Just Say No To SEO Copywriting?

[dutter]

While a handful of speakers at SES Chicago emphasized the importance of keyword placement in pages, a copywriter thinks it's the wrong approach.

Copywriter Bob Bly suggested writing for search engine optimization means weakening the copy's ability to sell. "You need to have a single core audience in mind and concentrate all your effort on writing to that one audience.," he wrote.

From Bly's perspective, SEO can be accomplished, but not at the expense of writing the strongest copy possible. Keywords should be placed in the copy, and experiments with word changes can take place.

"Never change a word of strong selling copy if that change will make it even one iota weaker, even if SEO best practices would endorse that change," Bly cautioned.

Other copywriters Bly cited have similar viewpoints about SEO versus strong copywriting. Gary Bencivenga called SEO a "mechanical rabbit I'll never be able to catch." He noted that search engines continually make changes to "thwart those who try to 'fix the race'." Another copywriting notable, Parris Lampropoulos, told Bly he doesn't concern himself at all with SEO when writing Web copy.

Does optimizing copy for search engines work, though? Agora Publishing copywriter John Ford commented in the article that it can work:

"It's certainly true that you can kick your ranking up in the Google search by focusing on the right keywords and looking at lists of keyword usage," he said. "It's amazing, actually, how easily this can be done. And shocking, I think, that some people get paid quite a bit of money to do only this."

Marketing writer Dianna Huff said in the report: " There is no point in writing good copy on your site if no one can find you." And Don Marti commented how inbound links and page structure are more important than just copy.

Essentially, it seems sites that want to rank high while providing the maximum relevance and benefit to their visitors need to strike a balance between solid copywriting and SEO. While strong copy reads better than a page full of weakly-connected keywords, the need for businesses to be listed high in search rankings like Google's can't be ignored.

[dburdon]

Surely there's a happy medium. Copy that fails the SEO test will need expensive pay per click or other mechanisms to drive traffic. Copy that attracts the engines but fails to convert the viewer also fails.

Somewhere in the middle is the way forward.

[ADAM Web Design]

I've always been of the opinion that you write your base copy first, to make sure it's pleasing to the viewer/reader. From that copy, you worry about on-the-page SEO.

Mind you, it's not very much of a factor at all these days, what with IBLs, time spent of sites, toolbar usage/tracking, etc. and so on. So I think the idea of copywriting primarily for SEO is on its way out.

As a secondary goal, though, it makes sense.

Perhaps this is the happy medium dburdon talked about.

[kgun]

David.

Google was never as holy as it was perceived. And neither is it as black as its now painted by some forum posters. Like every other large corporation its driven by its earnings per share and the demands of the financial analysts.
http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic...f3fccc85d1f37e

Show me a big comapany that was (is) white (in the startup.)

Reminds me of the words:
The world is not white or black, but grey.

Somewhere in the middle is the way forward.

This is a post for Aaron2005. Spam his blog.

[kidsfreesoul]

Quote: "You need to have a single core audience in mind and concentrate all your effort on writing to that one audience." - Copywriter Bob Bly

Not Really! Sometimes, esp. when you blog, writing comes natural and not necessarily keeping in mind the audience. I personally feel when writing on politics or opening up views related to nations, you apt to drift away to give some great contents to your audience like writing reviews of books or sort of tech help - This automatically makes one an SEO, putting in a lot of varied key words and quality content. This may attract the search results and may also convert a non politics reader to come back for other scoop. Moreover, if writing is a part of a job and designing/marketing site is part of hobby, you always dive exploring...n exploring is way of learning the web.

Hence, I feel you dont need to have a single core audience in mind, after all! Give the best - best people come back to you.

- ilaxi
Edited my mod Webnauts. Links to you web site may only be in your signature.

[Kristi]

top notch eCommerce optimization does include your audience. you have to know what your potential customers are looking for in order to write for them and optimize your site pages.

quality optimization involves writing good copy and creating top notch, spider friendly site structure. conversions (turning a visitor into a customer) depends on writing great copy.

keyword stuffing is NOT seo. stuffing lowers your customer conversions because of the awkward way it reads, and with the recent major se updates, stuffing/spamming has become a good way to guarantee your rankings for high traffic keywords will drop.

of course there's always msn - heads up folks, keyword spamming, doorway pages, and the days of black hat seo achieving ranks at msn are numbered. now msn is focused on weeding for relevance.