Beware of “Little” Keywords
December 12, 2005 | Category: Page OptimizationWhen you’re looking for terms to optimize for, especially primary keyphrases, it is generally a good idea to stay away from “little” keywords, such as the, and, or, for, etc.
This is due to issues with the way search engines look at keywords. For example, I’ve discovered that a term like “What is WiFi” is easy to rank for with quotation marks, but people who search without quotation marks simply won’t find it.
The problem is that searching without quotes will bring up a list of every site that includes all three of those words. Given the fact that almost any content-based page will contain the words “what” and “is”, trying to rank for a term like “What is WiFi” is essentially just as difficult as ranking for the single word “WiFi” (not easy, by any means 
).
In Google, there is the additional handicap that the algorithm completely ignores “little” stopwords unless they are in quotation marks. And since the majority of users search without quotes, trying to optimize for phrases that contain minor words is a complete waste of time.
Instead, you should try and optimize for uninterrupted strings of relevant keywords. A more specific dual-keyword phrase like “Verizon WiFi” (which I am currently #1 for 
) is a much better all ‘round option that works with or without quotation marks.
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