SEO
What is Keyword Stuffing in SEO
Keep reading to find out what is keyword stuffing and how does it affect your rankings.
In the world of blogging, one small mistake could ruin all your SEO efforts, keyword stuffing is one of them. If you stuff keywords knowingly or unknowingly, it will certainly affect your rankings.
But what exactly is keyword stuffing?
In this guide, I’ll cover the following:
- What is keyword stuffing?
- Does it still work?
- Why you should not stuff keywords?
- How to avoid keyword stuffing?
Let’s start with the first one–
What is Keyword Stuffing?
Keyword stuffing is a black-hat SEO technique in which the content writer tries to manipulate the search algorithms by stuffing the target keyword in a blog post.
In other words, when you use the exact match keyword unnecessarily in your blog post to rank higher, we call it– “keyword stuffing.”
Does Keyword Stuffing Still Work?
The straightforward answer is– No! It doesn’t.
It used to work a long time ago, but slowly, with new updates, Google fixed this problem permanently.
Now, if you stuff keywords and try to rank for a certain keyword, you’d fail miserably.
Why You Should Not Stuff Keywords?
If you stuff keywords, Google will penalise your website as it’s against its guidelines.
As I mentioned above, it’s a black-hat SEO technique, and if you keep stuffing keywords, it will destroy your blog’s authority.
Nowadays, there are a lot of popular on-page SEO tools like Surfer, Neuron Writer, etc. that suggest how many times you can use your target keyword in your blog post.
How to Avoid Keyword Stuffing?
While writing an article, you should use the exact match keyword sparingly. You can use it in headings, subheadings, alt text, etc.
It’s true that you should use your target keyword several times.
But that doesn’t mean you should use the exact match keyword. Instead of using the exact match keyword, you can use semantically related keywords.
But how do you find semantically related keywords?
You can use tools like Ahrefs, Semrush, Keysearch, etc. to find such semantically related keywords.
For example, if I’m writing an article about “best AI tools,” then some semantically related keywords would be:
- Artificial intelligence tools
- Best artificial intelligence softwares
- Best AI softwares
- Useful AI tools
That’s how you avoid keyword stuffing.
The Bottom Line
Once you finish your article, you should proofread it. If the usage of the keywords doesn’t look natural, you should add, replace, or remove keywords according to the requirements.
I hope you find it helpful.
Thanks for reading!
