Save the Stuffing for the Turkey Not Your Keywords
Don't miss a thing. Subscribe to the 1Cat.biz RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
As I’m writing this post I am just wrapping up a very relaxing Thanksgiving weekend with my family and friends. Happy Thanksgiving to all of you here in the states.
I’m sure most of you, like me, enjoyed way too much food this weekend. One of my favorites is my mother-in-law’s stuffing. It’s the best ever! She always makes an extra pan of it just so we all have plenty of left-overs to take home. As a matter of fact, as soon as I finish writing this post I’m headed straight to the fridge. 
Stuffing is great when it comes to enjoying a big holiday dinner. But what about keyword stuffing when it comes to optimizing your web site or blog? Is that a good idea?
No it’s not!
What is Keyword Stuffing?
Keyword Stuffing is when you “stuff” your title, description, and keyword meta tags with a bunch of keywords that you’d like to get ranked for. It also involves repeating the same keyword(s) over and over in your meta tags and/or page content.
Back in the day, the mid to late ’90′s, keyword “stuffing” became a popular practice. It actually even worked for a while. It became pretty common knowledge amongst web designers that you should put your keywords in your meta tags so the search engines know how and where to rank your site. Many people thought if a little is good then a lot must be even better. Again, that’s great for Thanksgiving dinner but bad for SEO (Search Engine Optimization).
Some people even tried to trick the search engines by claiming their site was about one thing in the meta tags and delivering much different content in the body of their HTML pages.
It wasn’t too long before the search engines caught on to what was happening. They began to change their algorithms and developed better ways of ranking sites and delivering relevant search results.
Unfortunately, there are many web designers and online business owners who still practice keyword stuffing. Not only is this not helping their sites in the search engines in most cases it is probably hurting them. The reality is that most of the keyword stuffing I see does not have a malicious intent behind it. It’s more ignorance than anything.
The days of adding long lists of keywords to your keyword meta tags and getting decent search engine rankings are long gone. Today’s successful online business owner must be much more intentional when it comes to choosing keywords and optimizing their site.
What is the right way to use keywords for on-site search engine optimization?
The first thing you need to realize is that search engines rank web pages not web sites. Therefore each of your pages can and should be optimized for a different keyword / phrase. You can read more on choosing the right keywords here and here…
The other thing to remember is that meta and other tags are only suggestions for search engine spiders. There is no guarantee that they will use your information exactly the way you want them to but, the more accurate and relevant your information the better results you are likely to have.
Now let’s look at the 5 parts of your web pages or blog posts that should contain the keyword / phrase you are trying to rank for.
#1 – Title Tag
Title tags are perhaps the most important tag on your page. These are the words you see in the very top left-hand corner of the browser. Above the tool bar. This is perhaps the most common SEO mistake I see. It’s amazing how many web sites do not have properly formatted Title Tags. If you get this one right you’ll most likely being doing better than 90% of your competition.
When writing your Title Tags you should make sure that you do the following.
- Include the keyword / phrase in the title.
- Make it interesting and appealing to your target audience. Many search engines display the page title in the description field.
- Keep it under 64 characters.
- Give each of your pages a unique title using a different, yet related, keyword / phrase.
#2 – Description Meta Tag
It’s always a good idea to include your keyword / phrase in the description tag. But, even more importantly you want to be very clear as to what your page is about. And always make an effort to differentiate yourself from your competition. Description tags are often displayed by Google and other search engines just beneath the title in the search results page. It provides you with a great opportunity to give readers a good reason to click over to your site.
Read what Google has to say about Description Meta Tags
#3 – Keyword Meta Tag
In the past search engines gave a lot more weight to the keyword meta tags than they do today. In fact some would argue that they don’t really matter at all anymore. While that may be the case it’s still a good idea to put your keyword / phrase in the keyword meta tag of your pages. Make sure not to repeat keywords and don’t use more than 15. In most cases you will probably only use 3-5. And make sure that the keywords in your keyword meta tag match the copy that is on the actual page.
#4 – Page Title
The Page Title or Heading should be at the top of your page before any other copy. The page title should match your Title Tag as close as possible and it should be in an H1 tag with a bold or italicized font and it can be a different color from the normal page font. This tells the search engine spiders that these words are important.
If you’re web site is built on a blogging platform such as Word Press or Movable Type then your Page / Post Titles and Title Tags will automatically match. In other words WordPress uses the Post / Page title to generate the Title Tag automatically by default. So, all you have to do is make sure you use your keyword in your post or page title and make your title catchy!
One must-have tool for all WordPress users is the All-in-One SEO plug-in. This gives you a tremendous amount of control over all of your title and meta tags and the way your site is crawled by the search engines.
#5 – Page Copy
Finally, make sure that you use your keyword at least one time in the first couple of sentences of your post. Use it again one or two more times in the next few paragraphs. Remember, more is not better. Write naturally and include your keyword/phrase just a few times. If you over do it you may be flagged for keyword stuffing.
I realize for many of you the above is really basic stuff. But for others this may be the first time you’ve heard how to properly use keywords in your web pages and blog posts. If this is news to you then I encourage you to implement the above changes into your site and see how it improves your rankings and traffic. Also, make sure that you are tracking your efforts so you know what works and what needs to be improved upon.
Feel free to keep me posted on your results in the comments section below.
Thanks for the refresher Barry. It’s useful to be reminded of these things every now and then. By the way, I’ve also found it useful to put my main keyword/phrase right at the start of the title tag. Seems to make a difference
Cheers, Jon