Can You Combine Writing Naturally and SEO Copywriting?

[mjtaylor]

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?

[noel_x99]

Once you've written it, read it out loud. If it sounds awkward or stuffed, you'll hear it.

[craigmn3]

I took your post, and made a web page using your post title as both the title and the meta description. This was an example of natural writting. Then I ran it through an SEO tool.

Title and Meta Description was 62% relevant


your top ten keywords in density was:

once - 7 - 1.90% - (G,Y,M)
keywords - 5 - 1.36% - (G,Y,M)
copy - 5 - 1.36% - (G,Y,M)
keyword - 5 - 1.36% - (G,Y,M)
terms - 4 - 1.09% - (G,Y,M)
search - 4 - 1.09% - (G,Y,M)
naturally - 4 - 1.09% - (G,Y,M)
engines - 4 - 1.09% - (G,Y,M)
put - 3 - 0.82% - (G,Y,M)
related - 3 - 0.82% - (G,Y,M)

Your top 5, 2 word Phrases

search engines - 4 - 1.09% - (G,Y,M)
related terms - 3 - 0.82% - (G,Y,M)
keyword once - 3 - 0.82% - (G,Y,M)
writing naturally - 2 - 0.54% - (G,Y,M)
sub headings - 2 - 0.54% - (G,Y,M)


If you wanted this post to be searched via your subject of natural writing for SEO you can see that this won't produce much.

So I think the previous poster had the answer. Write it naturally, wash it through a few SEO tools and tweek it. Good web page design has always been a balancing act between the Browser and the Search Engines, you have to placate both to succeed

[digital2]

The SEO involves choosing right keywords and
keyphases for your pages or ads. Why we need to choose right
keywords or phases?
With untargeted visitors you won't make any or much money.
SEO means more than choosing right keywords.
Use right backlinks.

Whether by using your type of SEO, you settle for lower ranking or not cannot be ever predicted, it's trial and error especially knowing that Google changes algorithm even daily.

When you write for other purposes, like own ebook, don't bother for keywords. Use SEO on sales page that can be designed
in view to get good search engine exposure

The most essential to make any money by using marketing tool like search engines is to use "popular" keywords. If you choose "unpopular" keyword, fate of your marketing is doomed to unpopularity.

Jan

[mjtaylor]

Originally Posted by craigmn3

I took your post, and made a web page using your post title as both the title and the meta description. This was an example of natural writting. Then I ran it through an SEO tool.

Title and Meta Description was 62% relevant


your top ten keywords in density was:

once - 7 - 1.90% - (G,Y,M)
keywords - 5 - 1.36% - (G,Y,M)
copy - 5 - 1.36% - (G,Y,M)
keyword - 5 - 1.36% - (G,Y,M)
terms - 4 - 1.09% - (G,Y,M)
search - 4 - 1.09% - (G,Y,M)
naturally - 4 - 1.09% - (G,Y,M)
engines - 4 - 1.09% - (G,Y,M)
put - 3 - 0.82% - (G,Y,M)
related - 3 - 0.82% - (G,Y,M)

Your top 5, 2 word Phrases

search engines - 4 - 1.09% - (G,Y,M)
related terms - 3 - 0.82% - (G,Y,M)
keyword once - 3 - 0.82% - (G,Y,M)
writing naturally - 2 - 0.54% - (G,Y,M)
sub headings - 2 - 0.54% - (G,Y,M)


If you wanted this post to be searched via your subject of natural writing for SEO you can see that this won't produce much.

So I think the previous poster had the answer. Write it naturally, wash it through a few SEO tools and tweek it. Good web page design has always been a balancing act between the Browser and the Search Engines, you have to placate both to succeed

Well, thanks, Craig, ... though this wasn't written this with any intention to have the post found by any search query. If I cared about a keyword term, it would be seo copywriting, but my intention was to create a thread that might be useful to members who are interested in writing naturally *and* optimizing the copy on their own sites. (Moderators are encouraged to create threads, so I searched around for something I know how to write about, naturally. and copywriting is one of my specialties, and so a thread was born.)

However, to follow your logic all the way through, we will have to wait and see if there are any more posts ... and you would also need to take into account the other elements on *this* page ... including the breadcrumb links from search engines > to the SEO Forum and now including your post *and* my quote of it ... and this one ...

Of course, that assumes that density is really important. A recent thread on that keyword density raised doubts in my mind, at least, about the value of KW analysis. But I am convinced that copy in a context of other related terms increases the relevance of the content.

Tht's the larger picture - keyword density might have been low but this thread had now has more stems & related terms for writing, such as write, written, created - as well as for SEO.

Maybe you should run the numbers on this page *now* and see where the search terms are with the additional posts. We can always optimize further.

[quote]noel_x99

Once you've written it, read it out loud. If it sounds awkward or stuffed, you'll hear it. [quote]

Excellent point, Noel. I wish I had written that!

Cheers, MJ

[digital2]

Your
"But I am convinced that copy in a context of other related terms increases the relevance of the content"

is enough vague to finish the discussion

Jan

[mjtaylor]

Originally Posted by digital2

Your
"But I am convinced that copy in a context of other related terms increases the relevance of the content"

is enough vague to finish the discussion

Jan

Let me try and put that more clearly:

When the text (copy) is surrounded (context) by synonyms and other terms related to one's keywords, the relevance of the text to the keyword is increased.

Therefore a higher keyword density is not necessary, because the related terms (stems, synonyms and words that are part of the latent symantic index) are recognized by the search engines and make the page more relevant to the keyword and more likely to rank well for the targeted phrases.

For example, a page targeting 'SEO Copywriting' that also includes the terms:

• search
• engine
• optimization
• SEOs
• ranking
• placement
• write
• written
• wrote
• copywriter
• copywritten

and so on, is more relevant for SEO copywriting than if those terms were not in the content and the repetition of the keyword phrase is not as important.

Better?

MJ

[digital2]

Are you talking SEO for itself, sort of play of words densities?
I thought, you are developing a thread about SEO for income.

SEO for sales page can have a low contextual keyword density.
More important for marketing for money is:
1. relevance of content - sometimes is referred by Google as quality score (take a pick what that keyword density should be -even 0 density works. When product is in demand - it sells. When product is unique, it has no competition) The quality score zooms on relevance of both keywords and content to context.

2. popularity of keywords - this I call "competitive relevance". There is 1 bln pages registered under some keyword o phase, and very few people visit them...When you will add up one more page to that group, your page won't have visitors even if you ended on #1 spot.

3. If your aim is not market popularity in view of income/earnings,
ask yourself what is other purpose of doing SEO on your pages? Self relevance? Teasing intellect or senses? Self indulgence? Science? (worst kind, the free markets are pretty unscientific, science of contextual sematics doesn't exist...) Society acknowledgement of your eloquence? Do you feel better on the account of acknowledgment only and without earning money in the process? Although the last one may work for some individuals, it doesn't work for others - on Net especially it can be seen clearly that almost all variants go, including idea of putting a price for
bad ebooks, fluff - and opposite - giveaways of items for FREE.
So what is that price for written text? Why we give it away
for FREE or charge for it?
There of course exist opportunities to earn money for little effort on Net but others have to work for it even on Net. Also - the SEO related activity is not the only income producing variant of businesses on Net.

I am not a fan of vaguity, just give a valuable information to deliver sales - this is better. Otherwise, I am pretty certain to not to survive to end of discussion (have no much time)

Jan

[mjtaylor]

Well, Jan, now I am not sure what *you* are about. This thread is about writing naturally *and* optimizing text for SEO purposes. And I would say most of the time somone who is concerned about ranking for a phrase is hoping to find customers, though there are other reasons people strive or search position.

To deliver sales the site has to rank well and have copy that attracts the visitor - so a combination of copy that is written naturally and tweaked for relevant terms would be optimum. If learning more about this sort of writing or helping others to do so is not a valuable use of your time, we will understand if you don't contibute further to the thread.

Cheers, MJ

[Feydakin]

The best copyrighting needs to fulfill several goals..

1. It needs to be easy to comprehend
2. It needs to promote conversion whether that is a sale, a click, or an idea.
3. It needs to be found

If you are missing any one of those three then the page will not work as efficiently.. Like any other writing it needs to be massaged to fit all of these goals..

Personally I do a quite write on just about everything then set it aside for a few hours / days.. Then rewrite and tweak.. Then have it read by several different people in the office for comments and checks for accuracy etc.. Then it gets a final draft and proof read before being published.. I didn't always write this way, but it has made a difference in conversions since I have..

[digital2]

I am always open to learning.
I read threads seeking for ideas on "marketing for sales".
Pretty targeted - marketing for sales...
While this sounds like targeted, it can be said is pretty vague. Marketing for sales includes many elements, some of them are probably vague but most of it is not.
I am not upset with vague ideas, most of time I don't follow
them.
I actually mean that, when reading threads I judge them by
vague versus contributing to solution.
But that's the author's problem, not mine. He/she chooses to not to provide solution but rather a "play of words".
One cannot argue this point with anybody that seeks vaguity - there is freedom on Net, one can write a novel or movie scenario.
When it comes to writing for sales, vaguity means "nothing" or "waste of time".
In this discussion I contributed this way:
instead of doing "SEO for keywords", try to get busy doing
"SEO for popular keywords"
Instead of "popular keywords" somebody suggested "converting keywords" as the most valuable keywords for sales.
While as usual there is no foolproof methods for achieving sales -"natural writing style" may need a SEO for "popular/converting keywords" to accomplish a purpose of sales.
Jan

[Feydakin]

The problem is that it is hard to have a discussion like this in anything but vague terms without knowing a specific product and a specific target market.. Without those two things you can't get specific answers since the question itself is vague..

[crankydave]

Originally Posted by craigmn3

If you wanted this post to be searched via your subject of natural writing for SEO you can see that this won't produce much.

Based upon the information you provided, I cannot disagree more.

Using "Natural Writing for SEO" as the title a page would likely rank #1 for that phrase very easily.

Once indexed, I would expect this thread to rank very well for the phrase.

Actually, just about anyone could rank for that phrase in a heartbeat...

"natural writing for SEO" - Google Search

Dave

[cz]

This thread is already at #17 for crankydave's term w/o quotes around it! Over 2 million pages competing - pretty good for hardly trying huh?

[mjtaylor]

Originally Posted by cz

This thread is already at #17 for crankydave's term w/o quotes around it! Over 2 million pages competing - pretty good for hardly trying huh?

And today it's #3 in Google for Natural Writing for SEO .. but no one searches that term ... ' writing for seo' is a searched term, though, and the page is #73 in Google for that, and 'seo copywriter' is an even more frequently searched term and it's a #177 for that. Now with crankdave's link to it and maybe another one, and a little time to age the links, this page might get some love.

Digital2; please let me know what ideas are vague and I will try to make them more clear for you.

How do you like our keyword density, now, Craig?


Cheers, MJ

[thegypsy]

Hullo all.... I was actually just passin through and decided to harass Cranky ( see Fed here too ) and thought I'd put in my 2c

I think it is almost ESSENTIAL to write less around KW Density and think more related words/terms and concepts.

I was on about Phrase Based Indexing and Retrieval earlier this year after 5 or so related patents in Google which caught my eye.

Further to that Bill ( Slawski ) recently asked if I would like to play with him on - Method and apparatus for learning a probabilistic generative model for text --- which is strangely quite related to many of the concepts of Phrase Based IR ..... ( I think Bill is setting me up- he he). I should be comparing notes with him and posting about it in more detail later this week.

Anyways, it would seem the additional 'layers' in the ranking process are a great way to move away from the heavy reliance on links that Google in particular has. I know they are far more concerned with link spam than anything else over at the WebSpam Team ( over cloaking, kw stuffing, content generators etc...) - so a move towards such systems is logical.

So, I haven't looked at things from the more simplistic ' KW Density' model in quite some time..... but that's me.

Have a read into above documentation and see what U think.... there just seems to be a lot of this direction over the last year or so... and where there is smoke there is usualy fire....

My 2C ..... just passin through :0) .. alive well and ranting again!!