Simple words such as: the, to, and, or, and our {there are several more} are automatically filtered from web search queries. However, I constantly see the inclusion of these words within the META Title and META Description fields of business website (the SEO stuff) instead of an optimized keyword or location reference.
Most commonly , I see this error when reviewing websites “optimized” by the business or website designer – not an experienced SEO specialist. It’s the small granular details like this, that make the difference between one website having more visibility on search than the competition.
Putting an end to stop-word usage could increase the online discovery of a business website.
You can best-optimize your digital assets (like your website) by balancing your keyword usage (6-8.5% density works for most small businesses) – while maintaining a natural language “voice” - and excluding the words that present nothing but a roadblock to viability; like stop-words. The most important area to focus on are the website address of each or your pages, and within the title of each page.
As a rule – if search engines are more likely to see a particular body of text than people will, strip out the stop-words.
TIP: This same stop-word strategy works great for off-page SEO and should be considered for article/blog titling, graphic/video optimization, and Facebook/Twitter bios as well.
Rhode Island internet marketing & SEO/SEM firm
