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What are stop words?
Stop words are words and phrases that do not contain significant information and can often be removed without losing the main meaning of the text. These words can vary depending on the niche in marketing and the digital space. For example, the word "discount," which is perceived positively on social media, can be regarded as spam in email filters.
The importance of minimizing stop words is especially emphasized in content marketing, where editors recommend simplifying text to improve its perception by the reader. This is critically important in the digital space, where users strive to quickly absorb information.
Editing expert Maxim Ilyakhov claims that stop words not only lack semantic weight but also complicate the text, which can distract the reader from the main idea.
Stop words in marketing
In various areas of marketing, such as content marketing, email marketing, and context advertising, there are specific requirements for the use of stop words.
Stop words in content marketing
In content marketing, several categories of stop words should be minimized:
- Pronouns and interjections: I, we, you, my, ah, well.
- Intensifiers: maximally, very, absolutely, strongly.
- Introductory phrases: let’s say, for example, in general.
- Evaluative adjectives: lovely, expensive, cozy.
- Clichés: step by step, the atmosphere prevailed.
- Generalizations: all, approximately, somewhere.
- Time parasites: at the current moment, nowadays.
- Nominalized verbs: to carry out repairs, to conduct an inspection.
- Obvious entities: this document, this site.
- Modal verbs: may collect, must log in.
Minimizing stop words is one of the key principles of information style, which became popular due to Ilyakhov's book "Write, Cut." It emphasizes that stop words often clutter the text and create an illusion of the importance of details.
Stop words in context advertising
When displaying context advertising, search algorithms ignore stop words, highlighting only key phrases. For example, in the query "renting apartments in Moscow," alternative words may be substituted if they are not preceded by the operator "+". It is important to remember that each search engine may have its own list of stop words, which can change.
Stop words in email marketing
In email marketing, there are also specific stop words used in spam filters. The more unwanted phrases are in the email, the higher the likelihood of it being marked as spam. Such words include phrases related to financial offers or employment.
Stop words in SEO
When forming search results, algorithms analyze the content of web pages and compare it with user queries. An excess of stop words can slow down the indexing of pages. Search engines filter out words they consider insignificant, which speeds up the process of analysis and result formation.
There are two types of stop words: general (prepositions, particles, and other words that do not carry additional information) and dependent (secondary words in queries). Each search engine has its own closed list of stop words, and it is important to focus on the informativeness of the content rather than completely purging the text of stop words.
Stop words affect the ranking of websites, and the more noise phrases are present on a page, the less relevant it is considered by search algorithms.
How to check text for stop words
There are many services available for assessing text quality and checking for stop words:
- Advego: analyzes text, shows the percentage of "water," and highlights stop words.
- Text.ru: offers SEO analysis of text with highlighting of stop words and water content.
- Glavred: evaluates text on a 10-point scale and highlights unnecessary words in orange.
- Mail-tester, Litmus, Email on Acid: specialized services for checking emails for stop words.
With an excess of stop words, information loses its clarity, making it difficult for users to perceive the text. However, the complete absence of such words can make the material too "dry" and uninteresting. Therefore, it is important to find a balance between meaningful and noise words to create quality content.