Are you writing for visitors or for search engines?

[dadamson]

As an experienced SEO guy, I am taking a stance which might be controversial to a lot of you.

Are you writing for your visitors or for the search engines?

Let me tell you that too many people are writing specifically for the search engines.

They are stuffing their keywords into their content, into their titles, their meta tags, making all their posts 500 words long, focusing on keyword densities, etc.

While this worked early last year, it gives little to no benefit these days and here's why:

The search engines are looking more towards quality and theme than how many times you can squeeze your keywords into your content.

My advice it to write for your visitors, give them value in grammatically correct and interesting (not to mention easy to read!) content that draws your attention.

Not only will this give you a higher conversion rate but the search engines will notice the increased quality and positively influence your rankings.

It's time to stop being so technical about your onpage SEO and start improving quality and visitor satisfaction.

~Dave

[Matt Baker]

Awesome post dadamson!

I agree with you. My articles are meant for visitors not for search engines.

[BigNorm]

Then there is the other side of the coin, being able to balance it out between both. You can still write quality content aimed at visitors while optimizing for the search engines. Agreed that Google in particular is looking for quality content, but still relies on us as webmasters to provide an indication to the theme of our article.

I will still use my meta tags, title, headers, KW in my description, 1.5-2% KW density and all other onsite SEO I deem necessary because it still works, while at the same time still giving my readers quality, grammatically correct content.

[dadamson]

Great stuff.

Yes, writing for both visitors AND search engines can be great and definitely the best thing to do. I am focusing this post more for those people who don't have grammatically correct content but worrying about keyword density

[Nicky Papers]

Originally Posted by dadamson

They are stuffing their keywords into their content, into their titles, their meta tags, making all their posts 500 words long, focusing on keyword densities, etc.

There's no reason why you can't have your cake and eat it too! Including target keywords into your content, titles, and meta info isn't necessarily "stuffing". If the competition (top 10 results) is using an average of 500 words on the page of their ranking URL, there's no reason why you wouldn't want to meet or exceed the average number of words. Using SERP IQ can quickly quantify that average for you. Every niche / search query is different, that tool is a major time saver for that type of research.

I see where you're going with this and I agree with you on most points. Over-optimization is just as bad as not optimizing at all. Additionally, don't underestimate the power of links!

[dadamson]

Originally Posted by Nicky Papers

There's no reason why you can't have your cake and eat it too! Including target keywords into your content, titles, and meta info isn't necessarily "stuffing". If the competition (top 10 results) is using an average of 500 words on the page of their ranking URL, there's no reason why you wouldn't want to meet or exceed the average number of words. Using SERP IQ can quickly quantify that average for you. Every niche / search query is different, that tool is a major time saver for that type of research.

I see where you're going with this and I agree with you on most points. Over-optimization is just as bad as not optimizing at all. Additionally, don't underestimate the power of links!

Yes, but my idea of having my cake and eating it too would be having a high converting page and ranking it too.

What if my highest converting page has just 200 words of factual content and images and diagram? Does that mean I can't rank it #1 because the rest of the page one results are full of 500 word content pages? No, not at all.

I also believe meta descriptions should be written to attract your visitors to your page, it should be your marketing ploy to attract visitors, after all, this is what they read before determining which page to view. It's no point having a weak description just to get your keywords in there if your CTR is going to be looowww

[mexabet]

Well, I always write naturally for human visitors and effortlessly blend in my targeted keywords. That way, I don't have to worry about keyword density.

[BigNorm]

Originally Posted by dadamson

I also believe meta descriptions should be written to attract your visitors to your page, it should be your marketing ploy to attract visitors, after all, this is what they read before determining which page to view. It's no point having a weak description just to get your keywords in there if your CTR is going to be looowww

I couldn't agree more but always use my KW in my meta description. In fact this quite easy to do. All I simple do is

[danlew]

I write articles for both visitors and search engines. It's important that I should combine both of them so that I can gain more traffic.

Two is better than one.

[gearmonkey]

I agree with that. I ordered an SEO / LSI written article that was suppose to really make SERPs happy. I paid $25 because the intensive work..

After I got it wasn't even worth reading because it was so crammed.

If I lose SERPs because I write so people can read it, so be it. I didn't make my blog so Search Engines can read it, I made it so people can read it and enjoy it.

[strategic seo services]

Write for your visitors, build strong, quality backlinks, and the traffic will eventually rise.

[cagliostro]

Balance for both, and also a (RO)BOT is a (RO)BOT no matter what. They can't possibly understand what we all think they do.

[silverace]

I always write for search engines. if you have great content and a user finds everything they need, why should they click out on your ads to get away from your site?

[That Guy]

Not going to lie, I write for search engines. All I really want is for the visitor to go on my page, if they can't find what they need then they'll find it by clicking my adsense ads. I make sure all of my information is factual since I don't want to trick people but all I really want to do is make money.

[Jim Guererro]

With everyone so savvy about what the internet is about these days, your words of wisdom ring so very true. I never jumped on the bandwagon when Adsense was going wild but these days addressing problems and giving solutions is the order of the day.

People are used to adsense banners now so they don't hold the intrigue they once had. But re-iterating the fact that people want information that they can act on is totally relevant.

[marknel]

My aim is to write for visitors first and then the SEs. Only useful and informative articles can become viral easily and act as link bait .

[jctony]

When i post articles I typically only insert 1 keyword and 1 url link. I make sure my article is worthy of someone reading it first then I find a strategic place to insert the keyword. I like the high quality link I get from the article but don't mind when it directly brings in traffic. Even better if it gets posted on someones blog and then that brings me in traffic then I really know I did a good job.