Category Archives: SEO Keywords

Stop Words

Stop words are words that search engines don’t consider because they’re so common. They can be your best friend or worst enemy, so let’s look at how to use them effectively. Here is a list of stop words.

The Dangers: Stop Words in Titles

Because titles are brief phrases, clogging them with stop words detracts from what you’re trying to say.

Bad: Instead of Worrying About Keyword Density, Focus on Content

Better: Content Trumps Keyword Density

Bad: She’ll Really Love Our New Eco-Friendly Nail Polish

Better: New! Eco-Friendly Nail Polish by Company Name

In the first example, I removed all stop words because I could easily do so. In the second example, the title sounded best with some stop words, so I left some in. In both cases, though, I removed all unnecessary stop words.

The Benefits: Stop Words in Sentences

Unlike titles, your sentences aren’t limited to a handful of words, so you can use stop words without worrying about them detracting from your keywords.

Of course, you should still cut all unnecessary words, but stop words aren’t always unnecessary. In fact, stop words can help you incorporate your keywords.

I gave an example in Natural Keyword Integration of breaking up an awkward keyword phrase with a stop word. Situations like that are the best way to use stop words to your benefit.

Bad: Our best choice for young homeowners. This kitchen pots set under $100.

Better: Our best choice for young homeowners. This kitchen pots set is under $100.

Because search engines don’t pay attention to the word “is”, including a stop word doesn’t affect our keyword “kitchen pots set under $100”. However, the keyword does give us a grammatical sentence, which is what readers want.

Learn More:

• Illinois Institute of Technology: Evil Stop Words

Natural Keyword Integration

You’ve got a list of keywords that your client wants you to include in your writing. Now what do you do? You should definitely follow your client’s directions, but you also must focus on writing well, not on randomly throwing keywords into your text.

Search engines are more interested in meaningful content than keywords. Keywords are still important — they make it clear what your content is about — but you should never sacrifice quality for keywords.

It doesn’t have to be an either/or situation, though; you can have great content as well as relevant keywords. Let’s see how!

All Natural

Making your keywords fit seamlessly into your writing is your number one keyword-related goal. No matter how relevant your content is, no one wants to read it if it’s clunky and forced around keywords.

You might need to rearrange keyword phrases so that they flow with your writing, or you might have to save a keyword for a different sentence if it doesn’t fit.

Never force keywords.

Forced: If you want a great tattoo, come to the best tattoo parlor Vancouver.

Improved: If you want a great tattoo, come to the best tattoo parlor in Vancouver.

This sentence was easy to improved; I just added the stop word “in”. While I broke up the keyword “best tattoo parlour Vancouver”, the sentence now makes grammatical sense, and algorithms won’t even notice the “in”.

Forced: Our free internet radio with no downloads plays everything from classical to country, blues to Bhangra.

Improved: Our free internet radio plays everything from classical to country, blues to Bhangra. Plus, we have no downloads.

Here I broke up the keyword phrase some more. Writing “free internet radio with no downloads” screams, “Here’s my keyword!” Breaking that phrase up makes the sentence sound natural.

Density?

If your client has given you a keyword density that he wants, you should definitely follow that request. If there’s no specified density, don’t worry.

Keyword density is unimportant for today’s algorithms. As long as you mention your keywords once or twice, you’re good to go.

Just make sure that you don’t overuse keywords since search engines penalize keyword stuffing.

Learn More:

• Moz: Keyword Targeting, Density, and Cannibalization
• Hobo: Ideal Keyword Density
• Dave Lucas: Keyword Density Myth

Current Keyword Strategies

As a writer, you have little control over keywords. Your client gives you the keywords that she wants you to use and her desired density, and you need to follow those requests. Hopefully your client knows about the latest SEO techniques and changes in Google algorithms, but even if he doesn’t, your job is to fulfill your client’s request, not to choose keywords that you think would be better.

Having said that here are some tips on incorporating keywords most effectively.

Place Keywords in Your Subheaders

Readers appreciate subheaders with accurate keywords because they can easily tell what the next section will tell us. Scanners can also see your ideas just by scanning your subheaders. Similarly, subheaders with keywords are an easy way for algorithms to assess what your content is about.

Identify Your Keyword Concept

Google’s algorithms no longer focus on single keywords. Rather, they’re interested in your keyword concept/theme — what your page is focused on.

If your client has given you keywords to use, definitely include them at the desired density. Just don’t feel limited by the specified keywords. Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) looks at all the words on a webpage and decides what that page is about based on the groups of related words that appear most.

So, if you’re trying to optimize a page about keyword techniques, you shouldn’t just use the phrase “keyword techniques”. Include words like SEO, LSI, ranking, algorithm, and longtail as well.

Words that are related to your keyword concept will help with rankings, even if they aren’t the exact ones that your client provided. So, use the keywords and density that your client requested, but if there’s another word that fits more naturally into one of your sentences, use that too.

Longtail Keywords: Be Number One in Specifics

You can be number one! Yes, your website can have the highest ranking, it just needs to have a specific keyword. Let’s face it, ranking highly on a broad and popular keyword is unlikely, but if you make your keywords more specific, you have a better chance of reaching the top.

Look for ways that you can modify the keywords your client gives you to make them more specific and focused on what the client is providing.

If “cupcakes” is one of your keywords and your client is a vegan bakery on Long Island, use the longtail keyword “vegan cupcakes Long Island” as well.

You’re still using the keyword “cupcake”, but you’ve also made that keyword more specific by modifying it  with “vegan” and “Long Island”. Your client has a much better chance of ranking first for “vegan cupcakes Long Island” than for “cupcakes”.

Learn More:

• Forbes: SEO in 2014
• Moz: Keywords to Concepts
• Audience Bloom: Longtail Keywords