Tips for Using Stop Words in SEO Writing
Stop words are not favorable to the algorithm, making them hard to fit into SEO writing. Organic traffic comes from search engine optimization and careful marketing. Stop words can get in the way of the algorithm picking up on these things.
What Are Stop Words?
Before discussing how stop words affect your SEO writing, let’s define what they are. Stop words are smaller words that have little impact on your search query. The English language is chockfull of them. Here are some examples:
- be
- a
- the
- if
- that
- your
If you are looking for a comprehensive list, check out this link.
Can They Invalidate Your SEO Writing?
Not necessarily. Stop words can make your writing more crowded and take up space for keywords. Generally, search engines will ignore them unless they are integral to the subject. An excellent example is The Boys television show on Amazon Prime. Suppose you type in “boys”, everything related to boys will ship, excluding the show. Google’s algorithm is smart enough to recognize when a stop word is a part of the name or subject, which makes our job as copywriters easier.
Where Should You Avoid Using Stop Words?
The most critical parts of any SEO writing piece are where you should never use stop words. Things like meta descriptions, image alt text, URL slugs, etc., are too important to include excessive stop words. These are low character places on a webpage that should focus on search engine optimization. Adding in stop words can make a title or description too long, making it unlikely to be picked up by a search engine algorithm.
How Can You Know When to Use Stop Words?
Search engine optimization is a skill that you build over time. Eventually, you will get a sense of when a word is overoptimized, or the clarity of your piece is low. It is a rhythm you will pick up on. Stop words can put a dent in that rhythm, maybe making you read a sentence more times than you need to. If you cannot decide if it is good to use a stop word in your keyword, consider making a search engine query. You will see what will pop up with your piece.
Contact Adventure Web Interactive Today
For more tips on how to optimize your web content and drive more traffic to your website, follow our blog. Adventure Web Interactive offers expert marketing solutions, including blog and copywriting and social media management. Take the stress of planning, posting, and plotting off of your team and contact us online or by giving us a call at (410) 788-7007. To see more information about our team and services, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn.
