Keyword Stuffing

## Why Keyword Stuffing Is Bad **Keyword stuffing weakens the** **[UX (User Experience)](https://growhackscale.com/marketing-glossary/user-experience-ux)** **of your website.** Overloading your text with an unnecessary number of keywords can make a website’s content utterly unreadable. When a user discovers a website’s content is spammy and illegible, they will usually click off immediately. This means less [dwell time,](https://growhackscale.com/marketing-glossary/dwell-time) a [higher bounce rate](https://growhackscale.com/marketing-glossary/bounce-rate), fewer [conversions] (https://growhackscale.com/marketing-glossary/website-conversion-rate-metric)and a lower ranking. ## What Happens When You Do Keyword Stuffing? **Keyword stuffing goes against Webmaster Guidelines, and specifically** **[Google’s Panda algorithm](https://growhackscale.com/marketing-glossary/panda-update)**. The [Google bots](http://growhackscale.com/marketing-glossary/google-crawlers) will discover this [black hat technique](https://growhackscale.com/marketing-glossary/black-hat-seo), and when they do it will result in a [Google penalty](https://growhackscale.com/marketing-glossary/google-penalty). Because the Panda algorithm works on a domain level, this means the whole website will be penalised, which will lead to a dramatic fall in the rankings. ## How To Avoid Keyword Stuffing Web page owners usually opt for keyword stuffing as a quick fix for optimisation, however this ‘quick-fix’ will hurt you more in the long run. **Below are some good ways to avoid keyword stuffing:** ### 1. Conduct Quality and In-Depth Keyword Research Researching into your target market, finding out what is popular, and analysing [keyword difficulty](/marketing-glossary/keyword-difficulty) are all important elements of good [keyword research](https://growhackscale.com/marketing-glossary/keyword-research). Understanding keyword popularity is vital, because it indicates how often a keyword is searched for. Assessing keyword difficulty is essential too. The higher this metric is, the harder it is to rank on the first [SERP](/marketing-glossary/serp). When analysing keyword difficulty the following measurements are key: - Domain authority - [Page Authority](/marketing-glossary/page-authority) - The trustworthiness of the site ### 2. Extend Your Word Count A good way to avoid keyword stuffing is to expand your body of text. This allows you to distribute keywords more naturally, rather than forcing them into every other sentence. It will improve the text’s flow and user experience. ### 3. Measure Your Keyword Density Your ideal keyword density is below 2%. Keyword Density Checkers (such as [this one](http://www.visiospark.com/keyword-density-checker/) at Visiospark) can help you make sure you stay below this percentage and keep your content sounding natural. ### 4. Give Each Page a Primary Keyword Find one target keyword for each page. This keyword or phrase should be closely related to the content of this page. Choosing a low competition keyword will allow you to rank quicker but don’t be shying away from higher competition. And remember, choose a different primary keyword for each page on your website. ### 5. Use Keywords for On-Page SEO Include keywords in the right sections of your page, including your: - [Title Tag](https://growhackscale.com/marketing-glossary/meta-title-seo) - [Meta Description](https://growhackscale.com/marketing-glossary/meta-description-seo) - [Image alt tag](/marketing-glossary/alt-tag-attribute) - First paragraph - Page title ### How Can We Help? Worried that you may be unintentionally keyword stuffing? Get in touch and we can pair you with a team that can scour your site and help you optimise your content.