The Internet has changed the face of writing by allowing an author to publish their work without worrying about the whims of established publishing companies. Today an author can sign up for a free blog and have their work available to millions of readers with the simple push of a button.
Once a talented writer has done this, they get their hopes up and begin to imagine all the wonderful new doors their compositions will open for them. Online business persons watch eagerly, waiting for sales to skyrocket. This is a painful time for any writer, as they are about to be taught a very depressing lesson about publishing on the Internet.
No One Cares
For the most part, an author’s prose will go unnoticed by web surfers. There are simply too many other sites for readers to choose from. The internet is jam packed with content, and a person could waste a hundred years trying to click on all of it. A new business site will sit there on its own with no one paying it the slightest bit of attention, and the author of the site will be tempted to delete the thing and give up entirely.
Solving the Problem
The solution to this common problem is learning the ropes of popular search engines. Readers type their interests into their favorite search engine and usually click on the first few choices displayed. If a writer can get their site on that short list, the readers will pour in, and the best way to do this is to include certain key words in the article that readers will be most likely to type into a search engine. Search engine optimization is essential for any site looking to get content to as many readers as possible.
Don’t Upset the Reader
This is a delicate process, as an article with nothing but key search terms is going to be boring and pointless. If a reader sees this type of manipulative content, they will become aggravated at the author and make a point to not visit any more of their sites. Internet surfers have very short attention spans, and have little to no patience for anything that wastes their time. Because of this, a writer needs to learn how to balance key search terms with informative and quality writing.
Learn What’s Popular
The first step is to learn what is popular on the web. Internet hit statistics can make this clearer by showing exactly what readers are searching for at any given time. Creating an article around one or more of these ultra popular search terms is a good way to get readers.
If a writer has no desire to follow popular trends, they can at least learn the most common terms used by anyone who is usually interested in the original site content. A business may have to overcome the double opposition of product promotion and search engine promotion while still keeping content interesting. For example, if the business content is about car insurance, there are many major corporations selling car insurance and competing for the keyword “car insurance.” However, the discovery that a reader will most likely type “car insurance comparison” into a search engine for helpful advice may give a site’s content a way to stand out for unique key words.
Combine Key Words With Content
It’s a bad idea to take these newly discovered search terms and type them over and over in an article. Most readers can pick up on this tactic and will not be too pleased. A writer needs to find casual ways to incorporate these search terms into the article so that it feels natural and goes unnoticed.
Make Sense
It’s important to only use search terms that make sense in sentences. Many content creators make the mistake of throwing jumbled key words into an article. This is the best way to bring scrutiny to the article and upset the reader, who begins to feel as though he or she is being conned. Key phrases need to make perfect sense within the context of the article and can never feel forced.
Don’t Overstock Key Words
Some writers tend to go overboard on key words, making it obvious what they are up to. Key words should only be used a few times throughout the average article. Google’s algorithm protects against keyword stuffing and makes it possible for writers to create quality content without this deceptive technique.
Unique Key Phrases
Striking a delicate balance by finding a unique key phrase will bring a windfall of site hits, as the people who type in that particular phrase will see your content first. This is when it is most important to make sure the prose flows properly, as unique key phrases can be difficult to fit into a sentence.
Getting fresh traffic is important, but it’s equally important to win over readers so they visit frequently the site. When a reader clicks on the site, they should feel satisfied with their decision and appreciative of the author for meeting their needs.
Hi Kostas,
Thanks for sharing this post on SEO. The article is accurate about creating a balance to make the search engines and blog visitors happy. If a post has been over manipulated with keywords, bye bye visitors! SEO is a skill that all internet marketers should take the time to learn. There are tools and plugins that help, but I would like to share a very interesting response I received from a support desk about the use of SEO Plugins:
“An SEO plugin will never be able to work better than your own human intelligence.” My point? Take the time to learn SEO so you can deliver value rich content that is authentic and can rank high in the search engines. Thanks Kostas!
Raena Lynn
Hi McKinley:
You have made some great points in this post. Without the help of search engines your wonderful work will never be discovered. Also, without great quality content it doesn’t matter how many come because they won’t stick around. We have to make both a priority.
Kevin
All of these are points I see a lot and have blogged myself. Each are very important. Most people forget that you have to be passionate about what you write about and being very thorough. Anyone can write an article and it be somewhat quality… but a well researched article that takes the topic beyond other sites is what search engines will gobble up eagerly.
This is a useful stuff that you shared to us today. It’s really important that we should not upset our readers through the content we have published, and also don’t over stuff it with keywords. We need to have a clean and optimized content that is friendly to search engines like Google and to your readers.
Dan Lew
Hello McKinley, that’s right point always write about what’s popular and never lose your focus from the readers. the downside of the content creation is that many newbies and some technical authors try to stuff huge amounts of repetitive Keywords in the articles and because of that the meaning of the content gets much more worse and readers find it easy to grasp, apparently the real interest of the article also gets lost due to technical way of writing. I hope people would care about it and write their contents like the folks used to write for their books in mid 90’s!
Being able to balance quality content with SEO is one of the best skills that anyone can learn.
Writing for many people is very pleasurable because it allows them to freely express themselves and share with others… but what if that “freely” become less free because they need to follow certain formats and rules so they can rank?
Well, that’s when following your steps come certainly into place. You need to find those unique key phrases and make the most of them.
With that said… I think that if you are in between SEO and writing from the heart… go with your heart, because at the end of the day, writing a blog and getting followers is based on how you reader feel about you and if they trust you… no how optimized you content is.
Sometimes in the world of SEO, keeping content clean and readable doesn’t seem to get discussed enough. Glad to see some others appreciate thinking through how links and keywords and text fit together on the page.
its really a helpful post,i agree with all the point as you write in post, thanks for sharing this informative & helpful post ….!!!!