Hang around web writing circles for any length of time, and the inevitable “write for search engines or write for people” debate comes up. It’s a bit strange, really.
Last time I checked, it’s people who use search engines, not some other life form. So you’re always writing for people.
Obviously, the debate stems from the fact that search engines are powered by computer algorithms. But as search engines have gotten smarter, writing that pleases people and satisfies spiders is not that far apart, if at all.
Let’s look at four factors that work well for SEO and see how well they cater to the needs of people.
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I’ve found it just doesn’t pay to crow too much about what I’ve accomplished.
Sure, I celebrate when things go well. But I’ve found that talking too much about my achievements leads not only to criticism, but to disappointment.
There’s always going to be someone who’s done more or worked harder. And until they carve my name into the side of the moon, I see no reason in puffing myself up. The minute you get a big head is the same minute that reality smacks you and you realize that you aren’t as cool as you think you are.
So self-adulation is something I try to stay away from. But self promotion? That’s a whole different story.
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When I first started Copyblogger in 2006, I was almost militantly against on-page search optimization. Seems strange, since I’d been a successful student of SEO since 2000.
It was because I saw all these people fretting over keywords like it’s 1999, and yet they had no links. Their content was weak. Their sites weren’t trusted.
You can’t optimize something that’s dead in the water. So my initial goal was to get people to focus on content that attracted attention and links first. Only then do you have something you can make better (that’s what optimize means, naturally).
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This is another addition to our ongoing series of tutorials and case studies on landing pages that work.
It occurred to me late last year, as I was readying yet another Landing Page Makeover, that the end of one year and the beginning of the next was a good time to do a “Where are they now?” post. So first things first, I went back and contacted all makeover participants from the very beginning of the series.
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If there’s any one thing that can be said about SEO with certainty, it’s that it manages to cause a lot of confusion.
For example, it seems like many people’s idea of SEO was formed 10 years ago, and hasn’t bothered to change with the times. Even an online veteran like Robert Scoble is completely clueless about modern best practices for search engine optimization.
So, before we go any further, let me answer the question posed by the headline . . .
Yes, SEO copywriting still matters.
Here’s why.
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Those of you who subscribe to the Internet Marketing for Smart People email newsletter found out on Monday what Brian and I have been up to for the past few months.
We knew it would be cool, because, well, we designed it to be cool.
We wanted to build something people would really get value from.
But still, when we saw what people were doing inside after the first day, we all looked around at one another and pulled a Keanu.
Whoa.
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