Nine Indications That Your SEO Content Is Poor

One could see the term “SEO content” as derogatory. It reminds me of a number of bad writing decisions that produce content that neither humans nor bots would want to read.

When you find boring, formulaic, keyword-heavy content that can fit almost any business, industry, or keyword subject, you know it’s bad SEO content. Content created just for search engine optimization (SEO) might harm your brand’s reputation and negatively impact your organic search results. It’s important to emphasize again: Gone are the days when poor SEO material raised organic search ranks.

In order to support websites that provide “helpful, reliable, people-first content” that is designed for humans rather than bots, Google, in particular, has launched a series of Helpful Content Updates (HCUs). Google feels firmly that poor SEO material degrades user experience. Performance decreases during the recurring HCUs have revealed websites with problems with content helpfulness since 2022. Nevertheless, since of this month, the HCU is now included in Google’s March 2024 Core Update, meaning it will no longer send out lone signals informing websites that they have a particular problem with helpful content. Rather, you will need to speculate as to which Core Update system caused your performance to drop.

Even without an HCU to sabotage performance, you should be aware of when your material is meant only for search engine manipulation. If you’re unsure, compare your work to these nine indicators that poor quality SEO material is being written.

You might be fine if your content only uses a couple of these strategies, but poor SEO material frequently checks all nine of these boxes.

1. Writing Formulas

It is certainly formulaic SEO copy if you can swap any firm name or keyword theme into your writing. For instance, websites that display poor quality SEO content frequently use this construction:

These kinds of templates let SEO experts stuff keywords into grammatically correct boilerplate that doesn’t really convey anything useful. Formulaic writing is not only incredibly boring, but it is also readily recognizable as useless information.

2. Stuffing Keywords

Keyword stuffing, which involves cramming so many keywords into an article that it becomes difficult to read, is arguably the most ancient type of organic search engine spam. For instance, the term “stuffed animals” appears numerous times in the copy that follows.

Although there isn’t a perfect balance between keywords and non-keywords in content, the 62-word paragraph above is obviously keyword-stuffed given the five times the term appears in it.

In addition to keyword stuffing, you’re definitely utilizing a formula. Overly keyword-heavy copy is simple to identify, which makes it simple for Google’s algorithms to demote.

3. Using Minute Keyword Variants Excessively

Knowing the scope and complexity of a keyword theme requires thorough keyword research. However, keyword stuffing is just another term for cramming every keyword in the book on a single copy page. Including every long-tail keyword in a piece of material starts to read awkwardly, especially if all the variations have the same main keyword nugget.

For instance, the head keyword “stuffed animals” is shared by the phrases “stuffed animals for sale,” “best stuffed animals,” “high quality stuffed animals,” and “stuffed animals for girlfriend.” Indeed, using fascinating and varied language often makes your material better. However, employing tiny variations of the same keyword results in repetitive repetition of the same phrase rather than greater content.

4. Uncomfortable Grammar to Match Keywords

language is important, and Google has an algorithm that can identify bad language, particularly when it’s combined with keyword stuffing. Just because a lot of people have entered an exact-match keyword into Google’s search box doesn’t mean that you have to use weird wording to accommodate it. To make some keywords work well with the rest of the sentence, they must be tweaked. For instance, using the term “for sale” in e-commerce text can result in some strange constructions:

For a long time, search engines have been able to distinguish between synonyms. As long as you utilize other keywords that are grammatically acceptable and offer the appropriate context, Google will still recognize the relevancy of your content even if you don’t use the exact-match keyword.

5. Sluggish Word Selections

Consider each keyword as a gap in your content’s Swiss cheese quality. You may be writing poor SEO content if you mentally eliminate the keywords and the remaining words aren’t engaging and diverse. The landscape of words that make up human language is amazing and diverse, encompassing every conceivable idea. Steer clear of bland word selections. Simply carry your electronic thesaurus with you as you write to find more engaging synonyms, particularly for verbs and adjectives.

6. Silent Speech

The most lazy word choice, the passive voice appears in a phrase when the subject is being acted upon instead of acting independently. Active language draws the reader in and conveys ideas more effectively, as we were all taught in elementary school. Although not all of your sentences can be active, your writing will seem more sloppy if it is.

7. Excessive Listing

Lists aren’t always spammy and can be effective tools for communicating the depth of a subject. Actually, lists with bullets or numbers that provide a bit extra information about each item on the list can be really interesting. On the other hand, an excessive dependence on listing is another sign of poor quality SEO content when combined with keyword stuffing. For instance, these lists, which are located in the same paragraph, are not meant to convey any true meaning, but rather to target keyword variants nearby:

8. Excessive Connection

Excessive linking is ugly and can make the reader’s experience less satisfying, regardless of whether it is designed as blue underlined link text. It’s likely a list of links that are overstuffed with keywords if it appears as a lengthy, blue blob rather than as an optimal link:text ratio. A visitor should gain from appropriate linking, which offers to direct them to a useful, connected website. When SEO experts feel compelled to connect to everything, everywhere, this is known as over-linking.

9. Excessive Heading Use

A high heading-to-content ratio indicates that the content is potentially poor quality SEO material. No, there isn’t a perfect ratio. However, it’s most likely spam if there are more headings than necessary, if each heading has only two or three phrases underneath it, and if the headings are jam-packed with exact-match keywords.

You are essentially amplifying your spam in big, strong letters, making this an obvious SEO trick. When utilized appropriately, headings serve as checkpoints in your writing, introducing new subjects or crucial ideas. If you don’t have enough to say about a topic, the headlines will take away from the general flow of the work and the substance will feel lacking.

These nine pointers will assist you in identifying poor quality SEO content. If so, educate yourself on creating excellent, user-focused, and beneficial content. In order to effectively represent your company, please visitors, and maintain good standing with Google’s helpful content algorithm, it is imperative to prioritize these days. Additionally, its significance will grow as Google launches the Search Generative Experience, now in development, and strives to unearth more obscure treasures from the internet’s depths.