survive and to do so, you need to avoid the keywords stuffing. There are many too, who is still working fine, because Google have not noticed there wrong doing. But trust me, shortcuts are the invitation to the trouble.