Keyword Stuffing - Ecommerce websites

[ATP]

Hey Mozzers,

Im undertaking a content audit and its going very well, we have written some better content for the first set of pages, it still needs some improvement but we have a good base and starting point from which we can make an SEO log and work on it over time. For the content I used the following formula for how many times to include a keyword

Word Count / Length of Keyword. (eg. 600 words / 3 word keyword = 200). Then 1-4% of this (2-8 times).

This has worked well for me in the past and has been a good base guide. I have ran the pages through Moz optimiser and every single page hit an A for keyword page optimisation. However many of the pages failed on keyword stuffing, which obviously has high priority.

My dilemma is that, moz counts 15 as the cut off for keyword stuffing with the written text we have done really well with using it a set number of times. But these pages are product category pages. The keyword in the extreme of cases is listed 7-9 times in the side nav menu. 7-9 times in the product category listings.

Take for example *** it is optimised for thermometers (i know it a tough single word keyword, and we have fairly modest aims with it, im using it here for example purposes). The word is used a good number of times within the article but is sent through the roof with the links to the sub categories. This page for example mentions the keyword 30 times.

Can anybody suggest any ways to improve on this? Is how we display the categories in the nav bar and in the page excessive?

As always many thanks!

[Andy.Drinkwater]

Keyword stuffing is always a tricky one as sometime common sense means that there are multiple mentions of a word, but if it is in the menu structure, then it is seen as less of an issue. However, when I look at that page, there are a lot of occurrences in the content and when reading that, it actually sounds quite unnatural. 17 mentions in just a few hundred words is more than I would be comfortable with.

-Andy

[ATP]

Thanks for the feedback Andy,

Its always nice to here a a fairly straight forward "that doesn't sound natural" it lets us know we need to review it.

What makes it "less of an issue" if the words are within the menu structure? Is there some info you could provide that backs this up?

I will look to reduce the keyword usage in light of what you have said

As another follow up question, the text uses the singular version 7 times and the plural 10. Would these be seen as the same word in the context of keyword stuffing?

[Andy.Drinkwater]

What makes it "less of an issue" if the words are within the menu structure? Is there some info you could provide that backs this up?

Google has never really counted what is in the menu as page content. Some mega-menus are huge and carry many more occurrences of words than you have. They are pretty smart in that respect.

One thing you could do, is break the menu up so you have a heading of "Thermometers" and then list the types below that?

As another follow up question, the text uses the singular version 7 times and the plural 10. Would these be seen as the same word in the context of keyword stuffing?

Yes - Stemmed words are seen as the same. If you look in your Webmaster Tools account (Google Index --> Content Keywords), you will see words that are used and the variants of those words. As an example from a client I am working with at the moment.

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• recruitment, recruit, recruiting, recruited, recruits

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I suspect you will see Thermometer and Thermometers as variants.

-Andy

[ATP]

Brilliant, thanks andy much appreciated. Valuable feedback as always

[Andy.Drinkwater]

You're very welcome

-Andy