Apr 11

SEO Writing Commandments

Search Engine Optimization Add comments

This was sent to me by a colleague frustrated with writing for the search engines. He was trained in the style of Strunk & White and hates adding more keywords to prose when it is unnecessary. In practice, we must write to make sure keyword phrases are highlighted in the page content, and should not lazily stuff keywords in all corners of our copy.

Re: SEO writing: making things bigger for bigger’s sake.

It seems the SEO commandments are:

THY GOD SHALL NOT BE THE READER

THY GOD SHALL BE GOOGLE

THOU SHALT BE VERBOSE

THOU SHALT BE REPETITIVE

THOU SHALT BE REDUNDANT

THOU SHALT BE LOQUATIOUS

BLESSED BE THY NAME, OH GOOGLE.

AMEN

(and alas)

I find it difficult to give up concern for the reader. That is why I write paragraphs with a bold first line that holds the key information.

That way the reader can get more essential info and skip some of the palaver.

Here’s an idea– why not make a big, fat website that search engines will love— and on the first page a well-noted link to a Reader’s Digest version –lean & clean.

Interesting idea, as long as it is not duplicate content.

Related posts:

  1. Writing Good Title Tags
  2. PPC Trademark Bidding
  3. 5 Steps To Search Engine Optimization
  4. Effective Page Structure
  5. Breakdown of a Good Page Title Element

One Response to “SEO Writing Commandments”

  1. The Naked SEO Guide from Netpaths » Blog Archive » 5 Ways To Break the Email Newsletter Sound Barrier Says:
    April 19th, 2009 at 9:06 pm

    [...] Be Relevant Nothing is worse than receiving email that does not relate to your business or is something you are not expecting. Write for your audience and give them specifics. Whenever you sit down to write remember your high school english teacher telling you to be precise and direct. [...]