Hey everyone... I was just wondering how many people out there really write their blogs/websites catering towards what their reader's interests. I know that a lot of webmasters have become so obsessed with writing content for SEO purposes that they almost forget what is truly important: your valued readers. On the other hand, do you think it is more beneficial to your website to write for SEO to rank higher in search engine results? I know that many people have different opinions so I would like to know what everyone thinks.
Writing for your readers is writing for SEO. If you don't write good, original, interesting articles how can you ever expect to build a readership and it would be crazy to expect that readership to link to you. So write for them and get free links that are hard for your competition to replicate. You can still add good interesting titles that search loves and that readers love, you can still sprinkle them with key words - just make them really good and interesting.
Thanks for the response... I am also talking in a sense where some people would write about certain things and overly repeat keywords,etc. to try and help their SEO while lacking personality and interest. Also another thing is webmasters who write their content solely for the purpose of displaying relevant google adsense ads. They will concentrate hard on this and almost neglect adding any flare whatsoever to their pages. This is done a lot for niche sites (more specifically those who are new to building niche sites and aren't experienced) where the webmaster will have auto generated articles. What do you think?
For seo it does not help to repeat the keywords like this too much - it is just spam and they will get seen as that eventually. If someone is auto generating articles they know what they are playing at and building a readership is not their game. I have some sites. The ones that make good money are the ones that I wrote myself, a couple of them have not had to be touched in the last year or so because they are good and the content gets linked to without me asking for it - I also have some others that I did not write, I hate trying to market them, they trundle along making 10 or 20 per month, but they are not good sites or information. I have stopped that game now and concentrate my time on long term sites. It all depends what you want. However you have to be prepared for your adsense account to get banned and the sites to get banned if you want to play at auto-generation. It is a smash and grab.
If you want longterm then write for readers. a agree that most of the people just write for SEO and better keywords.
Contrary to what the SEO-obsessed tend to think, on the blog where I pretty much ignore SEO and focus entirely on readers I get the most click-throughs to ads, highest paying ads (as in normally $1 - 2 per click), etc. Writing for readers is the way to go.
Write for your target market! It's a decades old strategy that will work even if Google implodes and Yahoo goes postal.
Thanks for everyone's input on the subject. Just thought I would be more active in this part of the forum since most of my time is spent in the other areas...
Firstly I write for me. Because if you have everything you keep in your mind on the sheet you feel harmony and like reading it. Of course I write for readers as well. It's pleasant when someone gives comments to your site...But I don't write for search engines...
I just started a blog recently and the first 50 posts or so were nothing but search engine articles. I'd say 80% of the articles are top 3 in google and now, although I haven't had the time to write many, I've begun writing some reader friendly content. I'd suggest you do one and then the other.
That depends entirely on what you mean by "search engine articles." If you mean keyword-stuffed drivel that could barely be read by a reader, then no, they shouldn't start that way if they intend to later write for readers. Why? Because ranking well in search engines is all about getting real people to your site. If you attract them with garbage, they won't stick around to read your later articles that you're saying should be written for them. You need to decide what kind of site you want to have up front - an authority one, or a crap content site targeting search engines (driving traffic to poor content simply so they'll click your ads to leave). You can't mix the two as effectively as you're implying (again, if that's what you meant by search engine articles). If, however, by "search engine articles" you simply meant that you used keyword-targeting, but the articles themselves are still actually useful to readers, then that's a different story - it's just writing for the readers with an added emphasis on SEO.
Normally they mean crap articles that no reader with two brain cells to rub together could possibly stomach. But I was hoping for the best.
Write for readers. They're the ones looking for a valuable source of information to help solve their problems. If you build a quality, informative site, people will find you, search engine or otherwise.
I'm hired by clients to keep keywords in mind. I write first for the visitors for conversion sake. Then I go back and add or pair keywords. I don't obliterate a headline for the sake of a keyword but there are places you can put keywords where they don't ruin the cadence or message. Sometimes you can make it part of the design, a caption or tag a picture. For my own stuff, I'll always choose the killer headline over the keyword packed one. Because one of the other keyword combos ends up bringing someone to the site because of the subject and they end up reading the others any way. So once you have enough content in there on a subject, you have the keywords in there any way because it's what you're writing about. It's dense enough as a natural result of what you're doing. For instance, Jenn's blog on freelance writing. By default, she'll end up using that phrase freelance writing over and over in a variety of ways over time. As a result, those interested in freelance writers, freelance writing or many other combinations will land there. One because she posts quality content that draws people back and wins lots of clicks. Two because people post responses. Sometimes getting rank just takes some patience.
How long do you think it would take me to get #1 page rank for Blue Squares and Green Circles? You dont need patience you need to have some idea of what your doing. edit: that be #1 in google search results;for clarification
Based on the example she gave of my blog, Anne was absolutely right. Patience gets you top rankings for the good keyword phrases (short, heavily searched, high competition, etc.). While my ranking for "freelance writing" did drop off of the first page when I slowed down on posting weeks back, that's precisely how it got there (as well as why my freelance writing jobs blog is on the first page for the top two keyword phrases in that niche). The same has rung true with other sites I've run as well, as well as many sites in the big networks. For the long-tail, sure, anyone can do it by simply targeting the right phrases. But for anything more significant, patience and solid content (the kind that can make you an authority site) are key.
The entire point of literature is communicating comprehensible and useful information to readers. The 2 most logical reasons behind having a target market are: •the capability to determine the most useful details needed by the readers about a particular subject; •and the ability to incorporate an approach or style on the content that is the most suitable and comprehensible for the target audience. Unlike graphic arts, nothing in literature is "abstract". This means there should never be cases where authors are the only ones who know the exact meaning of their work. Sadly, content stuffed with keywords yet lacking useful information for the particular site's target readers can be found everywhere on the Internet. Probably, each author should go through this process when creating content: •selecting a niche where the author is comfortable, knowledgeable, and highly experienced; •determining the target audience; •identifying the necessary details about each subject along with the most appropriate writing approach for usefulness, clarity, and coherence's sake; •obtaining the literary skills to write in such ways; •writing content through extensive research, proper analysis, and careful execution; •and subsequently commissioning the services of knowledgeable SEO consultants in order to optimize the sites where each document will be posted. Thoughts?
If you write for your readers it will make for good SEO content anyways. Besides turning a browser into a client is much more important than SEO anyways.