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!!

[crankydave]

Leave the door open and look who comes in from the bushes... hehehehehe. Heya David, feel free to pass through more often. Tip jar is by the door.

I tended to agree with you then, still do, that by "making your point" through related phrases, concepts, and ideas, (sounds "natural" to me), rather than by repeating yourself over and over again (density?) you'll stand a far better chance of being considered more important.

And while I agree that link spam is a primary concern, if not the primary concern, I'm not so sure Google is going to drift away from their reliance on links that don't get classified as such. Actually, I tend to believe that much of the "hub-bub" of late about certain pages getting deindexed has much to do with this.

Dave

[thegypsy]

Hiya Dave... lookin for a new place to hang m'keyboard if ya'll will have me. I see yerself, Feyd and even David (Ctabuk) running around..can't be all bad. Ol WebNutz can be fun to play with... ran into each other here and there....

Anyways, the latter patent I mentioned is something Bill sent me over the weekend and I have just finished my first draft of an article about it. It is quite related to the earlier PaIR stuff and a recent MS publication as well Using Search results

The crux of them is trying to teach the system to better understand natural language phrasings and relationships of words.

IMO it is simply more layers into the indexation/ranking process. You can see the problems it will start to have for the Black Hatters as far as using Markov type applications not to mention any movement away from a reliance on backlinks makes their life harder.

It offers search engineers a double benefit of tighter results and fighting the web spam at the same time.

Imagine a world where link spam, kw stuffing and kw density all went south?? Weeeeeeeeee .. fun stuff.

Strangely the patent I am looking at as well as the MS one, are somewhat using 'user sessions' as part of the evaluation process.... so how far off is 'Query Spam'? bwaaaa ha ha ha ha ha.....

[mjtaylor]

I have always found that Google seems to respond well to my sites and while I certainly apply SEO principles, I don't do anything that differently than anyone else. I used to believe that I just had some sort of intuitive sense of optimization that came from doing it for a decade now ... however, I have recently come to feel that it might have something to do with my natural writing style. I used to make a living as a writer, both as a journlist and public relations specialist, so perhaps that's an element that has been at work for a while in SEs ...

Cheers, MJ

[crankydave]

AFAIC your keyboard is always welcome David.

I've read through that patent a couple of times and athough I'm not nearly as good as you or Bill at disecting them, I think I understand the basic premise. The crux as you put it.

The first two things that come to mind. The first, in trying to "teach" natural language phrasings and relationships, you need to consider "intent" in order to know where to apply importance or relevance where the random surfer is concerned. The second is how to weight that importance especially where citations are concerned. The latter is, in part, why I tend to believe that the reliance on links is just as important. Perhaps not in the way we are used to, page to page, site to site, but more in the way of page to text, with the citation improving the importance of the text and not necessarily the page.

Layers is a very good way to put it. What remains to be seen is the level influence.

Gawd... Let's not get started on query spam.

Dave

[crankydave]

Originally Posted by mjtaylor

I have always found that Google seems to respond well to my sites and while I certainly apply SEO principles, I don't do anything that differently than anyone else. I used to believe that I just had some sort of intuitive sense of optimization that came from doing it for a decade now ... however, I have recently come to feel that it might have something to do with my natural writing style. I used to make a living as a writer, both as a journlist and public relations specialist, so perhaps that's an element that has been at work for a while in SEs ...

Cheers, MJ

IMO, I've little doubt there's correlation MJ. Not because I think there's a direct influence, but more because of the indirect influences natural writing creates.

Dave

[mjtaylor]

And I don't disagree with you, Dave. I think the influence has to do with the fact that 'writing naturally' means I use synonyms, related terms and stems without thinking about it ... I believe a latent symantic index has been in place in G for a while ...

I still wish Craig would run his KW density on the current page ... guess I may have to get out my IBP ...

Cheers, MJ

[thegypsy]

agggggggggggh.... MJ said 'semantics'!!! ... jk there MJ, folks used to claim that the Google purchase of Applied Semantics back in 2004 was for the RI SERPs ( RI=regular index). I never bought that since it was really for the AdWords/AdSense offerings.... the later PaIR and other relevancy models seems more likely the cause for tightening of relevance in the SERPs .... so LSA ( latent semantic analysis) gives me the heebie jeebies

Anyways there Dave, you are most certainly correct on the links as these are merely layers to the orignal PageRank models (nodal link based) what we don't know is how they are 'turning the dials' as far as the weighting is concerned of each ranking mechanism.

Interestingly, it would seem that the off-page/backlinks are addressed (in the PaIR stuff at least) in as much as the RELEVANCE ;

a. Relevance of the link text
b. Relevance of the page they are on ( TITLE and page content)
c. Relevance of the site theme ( yes, they consider the aggregate of the site in the model)

So it is not merely the text on the page you are targeting in the SEO campaign, but also the pages where your backlinks reside.

Once again, you can see how this would adversely affect Web Spammers in that low quality links are even further de-valued from this model.

SIDE NOTE; interestingly, we couldn't find much in the recent patent related to ranking mechanisms... they seem to be ( for one reason or another) referring to such aspects as 'scoring'. This would imply that a page 'score' is added into the ranking process at some point... or they are simply being sneaky in their wording these days

[crankydave]

Ahhhhhhh... scoring. Glad you brought that up. hehehehehe...

Seems Google was a very recently granted a 3rd extension on an intent to use patent for a particular phrase... "TrustRank". eeeeeeeeeeeeeek

Would not surprise me in the least if this "scoring" was included. If so it would be interesting because then "TrustRank" would be, at least in part, a measure of sites particular "trust" as it relates to a theme or phrase(s) and not as it relates to the site as a whole. A "trusted" site would not necessarily be trusted for all.

Sorry MJ... Didn't mean to get off on a tangent on your thread.

Dave

[mjtaylor]

I have no tangential issues.

Here's where the page stands on KW Density according to IBP ... and I am not saying KW density matters ... or that anyone should use it as a tool or as part of SEO, just following up on Craig's original work using the words I think are relevant here:

search 213 of 14,426 (1.5%) 1,278 of 93,082 (1.4%)
optimization 139 of 14,426 (1.0%) 1,668 of 93,082 (1.8%)
engine 138 of 14,426 (1.0%) 828 of 93,082 (0.9%)
writing 120 of 14,426 (0.8%) 840 of 93,082 (0.9%)
seo 112 of 14,426 (0.8%) 336 of 93,082 (0.4%)
naturally 110 of 14,426 (0.8%) 990 of 93,082 (1.1%)
copywriting 102 of 14,426 (0.7%) 1,122 of 93,082 (1.2%)
engines 26 of 14,426 (0.2%) 182 of 93,082 (0.2%)
keywords 25 of 14,426 (0.2%) 200 of 93,082 (0.2%)
keyword 22 of 14,426 (0.2%) 154 of 93,082 (0.2%)
copy 16 of 14,426 (0.1%) 64 of 93,082 (0.1%)
write 14 of 14,426 (0.1%) 70 of 93,082 (0.1%)

[Feydakin]

Just a point

Natural Writing for SEO

CrankyDave ranks #1 and this thread is #2..

[digital2]

"But I am convinced that copy in a context of other related terms increases the relevance of the content" - that was vague.

In order to get response to some page on Search engine,
the optimisation should include "popular keywords"
instead "keywords".
So whole game of good SEO need to evolve around finding
"popular keywords" to optimize for instead just "keywords".
Anybody that doesn't get this upfront well - is very much wasting his/her time. But I leave this point open - what I call waste of time,
for some individuals - is not a waste of time. So there you go.
I don't particularly argue this non-time wasting strategy, just make a point. If you like wastie-ing time, suit yourself.

[Feydakin]

Originally Posted by digital2

Anybody that doesn't get this upfront well - is very much wasting his/her time. But I leave this point open - what I call waste of time,
for some individuals - is not a waste of time. So there you go.
I don't particularly argue this non-time wasting strategy, just make a point. If you like wastie-ing time, suit yourself.

But consider this..

"Popular" keywords tend to also be competitive keywords.. Not always.. But usually.. So it can make very good economic sense to go after the less popular, and easier to get, keywords and phrases to chase after those long tail phrases that still convert in to sales.. This can be exceptionally important when starting out since it could give you some measure of success both emotionally and monetarily while you work on the long haul going after the "popular" keywords..

Many people specialize in long tail success while leaving the heavy lifting battles of popular keywords to others.. It's more a function of choosing your market than wasting time..

[mjtaylor]

Originally Posted by digital2

"But I am convinced that copy in a context of other related terms increases the relevance of the content" - that was vague.

Well, I would guess that is vague to people who don't understand the vocabulary or SEO ... but this forum exists, in a large part, to help people who don't know the terms, so I did, in response to your earlier criticism, spell it out more clearly. Did you not read that post, digital2?

Cheers, MJ

[mjtaylor]

Originally Posted by Feydakin

Just a point

Natural Writing for SEO

CrankyDave ranks #1 and this thread is #2..

This thread has also moved up to 56 in G for 'writing for SEO' and to 156 for 'SEO copywriter.' which are searched terms ...

MJ

[crankydave]

Originally Posted by digital2

"But I am convinced that copy in a context of other related terms increases the relevance of the content" - that was vague.

In order to get response to some page on Search engine,
the optimisation should include "popular keywords"
instead "keywords".
So whole game of good SEO need to evolve around finding
"popular keywords" to optimize for instead just "keywords".
Anybody that doesn't get this upfront well - is very much wasting his/her time. But I leave this point open - what I call waste of time,
for some individuals - is not a waste of time. So there you go.
I don't particularly argue this non-time wasting strategy, just make a point. If you like wastie-ing time, suit yourself.

How do you define "popular"?

-Terms and phrases that are searched the most? Potentially good for adsense.
-Related terms and phrases are searched the most? Potentially good for selling advertising.
-Related terms and phrases your target customers are most likely to use but are not searched the most (longtail)? Potentially good for ecommerce sites selling products.

Dave

[thegypsy]

uuuuhhhhhh... don't we seek to rule the SERPs? Meaning I want the 'money terms' as well as the 'long tail' ones as well?

For me targeting is every possible related term I can get my hands on for a client.

[digital2]

Any feedback on programs worth spending time on?

[crankydave]

Originally Posted by digital2

Any feedback on programs worth spending time on?

huh?

This thread is about natural writing for SEO. Are you asking about a program that can do your writing for you? Tools that can tell you what phrases to use, where to place them, and how often?

Perhaps start a new thread on that subject.

Worth spending time on?

Again, this thread is disussing the "worth" of how one writes for SEO purposes, in particular, the "worth" of simply writing naturally.

Dave

[digital2]

I have started a similar thread before on this forum and got 0 replies
So in return I give no replies too.
On few other forums is similar - OFTEN there is no response to valuable threads. I find it appalling. I had a valuable info to say but the thread died before letting it in.
The replies I get to my postings are rarely what I am seeking.
I am not negative about it, but this makes me participate at random.

Jan

[crankydave]

Originally Posted by digital2

I have started a similar thread before on this forum and got 0 replies
So in return I give no replies too.
On few other forums is similar - OFTEN there is no response to valuable threads. I find it appalling. I had a valuable info to say but the thread died before letting it in.
The replies I get to my postings are rarely what I am seeking.
I am not negative about it, but this makes me participate at random.

Jan

I'd like to have a nickle for every thread I started that got 0 replies, everytime I thought I had something valuable to contribute and a thread died, and everytime I didn't get the answers I really wanted.

Practice in learning what to ask, how to ask it, and just as important if not moreso, how you participate goes a long way.

Here, this along the lines you were thinking...

SEO Writing Tools

Dave

[crankydave]

Another aspect that I think gets overlooked is personal experiences. Even if you're not writing for SEO specifically, It can have a lot of SEO value. It doesn't get too much more natural than that, is very unique, often very fun and interesting to read even if you may not think so, AND you don't have to research it.

Here's an example of what I mean...

An Icy Proposal - Jewelry-Wedding Forum @ BanglesandBrides.com

Dave

[incrediblehelp]

Yeah I started a thread at Google Groups on a recent Google MyMaps question. I didn't get answers for a week, so I asked again and was scolded by current members there.

I actually posted the same questions here and I got some decent help.

Still no real helpful answers. Finally I figured out it was a Google issue and they were fixing it.

What shocked me was the way I was continually rebuffed and told to go elsewhere at Google Groups. Anyways it goes to show you that some forums are helpful and some are not.

[digital2]

I agree that :

1.discussion on some specialist SEO elements are well beyond some or many forums participants
2. The SEO doesn't always help in sales. Many well SEO designed pages don't sell. Naturally written copy with SEO - can or cannot (or both)
help in sales
3. Some pages are not designed for sales (i.e. informative etc)
4. What sells? A combination of factors. Among them
- product is in demand
- sales letter is well designed
- product is appealing (i.e. is not in demand but sells)
- mass and/or targeting exposure is involved (list, PPC, JV's blogs,Web 2.0, viral etc)

5. Not all marketing activity is connected with sales (meaning -
marketing doesn't mean sales and sales only)

6. Many important marketing elements couples with timing factor - building business backbone and clients base can take long time
(i.e. 3,4,5,6 or more years) The Internet public is pretty divergent on terms of their business evolution levels.

I am not trying here to develop any form of synthesis of approach to Internet Market. This is rather my version of events. Creative solutions tackle well divergent elements.
Just a point - what may help improving Internet is -
what is a lots of HYPE but
NO GUARANTEES for intended results.

Jan

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by mjtaylor

This thread has also moved up to 56 in G for 'writing for SEO' and to 156 for 'SEO copywriter.' which are searched terms ...

MJ

I wish I could also be impressed about that, but unfortunately I couldn't after I digged out the below:

1. Keyword Discovery results:

writing for SEO Activity (Estimated): 5 web-wide search engine queries per day Google = 3 Yahoo Index = 1 MSN = 1

SEO copywriter Activity (Estimated): 8 web-wide search engine queries per day Google = 5 Yahoo Index = 2 MSN = 1

2. Overture results:
writing for SEO 0 searches a day
SEO copywriter 27 searches a day

3. Wordtracker results:
writing for SEO 0 searches a day
SEO copywriter 27 searches a day

Also you can check with this tool how hard it would be to rank for the keywords or phrases you mentioned above: Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Forums :: SearchGuild.com

Results of the tool:

writing for SEO - EASY Difficulty Score: 270
SEO copywriter - EASY Difficulty Score: 1601

The narrowed to above keyphrases competitive terms like copywriting seo (overture: 62,8/per day) and copywriter seo (overture: 26,7/per day) are easy too:

copywriting seo - EASY Difficulty Score: 1108
copywriter seo - EASY Difficulty Score: 1648

To understand the difficulty scores, my site is ALMOST one year old and here are some examples you might would like to see to compare:
For the searched term seo analysis I rank #1 and the difficulty score 5410 which is EASY.
Activity (Estimated): 23 web-wide search engine queries per day Google = 13 Yahoo Index = 6 MSN = 4

For the searched term seo consulting company I rank #2 and the difficulty score is 10334 which is EASY.
For the searched term search engine optimization consulting I rank #6 and the difficulty score is 16236 which is EASY.
For the searched term professional search engine optimization I rank #14 and the difficulty score is 15551 which is EASY.
For the searched term search engine optimization consultant I rank #17 and the difficulty score is 24334 which is INTERMEDIATE.
For the searched term company seo I rank #20 and the difficulty score is 43725 which is INTERMEDIATE.

Should I climb on my roof and start singing?

My questions now are:

- How long will the above mentioned ranking positions maintain?

- Will they improve when after the thread goes to bed?
- Why does CrankyDave rank instead of the thread starter?

I read all posts in this thread, and I will probably add some more of my ketchup soon.

[Feydakin]

Interesting tool.. After checking a few terms I'd hate to see what they consider hard..

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by mjtaylor

I believe a latent symantic index has been in place in G for a while ...

I hope when you are talking about a while, that you mean latest since 2004.

Originally Posted by mjtaylor

I still wish Craig would run his KW density on the current page ... guess I may have to get out my IBP ...

Google introduced last December the "PhraseRank" algorithm which is a new way to evaluate relevancy of a web document based on its content which might prove itself to be immune to manipulation attempts such as adjusting the keyword density or the automated generation of keyword-rich web pages:
United States Patent Application: 0060294155

To keep that short: The algorithm is a process of indexing including identification of phrases & related phrases. Their system analyzes the sequences of words and evaluates them them as good or bad phrases. Good phrases are the ones that occur quite frequently across the indexed documents or have a distinguished appearance.

For example, they are delimited by markup tags, punctuation or other markers. Another distinguishing feature is the ability of a good phrase to predict a related phrase. To be more explicit, if we take the keyphrase President of the United States predicts White House.

See a visual demo I created for your key term:



Aren't we living in 2007? Or am I experiencing James Cole effect in Twelve Monkeys? I am just asking, as I do not understand why the keyword density is still mentioned all over the place. I tried a while ago to reduce my keyword densities to lower than 2% and I experienced a boost in my rankings that no one would believe. But I still care about my keyword weight but mainly site wide. But that is another issue. That has to do with SEO copywriting techniques.

[mjtaylor]

Originally Posted by Webnauts

I hope when you are talking about a while, that you mean latest since 2004.

I couldn't have put a date on it, but yes, I meant a *good* while ...

Originally Posted by Webnauts

To keep that short: The algorithm is a process of indexing including identification of phrases & related phrases. Their system analyzes the sequences of words and evaluates them them as good or bad phrases. Good phrases are the ones that occur quite frequently across the indexed documents or have a distinguished appearance.

For example, they are delimited by markup tags, punctuation or other markers. Another distinguishing feature is the ability of a good phrase to predict a related phrase. To be more explicit, if we take the keyphrase President of the United States predicts White House.

Exactly! That's what I am talking about! Thank you for making it precise.
And the demo graphic was very cool. How did you make the that, please?

Originally Posted by Webnauts

Aren't we living in 2007? Or am I experiencing James Cole effect in Twelve Monkeys? I am just asking, as I do not understand why the keyword density is still mentioned all over the place. I tried a while ago to reduce my keyword densities to lower than 2% and I experienced a boost in my rankings that no one would believe. But I still care about my keyword weight but mainly site wide. But that is another issue. That has to do with SEO copywriting techniques.

I predict KW density - or weight, if that is a synonym -- will continue to be mentioned and misunderstood for some time to come ... and I don't mean to imply that I understand it. I do understand that it is an outmoded way of thinking of SEO; I learned that in this forum from Dan Thies. I still believe there is a threshold beyond which there is a filter for keyword stuffing, though.

Cheers, MJ

[Webnauts]

[quote=mjtaylor;338784]I predict KW density - or weight, if that is a synonym.
Your prediction is incorrect.

Originally Posted by mjtaylor

-- will continue to be mentioned and misunderstood for some time to come ... and I don't mean to imply that I understand it.

Then I shall give here a little a short seminar for beginners in online copywriting. But only part I. Maybe part II will follow.

1. Keyword density
Keyword density is relative value that reflects the frequency of a keyword on a page. Unlike keyword count, which is absolute value, keyword density is relative to the entire number of keywords on a page. This allows you to compare keywords on a pages with different amount of text on them.

Keyword density is calculated as follows:

Desnity = Count / TotalCount * 100%

2. Keyword weight
Keyword weight is one of the most important keyword parameters in SEO. It shows the importance of a keyword to search engines according to the tags it is enclosed within. For instance, if you have a page about accessibility, you put the word "accessibility" in the title of the page and perhaps mention it somewhere in the headings of your articles. So, a search engine indexing your page, will notice "accessibility" in title and headings and assigns it high weight signifying the high chance that your page is about accessibility.

For instance, if a keyword meets 5 times and there are 200 keywords in total on a page, its keyword density is: 5 / 200 * 100% = 2,5%

Originally Posted by mjtaylor

I do understand that it is an outmoded way of thinking of SEO; I learned that in this forum from Dan Thies.

Did Dan also say the keyword weight is outmoded way of thinking? I hope not!

Originally Posted by mjtaylor

I still believe there is a threshold beyond which there is a filter for keyword stuffing, though.

Did you read my post above? That is exactly what I posted about. Or am I confused?

[mjtaylor]

Originally Posted by Webnauts

Did Dan also say the keyword weight is outmoded way of thinking? I hope not!

What he said "Key Word Density Isn't Real" ... here's the thread:

Keyword Density.

And he referred to The Keyword Density of Non-Sense which is rather convincing ...

Cheers, MJ

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by mjtaylor

What he said "Key Word Density Isn't Real" ... here's the thread:

Keyword Density.

And he referred to The Keyword Density of Non-Sense which is rather convincing ...

Mj I have serious reasons to believe that you do not read my posts. I explained above that keyword density is something different than keyword weight.

And Dan is absolutely right about the keywords density myth. For example, as I mentioned previously, since I reduced my keywords density below 2%, I had positive rankings experience. Other would advise me to increase them. Too high keyword density can trigger spam filter. What is too high? When the copy becomes unnatural.

Please read my previous posts more carefully, and don't just run quick scans. If my responses do not interest you, please be so kind and let me know that, and I will give it up. I have no time writing all those posts, just for keeping myself busy. I really have enough to do.

Thanks.

[crankydave]

Originally Posted by Webnauts

Should I climb on my roof and start singing?

If you're a good singer and the neighbors don't mind, knock your socks off.

Originally Posted by Webnauts

My questions now are:

- How long will the above mentioned ranking positions maintain?

Probably for sometime. There was noone competing for the phrase.

Originally Posted by Webnauts

My questions now are:

- Will they improve when after the thread goes to bed?
- Why does CrankyDave rank instead of the thread starter?

Kind a hard to improve on #1 and #2 rankings don't you think?

I used the phrase in the title on my blog. Only indexed pages that use the phrase were this thread and my blog.

Also thought you might be interested in knowing that page has had quite a few views since I spent a whole 15 minutes writing and publishing it a week ago. Nearly half of them navigated to other parts of the blog and some of them came here.

Not too shameful for a phrase that nobody ever searches IMO.

Dave

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by crankydave

If you're a good singer and the neighbors don't mind, knock your socks off.

I was a Gothic Rock singer in Vienna in 1991-1993. Now since I got older my voice improved. For for ranking on those terms I would not climb on my roof and sing.

Originally Posted by crankydave

Probably for sometime. There was noone competing for the phrase.

Can be.

Originally Posted by crankydave

Kind a hard to improve on #1 and #2 rankings don't you think?

Well depends...

Originally Posted by crankydave

I used the phrase in the title on my blog. Only indexed pages that use the phrase were this thread and my blog.

That is another story. I did not know that you added the title on your blog. I often use that technique myself.

Originally Posted by crankydave

Also thought you might be interested in knowing that page has had quite a few views since I spent a whole 15 minutes writing and publishing it a week ago. Nearly half of them navigated to other parts of the blog and some of them came here.

No doubt and that is obviously cool.

Originally Posted by crankydave

Not too shameful for a phrase that nobody ever searches IMO.

I can show a huge list of keywords I rank #1 but no one looks for them though.

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by mjtaylor

I don't do anything that differently than anyone else.

If you knew what I am doing, you would recall what you said MJ.

[Narasinha]

Writing Naturally, and SEO Copywriting; Can you do both at the same time?

I suppose a lot of it depends on what you mean by "writing naturally". I would guess that none of us here truly write in the same manner which we use when speaking in a conversation. So, then what about our "writing voice"? I worked for a huge multi-national coporation about twenty years ago (Gods, tha makes me feel old.. LOL), and quickly learned to write memos, operating procedures, etc., in a form which was not "natural" to me, but it was what the company wanted to hear. I began to call it "corporate-speak".

There were certain words and phrases which seemed to impress them, and ways of expressing ideas that met their needs. I learned how to take things that I would have previously written using only a couple paragraphs and expand it into two pages of "corporate-speak" text. I still use some of these techniques today when writing copy for the web.

I suppose you should always think of your audience first. What do they expect to hear? In this respect, I think your audience probably searches in the same manner in which they read. Certain words or phrases are familiar to them, and that's what they expect to read, and that's probably what they search for.

Of course, most of it is still guesswork. I'm still waiting to see when I get any pagerank at all for my site. Yes, it's indexed, but still no PR... Always so much to do.