Is it possible to write naturally and optimize for the search engines? Yes, I think it is. Writing naturally means writing for the human visitor and not for the search engines – but it doesn’t mean you forget your keywords or skip the keyword research. It means the focus is on readability and the usefulness of the content for the visitor and not on getting your keywords into the content as many times as possible. Focus on what you want to say, create an outline (at least in your head, and better on paper) then write.


When you sit down to write content for your website or blog, and keep your focus on the topic, your outline and creating an article or post with a beginning, middle and end, your copy will naturally include the keywords and synonyms relevant to your topic – if you really know your subject. That’s natural optimization. Once your copy is written, then edit it to see where you can add your keywords and have the copy still sound natural. Look for ways to use the synonyms, related terms and stems.


For example, stems of fishing are fish, fished, fishes, fishy. Related terms would be lakes, sea, bass, trout, marlin, boat, tackle, angling.


It helps to get someone else to look it over and see if you’ve overdone your target terms anywhere. And sleep on it. A fresh look the next day or a few days later may help you edit out the fluff and tighten your copy. Return to your outline before you publish. It will probably give you natural sub headings, breaking up the copy and making it more readable. Chances are those sub headings will also contain your keywords or related terms, and used in h2 or h3 tags, will help optimize your page for the search engines.

Do:

• Put your keyword once in the title, once in the meta keyword tag and once in the meta description tag;
• Put your keyword once in the heading of the page;
• Put your keyword once in the first sentence – but probably no more than once in any given paragraph.

Any more tips on writing naturally and optimizing for the search engines?

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M.-J. Taylor
SEO Web Design by Cyber Key Search Smart Design® SEO Copywriter & Traveling Vacation Gypsy