How Many Keywords Are Too Many?
When it comes to keywords, how many is too many? Both readers and search engines prefer a keyword density of roughly two to five percent. Even in larger pieces, a maximum of 20 uses per webpage is recommended.
We know that optimizing our blog posts, Facebook updates, tweets, and site content for keywords can help them appear in relevant searches. This is a huge opportunity, and it’s natural to want to stuff as many keywords as possible into your online material. Why not make a big deal out of it to make sure Google understands?
While this argument appears good in theory, it does not work in practice. You certainly need some keywords in your content to increase its search ranking, but if you go too far in the opposite direction and rely on keyword stuffing, you may end up with negative effects that harm the effectiveness of your campaigns.
This blog will look at the best keyword density ratios and how they affect your content.
How Can You Have Too Many Keywords?
Using too many keywords is known as keyword stuffing, which refers to the practice of stuffing as many keywords as possible into a single post.
And if you think about it, I’m sure you can think of a few instances where keywords went horribly wrong. We’ve all read text where multiple variants of the same term are repeated far too many times, frequently in clumsy or inappropriate ways. In the end, this makes the content less interesting to read, and it even devalues the material.
Consider it as though you’re preparing a salad, with your content as the dressing and your croutons as the keywords. Your salad is loaded with nutritious components like spinach, tomatoes, cucumbers, and more. A few croutons will assist in enhancing the flavor, but too many will detract from the nutritive value of the salad, and the meal will go from refreshing and light to smelling like stale bread.
That scenario is a fantastic example of how many keywords in a piece of text are too many.
What Are the Consequences of Keyword Stuffing?
It’s all too easy to get carried away and use as many keywords as possible, as many times as possible. The goal is to convince Google that your article, infographic, or eBook is ideal for the query and should appear first in the search results.
In actuality, the effect is more likely to be the inverse.
Users are likely to notice keyword stuffing and be annoyed by it, as we stated above, even if they aren’t aware of what you’re doing. The information will most likely be challenging to read and awkward and will come off as a strange, high-pressure sales pitch in many circumstances.
Overall, this is a poor plan. It doesn’t matter if customers can find the content if it irritates them to the point that they won’t reread it.
But here’s the thing: your audience will not find your material if you go overboard with keyword stuffing. It’s referred to as a black-hat tactic, and Google has picked up on it.
Google no longer wants to see highly optimized sites more concerned with SEO tactics than producing content that visitors want to see. Instead of witnessing a boost, this approach may cause your Google ranking to drop due to utilizing too many keywords.
What Counts as Too Many Keywords?
The length of the material mostly determines the number of keywords you should target. Trying to cram 15 keywords into a 400-word press release won’t fly, but cramming the same number into a 2,000-word blog article should be alright.
Recapping what we discussed at the start of this post, keyword density is the statistic to watch when determining whether your content is optimized enough or too much. You should never have more than 4% keyword density, and maintaining it between 2% and 3% is usually the sweet spot that Google and readers prefer to see.
To be clear, we’ve gone against our instincts and written a paragraph for the phrase keyword density that adopts a keyword-stuffing method. Is it natural to read? Is it bothersome? Do you believe you’ve been duped?
“Keyword density is a technique for getting a high Google ranking for a certain query. It used to be customary to utilize a high keyword density technique to get a high ranking in Google’s search results, but this is no longer the case because users dislike it. Articles having an excessive keyword density will now be blacklisted by Google. As a result, stick to a keyword density rate of no more than 4% in your text.”
That delicious bit of prose contains approximately 14% solid keywords for the record. Someone please inform Google that this is deliberate keyword stuffing, okay!?!
Keyword Density Analysis Tools
You can use tools to evaluate your keyword density and overall SEO potential for on-site content. Yoast SEO is a fantastic plugin for WordPress sites, and it will also provide you with input on what else you can do to boost your rating.
Keyword Density for SEO: Best Way To Actually Get You Results
While sticking to a keyword density of no more than 4% is a good place to start and end, you can get more strategic with your content by:
- Conducting up-front keyword research
- Only targeting relevant keywords
- Placing keywords strategically
- Remembering to use image alt text
Here’s how to make the most of each of these tactics to maximize the effect of your keywords and extract the most out of each use.
Conduct Up-Front Keyword Research
If you do all of your research before optimizing content, you’ll know exactly what you want to write and why. It’s easier to naturally include keywords into your content if you consider them from the start rather than trying to cram them in as an afterthought.
Only Target Relevant Keywords
It makes no difference if it has 10,000 monthly searches—If the keyword isn’t directly related to the content, don’t use it in your optimization.
If you don’t have a banana in your chocolate chip pancakes, don’t use banana as a keyword simply because it’s popular. People will simply click away, and Google dislikes high bounce rates. Create different material for the banana keyword if necessary. We suggest a banana-blueberry pancake recipe. Yum!!
Place Keywords Strategically
When used correctly, keywords have the most impact. It will have a greater impact if your major target term appears in the title and at least one subheading rather than just in the main content.
Remember the Image Alt Text
Image alt texts are a terrific spot to drop keywords that you know are relevant and crucial to your content but can’t seem to fit into the text naturally. Make the most of this powerful method.
Work with Our SEO Team
Keyword stuffing will never help you; instead, it will irritate readers and Google. By making sure that your keywords are in good shape, you’ll be able to concentrate more on developing actionable, valuable content that your audience wants to see, resulting in better long-term outcomes.
Do you need assistance developing SEO content that your viewers will enjoy? Find out more about our services and get in touch with The Hyper Fuel team to see how we can assist you.
