How To Include Keywords Without 'Keyword Stuffing'

In my last keyword post, Finding Keywords and How To Use Them, I touched upon something called 'keyword stuffing'. 'keyword stuffing' is when you try and fit as many keywords as possible into your content, so much so that your sentences no longer make sense. People tend to give this a go when they're trying to quickly boost their SEO, but Google does not take kindly to these people.

Google wants us all to play nicely and not cheat at the ranking race, so they penalise those who try and cheat the game. Websites who get found of 'keyword stuffing' get pushed down the rankings and are eventually impossible to find, we do not want to be one of these people now do we?

To prevent yourself from 'keyword stuffing' without noticing, make a list of keywords and phrases

and sort them in order of importance. These might be keywords relating to your posts subject if you're a blogger, or keywords and phrases relating to your websites subject if you're a freelancer or small business. Order these by average searches (see the post linked at the beginning to learn about using Google keyword planner to do this) put the most searched for keywords and phrases at the top and the least searched for at the bottom.

Choose your main keyword or phrase for your title. This can be the most popular keyword on your list or one that you feel best fits your subject matter.

Pick 4 more keywords that you think will fit seamlessly into your page/post content. Nobody really knows for sure how many keywords Google likes to be included in content, but it's a safe bet that if they make perfect sense included in your content, then you're safe. Sometimes I will work backwards, write out my post and then try and fit in keywords where they make sense and add to the sentence, a bit like a word jigsaw puzzle.

Proof read until you can't proof read no more. Read over your copy as many times as you can, leave it and go back to it the next day if you have to. This is so you can make sure it makes complete sense to humans, if it feels clunky or doesn't quite make sense, then you'll notice it whilst you're proof reading.

Have you ever found yourself 'keyword stuffing'? Have you had a practice finding your keywords and including them into your posts or website text? 

Finding Keywords And How To Use Them

If you're starting to get serious about your blog or small business, you might want to delve a little further into SEO. Yes, for someone who isn't all that clued in on digital marketing, SEO looks like one of those scary, complicated abbreviations that only men and women in business suits throw about. In truth, it can be a little difficult to navigate, which is why it's always good to start with the basics. 

SEO simply means Search Engine Optimisation and one of the best ways to ensure search engines are noticing your blog or website, is by targeting specific keywords. Keywords are not the be all and end all however, SEO is a combination of many different things all working together to give a ranking. Understanding your keywords can help you understand where your competition lies and can also help to focus your business to a more niche audience. 

Google Keyword Planner

The best (and free) keyword tool you can use to do a spot of keyword research, is the Google Keyword Planner. The Google Keyword Planner searches for your chosen keywords and lets you know the average monthly searches for those keywords, the competition for those keywords and how much they cost if you were to run a PPC campaign. 

The best way to use the Google Keyword planner is to compile a list of keywords you want to target in you blog post or website page and find the ones with the highest average searches and the lowest competition. 

Keywords or Key Phrases?

If you are a small business or blog starting out with very low domain authority, it's usually better to target phrases rather than keywords. Unless you are targeting a very specific keyword, a key phrase can help to really focus your content and ensure it is reaching the people who are searching specifically for your type of content. For example, instead of targeting 'makeup' you could try and target 'cruelty free makeup' or 'makeup tips for 20 somethings'.

Targeting key phrases can help you to get your foot in the door of SEO. By targeting your niche, you have a better chance of building your sites authority, gaining quality back links and it will eventually allow you to be a competitor for some of the more popular keywords. 

Keyword Rich not 'Keyword Stuffing'

It can be very easy to get carried away with keywords, you want to include a healthy amount of keywords in your content and not 'stuff' your content in hopes of better rankings.

Here's what Google says about 'keyword stuffing':

"Keyword stuffing" refers to the practice of loading a webpage with keywords or numbers in an attempt to manipulate a site's ranking in Google search results. Often these keywords appear in a list or group, or out of context (not as natural prose). Filling pages with keywords or numbers results in a negative user experience, and can harm your site's ranking. 

Examples of keyword stuffing include:

• 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.

Google does not take kindly to sites that value keywords over content, make sure you are writing around your keywords and not to purely 'promote' your keywords. 

Have you ever given a bit of thought to what your keywords and phrases are? Do you keep them in mind when writing your posts or website copy? Do you think about them when writing your 'about' profiles on your social media profiles?