OK, enough with all my silly talk about writing for people first.
Let me tell you what you really want to know… how to write to rank well in Google.
Actually, I’ll just let Google tell you.
Our general advice is: Always focus on the users and not on search engines when developing your optimization strategy. Ask yourself what creates value for your users. Investing in the quality of your content and thereby earning natural backlinks benefits both the users and drives more qualified traffic to your site. … [K]eep in mind that nowadays search engines reward sweat-of-the-brow work on content that bait natural links given by choice.
I’ll elaborate next year. 🙂
Via Search Engine Land.
Reader Comments (21)
nowadays search engines reward sweat-of-the-brow work on content that bait natural links given by choice.
Woah. For example…?
Well, I can use this blog as an example. I rank on the first page of the Google search results for “copywriting” based only on creating content that people thought was worth linking to.
Oh, well bring that up why don’t you.
But can you do it again … say for “How To Write Headlines” ?
Oh wait, you did that too.
As for me, these advices are totaly useless because they are too rough. People need to have more details about “Always focus on the users and not on search engines when developing your optimization strategy”
This is so true. It’s clear that the sites doing well in the search engines are the ones that provide high quality content that other sites link to organically. Two way link exchanging is not nearly as effective.
I for one find the advice good (although it is not saying anything new). People should understand that the search engine game is not worth the effort. The same resource spent on creating great content pays much better (in long term)
Actually, by my first comment I was referring to the relatively obscure bit of writing perpetrated by whoever was responsible for that bit you quoted from Google. I had no idea what they meant.
You, Brian, on the other hand, are always clear.
It’s always interesting to see clients’ reactions when they ask me if I write Web-optimized copy. I say no, I write copy that people want to read and let the search engines index it as they please. Good, relevant writing will more than hold its own in the rankings.
Darn good discussion here. I still see these types of discussion where the participants fall distinctly into two groups … whose who ‘get’ what Google attempts to do and those who don’t.
In general those who “don’t” are the ones who have decided to ‘put up a blog’ to make money. They haven’t thought through why anyone would want to read their blog nor have they thought through what value they might be providing to their readers.
My small blogging efforts don’t return much money but they all make something. One is even making my rent payments for me already, and it ranks very well in Google for a couple key phrases I feel my readers are interested in. Not because I spent any time with “SEO” type activities, but because the posts I make talk about what “customers” want and I try to write every post with the idea of providing information or answers to questions readers have.
It’s really not that difficult, just look at your blog(s) and ask yourself, “why would anyone read this?”
Its been said again and again, which tells me that there are still those who aren’t listening.. Write for people, not for machines.
Even if optimized writing brings people to your site through the search engines, only quality writing will keep them there and only quality writing will bring them back and have them telling their friends
A response from Google? I have written complaints about the damn Blogspot spamming, and they do not ever respond. It seems they could care less .. and as far as I am concerned, they do not care.
That is why I have sent a complaint to the FTC.
Content should indeed always be your first goal. Designing just for the search engine’s sake is a flawed aim. Everyone must realize that the search engines will ALWAYS change their algorythms, but the content will always remain. So, why not just come up with the best content you can, and that way people will naturally want to link to you anyways.
Content is king. That quote from Google is priceless. The challenge is then marketing your good content. That would be a great next article. You can develop the greatest content, but without links nobody will read it, and without anyone reading it, nobody will link to it. Chicken and egg syndrome.
This is a great relief. I really cannot undertand why keyword rich articles should be a better read than content-rich ones. Never mind what others or most say, I still prefer to have really interesting, helpful and useful content.
Searching reddit.com I noticed your web site book-marked as: How to Write for Google | Copyblogger. Now I am assuming you book-marked it yourself and wanted to ask if social book-marking gets you a good deal of targeted visitors? I’ve been looking at doing some bookmarking for a few of my sites but wasn’t certain if it would yield any positive results. Thank you so much.
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