SEO No! Keyword Stuffing and How to Avoid It
With Thanksgiving right around the corner, we at One Firefly are gearing up for the holidays with one of our favorite topics: stuffing. But it’s not the delicious side dish you’re going to eat with turkey, mashed potatoes, and gravy. This type of stuffing can lead to big trouble for you and your business.
Getting a brand-new website up and running for the first time is exciting. You expect traffic and leads to come rushing in and business to be booming. But as you may already know, there is more to it than that. Optimizing your website for search engines is an essential part of gaining visibility for your company online, and it can be tempting to take shortcuts. Read on to find out exactly what you need to know about keyword stuffing!
What Is Keyword Stuffing?
When search engines originated, it was much easier to ‘trick’ the system into increasing your rankings. One of the methods that we still see today is keyword stuffing. You might get the clever idea to insert a large number of keywords into your website content to increase your website’s rankings and drive more traffic to your site. Optimizing your site is important, but you need to go about it the right way. An example of stuffing your site with keyphrases might sound like this:
“If you’re looking for the best smart home integrator, look no further. In your area, we are the best smart home integrator that you can hire. If you want your home to be amazing, we are the best smart home integrator for you.”
Seems easy, right? All you have to do now is sit back and watch your site shoot to the top of Google. But wait, not so fast!
It’s Tough To Stuff
Although you may boost your rankings temporarily, keyword-laden copy is miserable to read as a user and ruins your overall message. No one wants to look at a webpage that has the phrase “smart home automation” used 300 times on one page. Your audience will get tired of your site quickly because you aren’t providing content that informs and entertains them.
Think about what you are trying to accomplish; creating a content marketing strategy that provides your readers with informative and engaging content that will lead them to trust and respect your business. If you are writing only for Google and keyword stuffing, you will drive away real leads and conversions. In the end, Google’s algorithm will be smarter than your risky tactics and rank your site lower.
Crafty Converting Copy
Never fear, there are a multitude of ways to use content marketing and keyphrases to your boost your SEO. Some of these options are:
- Using relevant, researched long tail keywords
- Making sure your titles, meta-descriptions, and tags are present, the correct length, and compelling
- Having a sitemap
- Adding videos and the proper imagery
- Sticking to a strategic editorial calendar and blog content plan
- Committing to creating quality content
Creating rich content will keep your audience on your site. These options will round out your marketing and alert Google that your site is relevant and worth the rankings, without using methods that will hurt you like keyword stuffing. Your readers will thank you for it, and real stuffing tastes better anyway!
If you aren’t sure that your website is properly SEO configured, the team at One Firefly is ready to help with your content marketing! To learn more, contact us or give us a call at (954) 477-8331. We’d love to hear from you.