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 that is lean & clean.
Interesting idea, as long as it is not duplicate content. You can read the tips from my favorite style guide from S & W.
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SEO copywriting is not difficult, but it is a lot of hard work!