This is a guest post by Stacey Cavanagh of Tecmark SEO Manchester.
SEO is the trend of the moment in the online business communities. And quite rightly so, if you ask me. Given how the internet has entirely revolutionised the way we use our recreational time and conduct business, any serious company can hardly ignore SEO now. But there’s a whole community of people becoming disillusioned with SEO. Bad SEO, to be quite specific.
Badly carried out SEO has a habit of essentially polluting content on the internet and it’s quite understandable that people will become frustrated with that. After all, nobody gets any joy from a website full of copycat, badly written and over keyword stuffed content that provides the end-user with nothing other than a headache!
But SEO does not have to kill your content. In fact, quite the opposite. Good SEO goes hand in hand with good content. Here’s how to make sure your SEO and content enhance one another.
1. Write for HUMANS!
As much as we want to ‘impress’ the Google crawlers, concentrating too much on keyword craziness will kill your content. Yes, by all means, use your keyword in your content. But all the crawlers need to know is what your content is about. They’re pretty bright, the Google bots. Say something to them a few times and they get that this is your topic. Say it too many times, however, and they get a little bit peeved with your repetitiveness and your human readers get miffed as well. Resulting in what? A spam penalty, potential bad press and a whole host of readers who will not be returning to your site. Ask yourself, before you post something on your website, ‘Would I want to read this?’ If the answer to that is ‘no,’ don’t post. What isn’t good enough for you is not good enough for your readers either. Your audience is fundamentally people.
2. Keep it unique!
This is something that cannot possibly be emphasised enough. Why would someone come to your site to read something they could go and check out on any of a million others? By the same token, why would a search engine choose your content page to display for a certain keyword when exactly the same topic is featured on a million other sites? In keeping your content unique, you give your readers something they simply cannot get elsewhere and you avoid duplicate content. People are happy. Crawlers are happy.
3. Avoid Pretentious Language!
Perhaps this is just a personal gripe of mine, but I hate over complicated language on blogs and websites. Your audience wants information or entertainment. Nobody wants to have to pull a dictionary out just to get through a paragraph of your latest article. A website should be a source of accessible, high quality information. It needn’t be as linguistically complex as an episode of Dawson’s Creek! It’s great that you have such an expansive vocabulary, but filling your content full of long words doesn’t impress people who simply want information quickly and easily. And in terms of SEO, think about what people actually search for. People tend to search in basic, straightforward language. If someone is searching for information on good books, they’re probably more likely to search for ‘good books’ than for ‘tremendous manuscripts’. Keep is simple.
4. Keep it concise
Yes, for SEO benefit plenty of content is a good thing. But this isn’t to say that you should make 1000 words out of a two point piece of information. Get to the point concisely and informatively. Nobody wants to read four paragraphs of irrelevant tosh before they find out what the point in your article is. In doing this, you’ll lose a good number of readers before they even know what your point is. If your article is relevant and concise, you will find that your relevant keywords fit naturally into it. This makes for much better content. Keywords that look out-of-place and ruin the flow of an article make for very uncomfortable reading.
5. The human touch
Computers can generate articles in bulk in seconds these days. So why even bother getting a human to write one? Simply because of the human touch. A computer cannot recreate a personable voice. For most websites, a human voice to the article works well and adds an extra layer to the content. While a ‘human touch’ might not directly affect your search engine rankings, it can make the difference between people returning to your website and not bothering! This, again, relates back to bearing in mind that your audience is human!
These are just 5 ways in which you can ensure that SEO doesn’t kill your content. Is there anything worse than nonsensical websites that just repeat a stupid phrase over and over for the benefit of a bot? What’s the point in getting a website to the top of the search engines for your relevant keywords if, once people are on the site, they want to leave immediately? Any SEO campaign with poor quality content is simply a waste of time.
Bio
Stacey Cavanagh is an online marketer working for Tecmark Systems Ltd, a digital media agency in the North West of England. http://www.tecmark.co.uk
Quick Tip from the Editor: Here are 4 SEO Things to Always Do Before Publishing Your Post -
1. Choose a major keyword or phrase for your article.
2. Include the Keyword in your Post Title and Slug/Url.
3. Include the Keyword in your Meta Keywords and Post Tags.
4. Include the Keyword at least 2 – 3 times in your post and always in your anchor text to the article.
50 Discussions
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Great advice! Especially the pretentious language, I really hate it when I can’t understand an article because it reads like a piece of legislation written at the US Congress!
Also, I do try to fit keywords in, especially on my products site, not as much on my newest site because I am writing that one purely for pleasure (well mostly), but I try to make it look as natural as possible so that it reads well.
What a concept, lets think about the reader, and the rest will fall into place! BRILLIANT! Too many have forgotten……
Keith @ Business3.0´s last blog ..What Browser Are You Using?
I must agree 100%. Her #3 is one of my strongest rules for guest bloggers (they seem to be the worst at trying to hard), especially since my work is meant for beginners.
Dennis Edell´s last blog ..The $10 Winner And More Good News…..
Even though there is software that can “spin” your article so you can use it over and over again, don’t trust it. The software just picks out words and replaces them with synonyms, and the words it chooses do not always fit in context with the rest of the article. You certainly don’t want someone to come across an article promoting your website that sounds atrocious.
~ Kristi
Kikolani´s last blog ..Twitter Direct Messages – Best (and Worst) Practices
I will say playing with a spinner is a good pick me up. I did one day and laughed my a$$ off at the results. LOL
Dennis Edell´s last blog ..The $10 Winner And More Good News…..
Very informative article. Another important point missed in this article is that, that quality content tends to attract more inbound links from other sites, which in return increases your SERP ranking.
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Google’s job is to find the best information and give it to humans. They are constantly adjusting their algorithms to do just that. So it doesn’t make sense to write for spiders when spiders are looking for personality-ridden content.
Great article, Stacey!
Nick Tart | JuniorBiz´s last blog ..Don’t Buy a Book Without Finding Where It’s Cheapest
Totally true man, content for humans will always shine out. No matter what. If readers like your content, so will spiders.
Love the first point. Don’t write for search engines but human. And don’t over do SEO.
Jayce´s last blog ..How to hack Facebook account profile
I agree that SEO is important. However, i prefer to write to human instead of just doing for SEO. This is not the purpose that i start blogging. Thanks for reminding!
Kok Siong Chen´s last blog ..Autosomal Aneuploidy – Cytogenetic Abnormalities
SEO is important, but overdoing it may ruin your blog and blogging reputation. One can though combine great content and SEO techniques as I have seen on quite a good number of blogs I am following.
elmot´s last blog ..Bro. Manny Pacquiao’s Divine Source of Strength and Power Revealed
Yup, too focus in SEO, make we forget to write for human sometimes. And if that is happened, our blog surely in big problem.
One thing i know regarding this situation is “Google surely like your blog if human like it too.”
Dana @ LetUpdate´s last blog ..Re-Brand The Blog
#3 is great. I started paying attention to this recently. I’ve noticed that the posts I wrote in a more casual tone are the ones getting the most search engine traffic. People don’t use pretentious language when searching.
Good stuff.
Chad @ Tech201´s last blog ..Merry Christmas, Now Fix My Computer!
Couldn’t stress more how important writing for humans are. It is one of the reasons why I rarely deal with small SEO “experts” or “companies” because all they seem to care about is writing for the search engine. While I do like new visitors through search engines, I also value returning visitors and I personally believe intense SEO can optimize your site for engines, but kill your site infront of real visitors. I’d have real humans visiting my site anyday over some spiders.
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Yes, even Google itself recommends writing for humans, not search engines. A good content should be written with the most compelling English to achieve the desired outcome either to sell a product or service or to pass information.
All in all fresh content causes search engine spiders to come back frequently and human visitors will appreciate it too!
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Hey the software just picks out words and replaces them with synonyms, and the words it chooses do not always fit in context with the rest of the article. You certainly don’t want someone to come across an article promoting your website that sounds atrocious.
Now a days search engine are going smart, Its going hard for get rank on search engine. So I think if we try to write for human search engine will reward us for it.
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People like to read the fresh and the updated content.Also the search engines love too.You can get the regular visitors by updating your content often.And therefore the content is the king in SEO.
That’s true, after all we are not writing lines for our teachers. The days of “I must remember to do my homework” 100 times is over
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You can’t overemphasise the “Keep it Human” element – I’ve read far too many blog posts that were illegible because of the overuse of keywords, as well as poor proof-reading.
I agree that SEO shouldn’t kill content because it will makes your blog worst than ever for too much keyword stuffing. Keyword stuffing make your post unreadable and then visitor will just come and go away without leaving anything worth for your blog. Remember that traffic and page impressions are important for SEO too.
Reza@Blogging Guide´s last blog ..100 Adsense Tips – Part 5
I fully agree that the most important thing for any site is original content. Without it Google will not index our site as high as we would like and deserve. I think that the most people blogging are aware of that fact and give no copy/paste content because that is just pointless.
I think this great advice to all SEO guy who are optimizing their website according to search engine. I have also researched personally and officially so many website and interact with so many SEO guys, they are mainly optimize website according to search engine not for visitors. Every SEO guys should optimize site according to the customer,
I mean content need to be meaning full, once customer landed in landing page, they able to get details information what they are looking.
But recent time few SEO guys are optimizing their site in the eye of visitors.
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The Human Touch – I love this point.
Agent Deepak´s last blog ..Do not write a Quality Post each and every Time
Oh Yea! That’s more like human advice on SEO. I really like your point on using simple language (unless your community takes pride in being geeks). You indeed have a great human touch to your post. Awesome.
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I like your articles and views. I will reflect on this issue. This is for my book publishing will be very help.
You are right as SEO can not help if your content is poor and not unique. However, making content unique and stand out from the crowd is not easy. I learn much from this article too
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Yeah, agree with you, if your content is not original no can help you.
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It should be win-win situation. SEO is happy and so are the readers.
I believe that the human touch is an important point. Its what makes the real difference.
For Bloggers Who want to Stop Writers’ Block
Terrific article guys! I’ve submitted it to Blogger Den as always, looking forward to the next great post.
Blogger Den´s last blog ..How To Get More Email Subscribers To Your Blog
You are right thinking to much about SEO may push any website in sandbox and also that may take human away from that website. It’s good to learn and implement basic SEO while working on quality content. Content is much more important thing and if a content is well designed for human reading they usually become bot friendly.
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Good reminders for what all bloggers should be mindful of. I’m so tired of unoriginal, scraped, and SEO-geared posts!
Gabe | freebloghelp.com´s last blog ..Factors contributing to blog failure
What’s wrong with writing for bots? They need some love too. they don’t need all the misc. stuff humans need to get the info. ^_^
OK here ya go. I tend to have issues with #4 BECAUSE of #5
. Sorta anyway lol.
I interject a LOT of ME in my writing. So far so good, as everyone seems to eat it up, but I do tend to babble from time to time.
Dennis Edell´s last blog ..The $10 Winner And More Good News…..
Excellent point on ‘humanity’ of the content! With so many great (and not that expensive) writers, why do people still spin articles? Software only picks up and replaces a few words, but it cannot place a human’s touch on the paper. thanks for sharing these tips!
Thank’s for sharing, I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.
The premise of this article is one that everyone faces if they do SEO. You simply MUST use good keywords but you do not want these to be stuffed unnaturally into your content. It requires a lot of research and then quality writing, but it IS doable and well worth the effort!
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SEO,still the popular subject since the beginning of the search engine industry. I agree to all the tips since it was the ordinary tips which can be found in every SEO blog.
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Good points. You can easily get over-focused on the keyword part in your texts. Also, a good piece of advice would be to use text in layers so that you have to press a little “layer-link” before the text becomes visible to human beings. In this way both humans and search engines are happy.
I like to keep my post very informal and conversational. It works for the most part but I feel the “A” blogs don’t care for that style much.
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It gives them an “excuse” to not reply to comments, among other things. Good advice – don’t follow the example.
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I can certainly attest to writing for humans and not search engines. Some of my highest ranked websites don’t involve promote any keyword stuffing — as most “gurus” love to promote.
I agree particularly on the #1, You must write for your readers and not solely for SEO. Over optimizing is bad for your site.
How to Blog´s last blog ..Top 5 Reasons Why People Started to Blog
Hey its good to use simple language so that each and every one can understand. and when its related to blogs then it must have a good quality.
This is a great article. Content’s the most important thing on any site and when we get embroiled in marketing it’s all too easy to forget. Love the bit about writing for humans and not machines. Thanks for this. Brill
SEO Jess´s last blog ..SEO – Titles and Descriptions
Optimizers also run the risk of over optimizing their pages which is just bad for everyone and you would have been better not doing any optimization at all!
Not sure about number three, “Avoid pretentious writing”. A word’s complexity has nothing to do with pretension. Pretension is using language in a specific way in the hopes of sounding more important than you are. I like the creative use of language. I don’t want to read someone describe every positive experience as “good”. Good is limited. Maybe an experience is best described as “deeply satisfying”, “commendable”, “first-rate”, “exceptional” or “accomplished”. If these terms are more accurate in capturing the nuances of your experience then using them is not pretentious.
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Very informative article. Content is the most important thing in websites. The content must be efficient to get the good rankings in search engines.. I accept the points 1 and 3. We must write for our readers and not for Search Engines..It is good to use simple language so that each and every one can understand…
Really excellent and needful for all..
Thanks for sharing..
With the evolution of autoblogs and similar bots that syndicate content, the stress on content needs to be stronger. People are looking to just make money and rank their sites and often forget about the usefulness of the content.
You’re article funny for me. Never thinking it that way, especially for point no.4. I hope my readers won’t take out their dictionary when they read my articles. The hard thing for people like me, who not using English as first language, is to translate my language’s culture into English. Because the way I’m expressing something in my language sometime different with people who are using English. No t to mention about grammar and etc
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I agree with your points. But SEO is difficult things especially like me, don’t know much about computer and program. What i can do is see the article like yours, thank you. Very informative.
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