One SEO technique that is still found today is to write keywords excessively or known as keyword stuffing.
Practices like this were indeed popular for old SEO, if until now you are still using this method, then leave it immediately.
Currently, Google has a lot of strict algorithms and regulations, so many people take shortcuts by playing dirty games, one of which is keyword stuffing.
Then what is keyword stuffing and what are the dangers?
What is Keyword Stuffing?
Keyword stuffing is included excessive keywords in an article.
So if you check, you can find many keywords in the article that were deliberately inserted so that they are indexed by the Google search engine.
Indeed, Google does index by looking for keywords that match what users are looking for.
But for now Google will give bad grades to articles that have unnatural keywords.
Articles like this will have difficulty ranking on the first page of Google, meaning that the content created is of low quality and not useful for users.
So keyword stuffing is not recommended to be applied at this time.
Keyword Stuffing Characteristics
There are several characteristics that you can use as a benchmark to recognize keyword stuffing in website content:
- There are many words that are not connected with sentences
- There are many words out of context in sentences
- Many words are irrelevant in the sentence
- Many found words that contain keywords in the article
- Articles when read are not pleasant, they seem forced
Keyword Density
In his calculations, there is a recommended percentage of keyword density that is safe for SEO optimization.
Keyword density is the percentage of the number of keywords that appear in the article. Normally for keyword density only 2-3% of the entire article.
For example, in 600 words, if we use the assumption of 1%, then there are only 6 repetition keywords.
To be safe and avoid excessive keyword density, you can use LSI keywords (Latent Semantic Indexing) or derived keywords.
But keep in mind, use it sparingly not to detect keyword stuffing.
Example of Keyword Stuffing
So, to make it more clear, we will provide an example of keyword stuffing: New Zealand car rental” .
“For those of you who are planning a trip to New Zealand, we have a recommendation New Zealand car rental the best at the lowest price. There are indeed many New Zealand car rental which you can choose, however New Zealand car rental it does not necessarily have good service. Therefore, you need to be careful in choosing a New Zealand car rental”.
From that one paragraph, the keyword “New Zealand car rental” has been written 4 times.
Dangers of Keyword Stuffing for SEO
There are several reasons why keyword stuffing is dangerous for SEO:
- Your website will be considered SPAM by Google because there are many keywords in the article.
- Your website ranking will drop from the SERP (Search Engine Result Page) making it difficult for internet users to find it.
- Make the reader experience bad, so that website visitors will not want to return to the website.
- The bounce rate has increased.
- If it is severe, the website can be deindexed so that it disappears from the Google search page.
If you already know the dangers of this keyword stuffing technique, from now to avoid overwriting keywords in an article.
There are good and correct keyword optimization methods that you can do.
The Right Keyword Optimization Method
After you know the dangers of stuffing keywords for website SEO, you need to do website optimization properly according to SEO rules.
You can read about it in the article about Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide belongs to Google, please learn everything.
So, here we present how to optimize keywords that are correct and in accordance with Google’s current regulations:
1. Set a main keyword
When writing content, you need to determine the main keywords to target first.
After that you can continue with creating an article outline and mapping keywords, make sure the keywords are evenly spaced in each paragraph.
2. Always write articles of more than 500 words
The recommendation for the minimum article length so that it can compete on the Google search engine is 500 words.
You can also set a higher standard for article length, but with a note that the article must be of high quality.
The goal is that when Google indexes articles, the discussion can be relevant and complete so that it is useful for readers.
Make quality content with clear sources so that the website’s On Page SEO optimization is better.
3. Check the density of keywords
The maximum recommended keyword density is 2-3%, so you need to recalculate to prevent keyword stuffing.
Make articles as natural as possible and make readers comfortable with the writing you make.
4. Use derived keywords
Add derived keywords, LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing) and main keyword synonyms to the article so you can rank for other keywords that are still relevant to the main keyword.
5. Distribution of keywords
In order not to see stuffing keywords, you need to distribute the keywords evenly on the website articles. Make sure the discussion is still connected with the targeted keywords, don’t force it.
So that’s the discussion about keyword stuffing and its dangers for SEO.
For those of you who are currently still implementing keyword stuffing, it’s better to leave it immediately and replace it with the correct SEO technique according to Google’s recommendations.
Write as best you can and write keywords accordingly, because Google will know which posts are made for users or search engines.