Do I Need Stop Words for Good SEO?
What are Google stop words? Stop Words are those little words like the, an, to, for, a, and so forth. They are words that help your blog posts make sense, yet Google often filters them out in search queries. If this is the case, then this matter of stop words and seo could seem rather complex.
You can check this post at Yoast for a complete list of stop words here.
If Google filters stop words out why use them? Then on the other hand, if you don’t use them, the post doesn’t make sense. Take for example these two keyword phrases. With stop word – gardening supplies for beginners. Without stop word – gardening supplies beginners. When you put this keyword into a search tool such as Jaaxy, things look a little different as you can see in the screenshot below.
You notice the number of searches is the same. The traffic estimate is the same. The competition(qsr) looks a little different. If you take both of these over to Google however, the return results will be the same. Moral here, don’t get hung up on stop words.
There will be those times when you find a big difference while doing your keyword research with and without stop words.
This is why it’s so important to take your keyword over to Google and see what Google returns. Google your keyword phrases with and without the stop word. You will find that very often the returned results are close if not identical. If this is the case, your stop word doesn’t matter that much does it?
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When do Stop Words Matter?
An example of when a stop word would matter would be The Stand or just stand. The Stand will take you to suspense writer Stephen King. Without the in front of the word stand, you are likely to get a definition of what it means when you aren’t sitting but up on both feet. Google knows the difference.
Stop words also matter as far as if it makes sense. If you find a keyword that appears to get more searches without the stop word or words, and it reads poorly, you don’t want to do it. You will just lose a reader here.
What is a Stop Word In a Keyword Phrase?
Another Example of Stop Words and Seo
If you take this post right here, my original keyword phrase is what are stop words. What and are at the beginning are stop words. I took both phrases over to my keyword tool and did a search. The first one with the stop words gives me a green light, the second one without gives me a red light.
I take them to Google and put them both in to check the returned results. The Results are about identical with a few variations. I went back to the drawing board and added the word Google in the mix. My keyword is now what are google stop words. So do I have a chance of ranking this article or not? We shall see, after all there is a lot more than what I have talked about here to consider when it comes to Seo and ranking in Google.
So while it helps to understand these stop words there is so much more to keyword research and seo than just this. It’s about on page and on site seo as a whole as well. Your content plays a big role in your seo. Not just the content in your individual post but also the content on your site as a whole.
If you don’t know how to do your keyword research or all the ins and out of Seo, we can teach you in our Keyword and Seo Course.
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