Power of Keyword Stemming in SEO

Keyword stemming may not be one of the most popular techniques for SEO but it is (quiet) quite an effective way to yield results and generate more hits from the search engine traffic.

What is Keyword Stemming?
It is a simple technique of generating several new words from a single keyword. In other words,  Keyword stemming is an art of modifying or extending a popular/targeted keyword, for e.g.  “game”, by:
  • Making it plural – games.
  • Adding Prefix and Suffix  - pre-game, post-game.
  • Adding new words to either side of the keyword – best game, football game, war games, game zone.
  • Adding other modifiers – gaming, gamer and many more.
In fact, people won’t really use the same word all the time to search – the word “game” will usually transform depending on how they use it. Hence, it makes sense to expand the scope of the keyword.  In other words, this technique is to use those relevant keywords that are not being used or used less by your competitors, yet frequently used by searchers!
Keyword Stemming is much like a game of Scrabble. Image courtesy askadri.com

Keyword Stemming is much like a game of Scrabble. Image courtesy askadri.com

Why should we use Keyword Stemming?

A wide range of stemmed keywords not only gives the webmaster more freedom to write content but also avoids keyword stuffing and repetitions that might get the website blacklisted by search engines. If we try and include all the keyword stems, we can definitely secure quick rankings for specific keywords resulting in instant traffic; and gradually, we can secure the rankings for generic keywords.

Keyword stemming is now considered to be a popular and a logical strategy for gaining ranks in all major search engines. So, do not underestimate its power! It’s a really simple technique, but one that can do much for your website’s SEO.

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13 Comments

  1. Bob says:

    Good post. Small businesses need to target the long tail keywords more than they do. If you sell football memorabilia, for example, the keyword “AFL football memorabilia” could very well draw more traffic to your website than the much used “football memorabilia”. Market your niches.

  2. Gert-Jan says:

    I dont understand why you post something like this. Taking again some of my time. It’s common sence a marketeer works like this or? Or do you have a tool or something for this??

  3. John Hawkins says:

    I was just having a conversation about this very topic.

    Stemming is an extension of natural language. When you are having a conversation, the word “game”, to borrow your example, is going to be used as several variants depending on the context. Your writing should be the same. Just getting the word ‘game’ on your page over and over again isn’t nearly as valuable as casting a much wider net for your target audience to land on.

    Great post. Thanks!

  4. Kevin Hill says:

    Thanks for the info have been practicing this method didnt know the terminology.

  5. Sal says:

    Thanks for the interesting post and tips on keyword stemming. I’ve tried to avoid using variation in keywords, but I guess it does help so I will start to use it more. Plus, just a FYI, but the word ‘quiet’ in the first sentence of your post is spelled wrong. It should be ‘quite’ instead of ‘quiet’.

  6. @Sal
    Oops! We’ve made the correction :)

  7. @Bob – Exactly the point we’re trying to emphasize. Thanks for pitching in.

    @Gert – Hey Pal, we’re just trying to share our gamut of information with other like minded folks. Maybe you know more, and if you do – I’d like to hear from you as well.

    Apropos to your question – No, we do not have a tool for keyword stemming (and we really don’t think its such a necessity right now). Through KPMRS, we’re offering a plethora of tools for website owners and SEO experts alike. Do check it out!

    @Kevin – Happy to help :)

    @John – You’re most welcome! We’re looking forward to your patronage on The KPMRS Blog. I hope you’ve bookmarked us.

  8. Hello Varun:

    Good topic! I am in commercial printing business. I have use keywords as: “printing, copying, graphic design, mailng”. I am not getting enough hits through Google’s Adword program. I pay $0.85 per hit!
    Any suggestions?

    Thank you. Keep up the good work.

    Bharat

  9. Varun Bihani says:

    Hi Bharat,
    Thanks for your comment.
    Lot of factors are responsible for generating traffic from google adwords. Your position, your ad content, your CTR etc, The keywords that you mentioned looks very broad and competitive to me. you need to do more research and find proper keywords.

    Varun

  10. SEO-Ed says:

    KPOM! You nailed it. I was discussing this with a friend recently and he was like ” wouldn’t it be keyword diluting”? My response was like ‘yea, but its better to get ranked on those long tail keyterms, get traffic from it than trying in vain to rank on those competitive ones’

  11. Jonathan says:

    Hi there. Thanks for the post.

    I’ve always promoted keyword stemming when teaching writing for the web. But, having said that, what I’ve struggled with is the fact that search engines carry out stemming when crawling sites.

    e.g. if you had “game” and “gamer”, a search engine could see both words as “game”. So if that’s the case one could argue that some keyword stemming e.g. adding modifiers is a superfluous activity. What are your thoughts?

  12. Rob Garnet says:

    That, or you could actually do your research and find out which terms are most searched. Google will tell you exactly which ones are searched how many times, and finding out what competitors use is as simple as reading their site. What you’re talking about is keyword stuffing, and it doesn’t work.

  13. imeyesite says:

    One of the most important factors in ranking search results is the searcher’s network. This means that every matching search result is evaluated based on who is executing the search.

    But the best keyword research tool, the most appropriate keyword research software is imeyesite.

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