Poorly constructed SEO copywriting attracts penalties from search engines (or gets you banned altogether), drives people away from your website and makes your brand less credible.
Time to deal with a few SEO copywriting myths that cause trouble at every level of business.
MYTH 1: Search Engines Are More Important Than Your Readers
Oh dear! This assumes search engines are more important than your readers; which will never do. Plenty of keyword fodder may drive traffic to your site but if readers leave in droves the moment they arrive because your content sucks then what’s the point of SEO at all? Ensure you know what your readers will like and know the content meets that objective. Yes, keywords are important but never more so than relevant and valuable reader-focused copy.
MYTH 2: You Must Insert Keywords As Much As Possible Into Every Landing Page
This is very 1999. Back in the days when search engines could only identify relevance by the frequency of certain words on a page keyword density writing worked (although many articles read as if they were written by complete idiots). Today keywords and phrases still matter, but heavy keyword density is out in favour of more scientific methods like TF-IDF. Too many incidences of keywords on a page will be considered keyword stuffing – another black hat tactic that could get your website penalised or banned from search engines.
MYTH 3: Post Your Content And The Job Is Done
This is more wrong than ever! Today it’s more important to add good content regularly to your website. And it makes sense. Not only will search robots come back to visit your site more often, your readers will too. Regularly adding quality content also offers distinct advantages for your social media marketing because, if it’s good, people will share it.
MYTH 4: Just Post Whatever Content You Can
Yes, adding to your content is good practice. But it must be good. Content development is essential, especially if you operate where Web competition is fierce. But you must still make sure it is relevant and of value to your readers. And don’t post duplicate content (even if it is good) because search engines will pick it up and may mark you down for it.
MYTH 5: Good Keywords Drive Traffic
Not quite – backlinks drive traffic. Well researched keywords and phrases are important, but what really matters are the backlinks you get from other websites. What’s the best way to garner quality backlinks? Make sure your content is relevant and valuable to visitors and that other webmasters recognise it as such.
Remember This One SEO Copywriting Truth
Even though search engine marketing is developing all the time, the key is to remember it’s people who matter most.
Caring about your readers and producing content that addresses their needs will always outshine cheap messages delivered apathetically.
Bear this in mind and you’ll be ahead of the pack from the get go.
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