Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      Let your business shine with Listings AI
      Moz Local

      Let your business shine with Listings AI

      Learn more
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. Technical SEO
    4. How many strong tags is too many

    Moz Q&A is closed.

    After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

    How many strong tags is too many

    Technical SEO
    4
    7
    4013
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • pauledwards
      pauledwards last edited by

      Hi everyone, just a quick question, what are your views on the use of strong tags in content? how many is too many?

      What is you have strong tags around every keywords for a sentance etc?

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
      • SteveOllington
        SteveOllington @EGOL last edited by

        Well yeah that wouldn't be too many at all, but then going back to what Marcus and EGOL said you're much better off using bold tags for readability reasons than simply using it on keywords really. It has little to no impact in terms of rankings (probably a tiny bit) but can have a much greater impact on keeping your visitors moving forward and converting if used to break the content up into more digestible chunks with a good scent of what's important to them and where their eyes should go next.

        I'd probably use bold a few more times in a 500 word piece but use it as what it is, an emphasis tag 🙂 Not emphasising keywords for Google but whatever it is in the content that will encourage the user to feel they're in the right place... if that happens to combine with some keywords or keyword phrases then great, but don't see it as a game-changer for rankings 🙂

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
        • pauledwards
          pauledwards @EGOL last edited by

          Its keywords that are bold, so i guess perhaps 1 or 2 for around 500 words would be about right?

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • SteveOllington
            SteveOllington @EGOL last edited by

            I suppose if you were going to look at it as "how many is too many" though it would be a percentage density instead of an actual number because it would depend on the size of the piece.

            If you had a 1,000 word page then 50 words in bold might look okay but if it were a 100 word page then 50 words in bold would be ridiculous.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • Marcus_Miller
              Marcus_Miller @EGOL last edited by

              Exactly (the everything is important bit, not agreeing with me). 🙂

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
              • EGOL
                EGOL @Marcus_Miller last edited by

                I agree with Marcus...   When you make everything important then nothing is important.

                Marcus_Miller SteveOllington pauledwards 4 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 2
                • Marcus_Miller
                  Marcus_Miller last edited by

                  If you have to ask that  question, I would say you are using too many.

                  The on page tool looks for one instance of a keyword in either a strong, bold or em tag so if you are doing this for SEO, the prevailing common sense  would be that any more than that one is too many.

                  If the highlighting provides some kind of benefit for your users then you can do more but if you are looking at bolding lots of text for SEO - then forget it.

                  The best  answer is to just use common sense and create something that is readable with the important keyword highlighted if you can do so in a natural way.

                  Hope it helps. 
                  Marcus

                  EGOL 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 7
                  • 1 / 1
                  • First post
                    Last post

                  Got a burning SEO question?

                  Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                  Start my free trial


                  Browse Questions

                  Explore more categories

                  • Moz Tools

                    Chat with the community about the Moz tools.

                  • SEO Tactics

                    Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers

                  • Community

                    Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!

                  • Digital Marketing

                    Chat about tactics outside of SEO

                  • Research & Trends

                    Dive into research and trends in the search industry.

                  • Support

                    Connect on product support and feature requests.

                  • See all categories

                  Related Questions

                  • naturalsociety

                    Can I safely delete unused tags??

                    Can I safely delete unused tags, ones with 0 posts connected to them? Thanks, Mike

                    Technical SEO | | naturalsociety
                    0
                  • SoulSurfer8

                    Does Google read dynamic canonical tags?

                    Does Google recognize rel=canonical tag if loaded dynamically via javascript? Here's what we're using to load: <script> //Inject canonical link into page head if (window.location.href.indexOf("/subdirname1") != -1) { canonicalLink = window.location.href.replace("/kapiolani", ""); } if (window.location.href.indexOf("/subdirname2") != -1) { canonicalLink = window.location.href.replace("/straub", ""); } if (window.location.href.indexOf("/subdirname3") != -1) { canonicalLink = window.location.href.replace("/pali-momi", ""); } if (window.location.href.indexOf("/subdirname4") != -1) { canonicalLink = window.location.href.replace("/wilcox", ""); } if (canonicalLink != window.location.href) { var link = document.createElement('link'); link.rel = 'canonical'; link.href = canonicalLink; document.head.appendChild(link); } script>

                    Technical SEO | | SoulSurfer8
                    0
                  • amastone

                    Canonical tag use for ecommerce product page detail

                    Hi, I have a category page I want to rank. This page has 24 different products quite similar but not exactly the same.
                    I want to use canonical tag in any product to the parent category. 
                    Is this a right use of the canonical? 
                    Category page I'm talking about is : Finger bits If I understand how to use canonical tags I can improve all my category pages. thanks marco

                    Technical SEO | | amastone
                    0
                  • ptapley

                    Meta descriptions and h1 tags during a 301 redirect

                    My employer is shifting to a new domain and i am in the midst of doing URL mapping. I realize that many of the meta descriptions and H1 tags are different on the new pages - is this a problem ? Thank you.

                    Technical SEO | | ptapley
                    0
                  • RevanaDigitalSEO

                    Canonical Tag when using Ajax and PhantomJS

                    Hello, We have a site that is built using an AJAX application. We include the meta fragment tag  in order to get a rendered page from PhantomJS. The URL that is rendered to google from PhantomJS then is www.oursite.com/?escaped_fragment= In the SERP google of course doesnt include the hashtag in the URL. So my question, with this setup, do i still need a canonical tag and if i do, would the canonical tag be the escaped fragment URL or the regular URL? Much Appreciated!

                    Technical SEO | | RevanaDigitalSEO
                    0
                  • GregB123

                    Canonical tag for Home page: with or without / at the end???

                    Setting up canonical tags for an old site. I really need advice on that darn backslash / at the end of the homepage URL. We have incoming links to the homepage as http://www.mysite.com (without the backslash), and as http://www.mysite.com/ (with the backslash), and as http://www.mysite.com/index.html I know that there should be 301 redirects to just one version, but I need to know more about the canonical tags... Which should the canonical tag be??? (without the backslash) or (with the backslash) Thanks for your help! 🙂

                    Technical SEO | | GregB123
                    0
                  • chhatarpal

                    How many directory submission per day we have to do ?

                    Hello Moz Members, I have read in many forums and articles, where people discuss about "How many directory submission to do per day"  Please clarify my question which are mention below. Is there any per day limit for Directory submission, If its then how much ? Getting more links from directory submission, can hurt my site ? Regards & Thanks, Chhatarpal Singh

                    Technical SEO | | chhatarpal
                    0
                  • donationtown

                    Alt and Title Attributes in Anchor Tags

                    Does it hurt to use alt and title attributes inside an anchor tag?  Example: view my website article

                    Technical SEO | | donationtown
                    0

                  Get started with Moz Pro!

                  Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                  Start my free trial
                  Products
                  • Moz Pro
                  • Moz Local
                  • Moz API
                  • Moz Data
                  • STAT
                  • Product Updates
                  Moz Solutions
                  • SMB Solutions
                  • Agency Solutions
                  • Enterprise Solutions
                  • Digital Marketers
                  Free SEO Tools
                  • Domain Authority Checker
                  • Link Explorer
                  • Keyword Explorer
                  • Competitive Research
                  • Brand Authority Checker
                  • Local Citation Checker
                  • MozBar Extension
                  • MozCast
                  Resources
                  • Blog
                  • SEO Learning Center
                  • Help Hub
                  • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                  • How-to Guides
                  • Moz Academy
                  • API Docs
                  About Moz
                  • About
                  • Team
                  • Careers
                  • Contact
                  Why Moz
                  • Case Studies
                  • Testimonials
                  Get Involved
                  • Become an Affiliate
                  • MozCon
                  • Webinars
                  • Practical Marketer Series
                  • MozPod
                  Connect with us

                  Contact the Help team

                  Join our newsletter
                  Moz logo
                  © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                  • Accessibility
                  • Terms of Use
                  • Privacy

                  Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.