How To Write Content For Search Engines
Almost once week I receive an email from a writer explaining that they can provide excellent content that will allow me to rank well in search engines. I am always open minded to evaluating what can be produce, so when I receive email from a writers trying to pitch their service, I typically respond back asking to have a 75 to 100 word example of their work sent to me.
Recently I was contacted by a writer and I asked the writer to provide me with a sample based around the keyword phrase “Cheap Bottled Water.” When I received the email back, my observations motivated me to write this post. Here is a copy of the content that was provided to me.
Cheap Bottled Water
Most people have turned to bottled water as an alternative to tap water since they think it is safer. Cheap bottled water has become a popular item in many people’s shopping carts. However, make sure that the cheap bottled water is up to the set standards before consuming it. There is cheap bottled water from various stores at comparable prices. Remember cheap bottled water may not be ultimately healthy compared to tap water.
Most people think that writing for search engines is nothing more then packing keywords into the writing. In the case of the writer who provided me with this sample above, he felt like he had to use the phrase, “cheap bottled water” constantly, and in fact, he did so almost in every sentence.
Search engines don’t like unnatural writing. The content provided to me was very unnatural. It was clearly and obviously written in a way to trick search engines. There was no pure and inner quality within the work. It was totally superficial and it will not do anything for the end user. In other words, and to put it bluntly, the content was garbage.
So the lesson to learn is when writing content for the purpose of ranking in search engines, there’s more involved than just stuffing keywords. In fact, stuffing keywords isn’t good at all. My advice to you if you are trying to write content for search engines, simply write about the topic at hand in a natural way. Write your copy in a way that is understandable to others, as if you were writing a letter to a friend.
Allow search engines to index the content, and then take some time to study results. Observe and make notes of the different keywords you’re ranking for. Also observe whether you’re ranking for the keywords you intended for. If results are less than what you desire, consider making some changes by editing or re-wording your content and possibly adding more rich content to the page.
October 17th, 2009 at 5:36 pm
Unfortunately, far too many SEO companies employ writers who spit out content like that. I see way too many job ads from SEO companies that basically say “Anybody can write SEO content.” Whatever happened to copywriting skills? Balance is what it’s all about.
October 18th, 2009 at 5:19 pm
search engines prefer content which is custom written and useful for the readers, a little toping of top quality keywords also helps the content to rank better, the more useful the content is for the readers the better your website/blog ranks.