Have you ever heard of keyword stuffing or Black Hat? These two terms are directly related and, if you work with digital marketing, you should pay attention to them, so you do not end up harming your application’s marketing strategies.
Keyword stuffing is a practice in which a keyword is repeated many times in a text. Contrary to what many might believe, this puts the quality of the content into question. Therefore, it is considered a Black Hat practice: that is, an SEO/ASO misconduct.
Keyword stuffing and content quality
Applying keywords in title, description, and other fields available in stores is a strategy widely used in ASO since it significantly contributes to increasing the application visibility through search volume. However, this needs to be done naturally so that the content quality is not harmed.
When the keyword is excessively repeated in the content, it is considered keyword stuffing. In this case, Google’s algorithms understand that that content is not intended to pass any relevant information to the public, used solely and exclusively as an ASO strategy of keyword search volume.
Therefore, the content in which there is a lot of repetition of the same keyword is considered to be of low quality and a Black Hat practice. Thus, when Google identifies keyword stuffing, it applies a penalty, which involves the loss of positions in the ranking of search results.
How to identify keyword stuffing in your content?
Overall, it is important to measure the keyword density, that is, calculate, according to the number of characters in a text, how many times the keyword can be repeated. Ideally, repetitions represent between 1 and 3% of the content. However, this is just one point that needs to be noted.
The placement of the chosen keyword must also be taken into account. It needs to be mentioned naturally, otherwise, Google may consider that an excess of repetitions makes your text tiresome and difficult to understand, in other words, with questionable quality.
How to avoid keyword stuffing?
Now that you know what keyword stuffing is, you need to follow some practices that can help you avoid excessive repetitions in your content. The first tip is to calculate the keyword density. This calculation is very simple and fast.
It consists of the number of keyword repetitions divided by the total of characters on the content. To turn this ratio into a percentage, multiply the result by 100. For example, if your text has 300 characters, and three repetitions of the keyword, then the density is 1%. It must not exceed 3%.
Another tip is to distribute the keyword in the content, making sure it is mentioned in the title, in the first and last paragraph, as well as a few times throughout the text — in a moderate way.
Keep in mind that the algorithms do not usually distinguish between plural and singular. Therefore, the keywords “shopping apps” and “shopping app”, for example, are considered the same.
Finally, remember that, despite digital marketing strategies, your content needs to convey relevant and quality information to your audience. So it is worth prioritizing this factor rather than just keyword repetitions.
Other tips to avoid keyword stuffing
- Ensure a light reading, respecting grammar rules, and focusing on the user experience;
- Bet on long-tail keywords to get more variations;
- Avoid very close repetitions;
- Apply quality internal links and backlinks;
- Make mentions of functions and places that are related to the content.
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Did you like to know more about keyword stuffing? So, put these tips into practice right now to ensure quality — and punishment-free — content in your app.
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