Do you know how you can have too much to eat and end up with a constipated stomach? Well, your website can suffer the same fate if you’re not careful. We understand that you want to use SEO keywords, links, and other features as much as possible, but at a point, it becomes too much, which makes it a bad thing.
The journey to the first page is a tricky one, with so many bends and rules. This makes it pointless to attempt all on your own. Let’s face it; there isn't any point in going through all the difficult process of setting up a business and then adding more pressure to yourself by wanting to optimize your website on your own. You have Semalt for that. You’re a professional business person; we are the SEO and Web analytics professionals. Your job is to come up with the ideas; our job is to get you on the first page of Google. Together, we will achieve greatness.
This is why we know so much about SEO. Also, we have designed ways to keep the number of keywords under check so as not to stuff them too many.
Back in the early days, keyboard stuffing was a good thing. Think of it like the dressing's for your turkey. You could just keep on filling the turkey till there wasn’t any room left. In the early days having the highest number of keywords helped websites rank. These keywords didn’t have to be relevant to the content of the page or if they were unrelated. As long as they were keywords, they were allowed.
Naturally, website owners began to misuses this opportunity, and it had dire consequences. Users started having terrible experiences using Google and other search engines. This was because users weren't looking to read websites that had one word or a phrase repeated 500 times without any additional useful information. Google and other search engines noticed this stunt and began filtering out offending keyword-stuffed pages. This was to remove all irrelevant pages or pages that offered no real content.
Keyword stuffing and over-optimizing have their dangers.
Some customers have asked the Semalt team if keyword stuffing works. There is no simple answer to this question because, in the short run, it may work, but it's a risk many website owners shouldn't take. Once spotted, google and other search engines blacklist your site, and if you’re lucky enough not to get caught, you will still end up getting hurt. This is because viewers will mentally blacklist your website so that they don't waste their time clicking.
Google’s own Matt Cutts warned webmasters about the dangers of keyword stuffing and over-optimization. In this meeting, he explains that search engines are trying to level the playing field and pick the most deserving webpages to rank top in SERP. He explains that Google is trying to separate websites that over-optimize or use SEO excessively over websites with great content and great site. Google's goal is to make their bot becomes smarter and improve their overall relevance. They plan on not only finding quality websites but also finding and expelling those who abuse it.
By abuse, Google is looking for too many keywords on a page, exchange too many links, or having websites going way beyond what is expected. Several engineers are working to improve Google to ensure only the best content gets shown.
This clearly shows the dislike Google has for black hat tactics. This is because such methods aren’t designed or used to benefit the users but the website alone. These tactics also try to beat the algorithm of these search engines. That is a no brainer because these search engines are designed to be tamper-proof, so they wouldn't take it likely with any website that looks to exploit its loopholes.
Differentiating between keyword optimization and keyword surfing
It is important to understand the difference between keyword optimization and keyword stuffing. Semalt has understood this process, so we don't get scared and use fewer than required keywords, ensuring we do not risk losing your site to keyword stuffing, but we optimize your keywords.
Like so many things, keywords also need to be used in moderation. To achieve this, we naturally shift our focus from trying to please the bot or crawling algorithm. We pack your site full of contents that are useful and beneficial to your audience. We then use these keywords appropriately and naturally all through the content.
Inserting Keywords
Some believe that there is no fixed number for keywords. Others agree that your keywords should make up 2-5% of your content to be safe.
In an attempt to avoid repeating said keywords over and over again, all through the article, Semalt uses long-tail keyword variations to make each keyword appearance look interesting and natural. The use of these keywords helps your content look perfectly fine, as opposed to seeing one keyword repeatedly.
One other to remain on the safe side with the keyword is to use synonyms when possible. Search engines like google pride themselves in being able to understand the multi-faced features of certain words—keywords like Sex, Bat, and other homonyms. Google takes great pride itself on the dependency its users have on it. This constantly keeps them on their toes in an effort to always impress. One way they wish to do this is by differentiating what a user is searching for when he or she searches using homonyms words.
Google uses an index of Google synonyms to help differentiate between meanings. By observing the strings of words before and after the keyword, Google can accurately predict what version of the homonyms you need its results to be displayed.
Because these synonyms are vital to google as a search engine, they are also happy to reward websites that involve them in their content. Having a variety of keywords and not just one also improves your chances of always getting seen. With several possible ways, an internet user could search or ask a question, using synonyms helps you cover every angle.
Another amazing way to stay on the safe side of using SEO keywords is by sticking to one keyword per page. By focusing on a keyword that's a close representation of the content as a whole, you use a wider range of keywords but with the same objective. Ideally, whatever keywords Semalt uses will be a popular search term with little competition. This makes it the perfect addition to making your website to get ranked. The separation of keywords to pages also helps search engines know specifically what each page discusses, and this will help your site avoid keyword cannibalism. That is where two of your webpages are fighting for more attention.
Another reason why Google will favor sites managed by Semalt is that these sites are made with rich contents, and contents which meet the needs of these search engines. One way to show search engine crawlers that your content is great is by the number of words in it. For example, Semalt uses at least 300 words as the main body of a text. Doing this alerts the search engine that the content is likely to be good enough and provide readers with useful information. This also helps Semalt keep its keyword density under check.
Keyword invisibility
In an attempt not to let the readers notice the excessive use of keywords, sites can stuff keywords in places that aren’t visible to the reader. Sites do this by camouflaging the test as the same color with the background, placing them within the website's page code, such as the page's meta, alt, or comment tag. These additions are made with the sole purpose of tricking the search crawlers and algorithms and not the readers.
This attempt to trick the search algorithm is also not cleaver because search engines can also detect these misguided efforts to rank high on SERP, and in the end, the page that employs these tactics only get penalized.
Too much of everything can be bad. This is another reason you need to have your website looked at by professionals. As a website, you may have been wondering why your website is yet to rank, and now, you know one possible reason. Semalt conducts general web analysis to spot any possible problem, and we fix it and get your website to rank.