‘Keyword stuffing’ can cause the ranking of a business Website to slide

NEW YORK — A business recently hired Relevant Public Relations to solve a problem that required immediate attention: Despite being among the best in its specific industry, the company’s Search Engine Optimization (SEO) was faltering with a Website that was losing ground to competitors.

This meant the business could not be found by prospective customers searching the Internet for the services and products it offered. In addition, it was likely some potential customers would never even know the company existed.

The solution, in part, required that every page of the firm’s site be rewritten.

Here’s why: Words on the Web are like food in the tummy. When used properly, words can satisfy; when overdone, they can make us sick.

This is particularly true on the Internet, where the over-use, cramming, or “stuffing,” of keywords onto business pages has inspired Google to refine its page-ranking criteria.

Wanting to organically optimize their online presence, some enterprises seek to enrich the content of their posts by including searchable words and phrases associated with the services and products they provide. This makes sense, because potential customers may use the same descriptive words when exploring the Internet for vendors or professionals who can fulfill their needs.

Words are good. For businesses, however, too much of a good thing can lead to “keyword stuffing,” which can cause a slide in the status of a Website. Our newly arrived client suffered with this dilemma. We solved the problem by discarding the site’s original verbiage and replacing it with new content that is skillfully embroidered with keywords, and not overdone.

According to Google, diminished ranking is a response to the loading of a Webpage “with keywords or numbers in an attempt to manipulate a site’s ranking in Google search results.”

The search engine explains, “Often these keywords appear in a list or group, or out of context (not as natural prose). Filling pages with keywords or numbers results in a negative user experience, and can harm your site’s ranking. …”

Google offers the following examples of keyword stuffing:

• Lists of phone numbers without substantial added value
• Blocks of text listing cities and states a Webpage is trying to rank for
• Repeating the same words or phrases so often that it sounds unnatural, for example:
We sell custom cigar humidors. Our custom cigar humidors are handmade. If you’re thinking of buying a custom cigar humidor, please contact our custom cigar humidor specialists at custom.cigar.humidors@example.com.

About Relevant Public Relations LLC

Relevant Public Relations LLC (Relevant PR), “Where Success is Written®,” is a New York City-based multimedia public relations and marketing company with local, national and global reach. The firm’s founder and president, Barton Horowitz, is a Small Business Administration (SBA) Champion of the Year Award winner and recipient of a 2013 Louis R. Miller Business Leadership Award.

Economically headquartered in the New York City borough of Staten Island, Relevant Public Relations is “America’s Journalist-Empowered PR & Marketing firm®,” leading businesses, professional practices and organizations to greater heights by cost-effectively integrating all marketing and PR strategies into a single efficiently run operation.

Relevant Public Relation’s custom-designed branding methods succeed due to an innovative recipe of press releases; traditional, digital and broadcast-news distribution; social-media management; Website and blog content; e-mail marketing; commercial copywriting, and more.

Whether your enterprise requires a single press release, a multimedia campaign or the information on a company brochure or Website professionally written, edited or updated, Relevant Public Relations is the right choice.

Relevant Public Relations is available online at www.RelevantPR.com, and may be reached at 718-682-1509 or via email: info@RelevantPR.com.