This article was too good to pass to you with just a tweet. It needs a recap and some emphasis. This is Karon Thackston’s interview with Matt Cutts from Google’s Webspam team. Take note of his recommendations for your copywriting and make sure your content measures up.
Here are the main points:
- Keyword phrases don’t have to be in a “verbatim” format. Google recognizes synonyms and can pick out the individual words separately within a paragraph. This means you can break up your words with words and ideas in between them to make the content user-friendly and not seem forced.
- Your content should NOT look stiff or artificial – you don’t need the phrase X times within 24.3 words of the headline, etc. Just write your content so the user gets it and can understand it.
- #1 rule for copywriting according to Karon: “Never sacrifice the quality of your copy for the sake of the search engines.”
Now go forth and review your content. How does it stack up against these recommendations? I use the “does my mom get it” test a lot and have her read content and tell me what it means. She knows nothing about marketing or online marketing – so if it sounds natural and informative to her, it will sound natural and informative to the search engines.
Content written for search engines and not for people tend to look contrived and superficial, especially when it tries to fit in as many keywords as possible. While it can artificially boost a page’s ranking for a while, it defeats the purpose of attracting and retaining site visitors.