Is there really a difference between article writing and seo writing ?

I would say they are the same thing, seo writing is optimizing your articles
with rich keywords for the search engines to index and rank them.

No, its not the same on many levels. Will "Article Writing" get you SEO results... sure it can. But there is a difference between "It Can" and "It Will".

I personally have a very defined formula that I use to write for the purposes of SEO be it 1 or 6 target words in an article. Once you have done this for a while the flow of the words becomes rather natural. However someone that does not have the repetition and experience is going to get a very forced feel to the read. In the same way that writing itself is a craft, writing for the purposes of SEO is the same.

I think the most misunderstood concept of SEO is basically within the premise of the question you are asking. "How can I get my content to rank?"

SEO does focus on the words on the page, but it goes deeper than that. It has to do with the code that displays the page. It has to do with the links that come and go from the page within your site. It has to do with the links that come and go outside of your site.

More advanced SEO gets into the concepts of not only the page itself but the structure that is "holding" the page. Where does that page sit in correlation with other content on your site.

Overall Article writing is producing content that is good quality, unique, and engaging. SEO done correctly, is the same with many more factors.

There is a difference, but you generally see the term "article writing" in terms of SEO in internet marketing circles, so you may tend to think they are the same. I have used article writing services for newsletters, e-magazines, e-books etc. and that didn't have to do anything with SEO (unless my clients wanted to use the articles for SEO purposes). It all depends on the scenario where you use it.

Thanks guys, I appreciate it...

Two are very different. Please write articles for people rather than the search engines. That's the key difference between creating good quality article content and SEO content.

There is a subtle difference with the end product but how you get there is hugely different and significant!!!

SEO writing involves keyword research and identification of your target keywords.. From that you would form a list of articles and use keyword variations such as long tail etc being mentioned in your article noting subject and heading tags are important with regards to inserting those keywords...

Now the trick is to keep the keyword density low!!! and for the article to be natural to read and for it to be high quality... For example just because you want to rank for red widgets doesn't mean you should mention red widgets 100 times... All you need is to mention it once in the title and/or in sub titles using long tail variations e.g. low cost red widgets vs high cost red widgets, blue widgets vs red widgets etc etc... But keep it low as Google's algo is sensitive to the keyword density...

Now with normal article writing you are doing none of that and further you are not thinking that you want to rank for a particular keyword so you have no measurable data to compare yourself... i.e. did my rankings for these keywords for this page go up or down?

In every case you'll will also find a bunch of other inadvertent keywords which people type to get to you website - just check out the seo section of your traffic reports such as with analytics...

Overall the SEO approach in my opinion is the smart way to do it as you will have formed an article plan which covers many topics semantically and from the onset you have defined what your target is vs. lets just write and see what happens...

Hope that helps!

A really good (indepth) article will be naturally optimized without the need for keyword stuffing or unnatural word patterns. And, this is true, because an article writer will automatically use words related to her subject as those are the words that best describe the subject.

I was hoping the question was ironic/joking ... but reading with increasing surprise through the replies above, it looks like others are taking it seriously, so I suppose I'd better, too.

Yes - there's an enormous, overwhelming difference between the two. An enormous, overwhelming difference in intent, purpose, method, usage and outcome.

Again - it's kind of a stretch to imagine you're serious, but if you are, you're profoundly mistaken.

"SEO writing" was (note past tense: it has very reduced value, these days) a way of using content for search engines to identify keywords in it and rank your site higher in their SERP's. The style/structure of the content was typically regarded as having little significance, as its primarily intended "reader" was an automated algorithm. The only kind of traffic it was intended (or indeed able) to bring comprised search-engine visitors: generally the least responsive and most difficult kind of traffic to monetize for all the reasons explained in post #13 of this thread.

Article writing and distribution is a way of attracting to your site highly responsive, highly targeted people who are already looking elsewhere for information on the niche, and a way of demonstrating to them to your credibility, of educating and informing and entertaining them, of making them want to read and learn more from the same source, so that you'll be the person they like and respect and trust, and the one from whom (or through whose links) they eventually buy many things. In other words, it's (a) typically attracting a very different kind of traffic, and (b) subtly "pre-selling" to them, too.

Unsurprisingly, therefore, SEO-writing and article writing are two entirely different skill-sets. (Yes, you could say both involve typing in words, speaking the language, constructing sentences, and so on, but that's no more than a "pedantic similarity".)

And then, of course, there are the people (usually service-providers, making their income by selling articles to other people, rather than by using them themselves) who claim that the two "can overlap substantially" and "are closely connected" and "can be combined together by people who know how" (referring to themselves, natch, and implying that people who don't agree must lack their magical skills! ). Perhaps you've been listening to them, and that's what prompted this question??

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You are correct there is no real difference, i.e most articles on high Page Ranked sites are “normal articles”, but are rank well, so you can say these are "SEO articles" too.

As I know, article writing is the general writing activity. It does not guarantee the optimization while SEO writing will optimize your chosen keywords. Hope it helps

When you are writing an article, your goal is to have it ranked in the search engine. Your goal is not to have it sit there and look pretty.

So for me, article writing and seo writing are the same.

All but a few of the answers are absolutely astounding. There have been numerous threads on this and related topics and I'm worn out trying to convince people of what should be obvious.

There are always people here asking how they should go about making money online. You'll hear the "take action" mantra repeated a lot and I agree that without taking action nothing happens.

But I agree only with strong reservations. The truly important thing about taking action is taking the right action. Working your butt off doing the wrong thing or working an outdated strategy brings the same type of failure you'll encounter had you taken no action at all.

Someone mentioned writing for people and that's the truth in this discussion. I KNOW there are people embracing worn out models that have never made any real money yet they plod along waiting for their turn at success while they chant about business models that never worked well in the first place and definitely don't work now. It's gonna be a long wait, baby.

There are billions and billions and billions of Web pages out there and more coming every day. It should be easy to understand that even your best efforts at trying to impress Google are going to fall flat. But people won't listen. It's sad really.

I go to the WSO forum occasionally and see that article spinners are still among the most successful offers. I read posts here where members are asking if fiverr is a good place to buy traffic. When will they learn?

If you're going to have a certain keyword density in a short article that article is going to suffer greatly. I don't care how clever you are, that piece is going to suck. And people might not know exactly what's wrong but they know something is and they leave. And if you do actually manage to get some SE traffic, what the hell kind of content are they going to encounter when they get to your site? More crappy SEO articles? Ugh.

Business is about offering the best stuff you have, not doing as little as possible so you can get paid. When you create an article for a SE rather than to inform an individual interested in the topic you're shortchanging your potential customer and you're shortchanging yourself as well.

I think the difference has lessened. There is enormous merit in instituting traffic channels that are not Google-dependant and making sure those channels remain in place regardless of Google's SERPs. However, many writers, tired of $5 article job offers and other things like keyword stuffing and spinners, are now jaded and bash Google and any notion of 'writing for the search engine'.

Shrugging off traffic from search engines is short sighted, IMO.

Do people who bash 'writing for Google' realize how many millions upon millions of dollars have been made by IMers from search traffic? I obviously do not have the stats, but I would bet that Google has made IMers MORE money than any other source. Google is the single largest contributor to IMers stuffing their wallets.

Things change, and they can change fast. SEO writing is not what it was 2-3 years ago, certainly not what it was before panda/penguin. SEO writing must be more natural, now. Wait another 2-3 years and see how sophisticated Google's algo becomes.

Hell yea you should make your site and writing SEO friendly. Why wouldn't you? For in 2014 and beyond, Google is getting way better at figuring all of this stuff out. SEO writing and pure article writing do not occupy different spheres like they have in recent past, and that is because of all of the PhD engineers, mathematicians, linguists, etc., working at Google.

To me, a big part of SEO writing is nothing more than being cognizant of the different keywords and long tails that could produce a result where your article is served up in the SERPS. Yet, from reading this site, one could walk away with the notion that doing things like keyword research, longtail reasearch, etc., before composing the article is stupid, a waste of time, and the hallmark of a poorly written article, as well as a poor business plan and model. That doing so somehow means you are no longer writing for people and the the resulting article will be of a lesser quality.

Nonsense. If one is a skilled writer, this is simply FALSE, for with a well written article, there is NO DEGRADATION in quality for optimizing for certain words and phrases.

To completely ignore SEO when authoring an article is silly, to me, for with a skilled writer, there is no real discernible difference to the reader between an article that was written for an offline source and one that was written knowing that Google WILL read it, too, in addition to the human readers, and has been 'optimized' for certain words, phrases, and structure. But there will be a difference to Google ...

Google is the single largest traffic source for the Net. More people are sent to websites from Google's advice than any other source. Not keeping the SERPs and what people type into the Google search bar in your mind as you write is shortsighted and could cost you money, potentially a lot, over the course of time.

I'm on the band wagon of bashing the SEO article writing of recent past with all of the stuffing, spinning, and $5 articles from not the most talented writers. But yesterday ain't today.

It is NO problem for a skilled writer to incorporate SEO principles into their writing. It does not affect readability or any other measure of a 'good' article. Part of that is because of all of those smart people at Google and what Google wants to serve up. Google does NOT want to serve up keyword stuffed, spun, poorly written content.

People that just continue their knee-jerk reactions and condemn 'writing for the SERPs', need to get with the times. SEO writing is not an either/or proposition like it has been in the past - either a quality article or a poorly written, keyword stuffed, and then spun and thrown out to multiple places article. Google wants to serve up your well written, written for humans, authoritative type article. I don't understand why some get so pissy about being aware of this and doing the little things with your writing that will help Google do this, for there are NO NEGATIVE effects for doing so, only positive potential upside. Again, SEO writing today isn't keyword stuffing and spinning, etc., so SEO does not equal poorly written content by less than skilled writers.

Yea, focus on consistent and profitable traffic sources other than Google, certainly when starting out, but for all of this talk about a 'real business model' from people who bash Google as a traffic source, well, I don't understand it. Sounds way more bitter than logical, to me, for there is only upside to writing optimized articles.

And since you want to do some freelancing (I think I saw you mention that elsewhere), many of your potential clients are wanting SEO articles, so I would educate yourself on the subject and practice the craft of SEO writing for a post panda/penguin world, despite the cries of those who bash Google as a traffic source. Many of your potential clients are quite concerned with SEO, for very good reasons, so you need to be able to provide them with what they want.

For your original question, I think there is a difference, but not like there was in recent past. I further think it silly and shortsighted to completely ignore what Google might think of your article when the spiders crawl it, like some writers here do.

The only difference is that SEO writing need to add few targeted keywords to the article. Nothing else.

If you can combine the two and write engaging articles that are well optimized, then that's the best.

When trying to write optimized articles that don't add any value then you're going to suffer eventually.

I also have a blog, and i just write long articles, i don't care about ranking in Google as it's not my main business. Perhaps i could get more traffic, but i feel comfortable writing articles that my audience likes. No hard feelings to the people that do keyword research and all, i just don't care.

Article marketing is writing articles that appeal to people in your niche.

SEO writing is writing for the "search engines". You need both let me explain why.

It's best to write for humans and not SEO. It's also good to have keywords in their.

But don't make it too obvious or else it'll be detected as spam.

Just focus on posting good quality content that has the keywords you need it'll be a win/win.

Yes, there is difference. Telling a writer you'd like to commission an "article" is like going onto a car lot and telling the salesman you want to buy a vehicle. You may end up driving off the lot with something, but it may not be the right vehicle for the job you had in mind.

So it is with structuring an article properly to optimize it to meet the end objective of what you want to use it for.

SEO is a specialty form of writing, and an art of itself. The key is to find balance in blending the keywords seamlessly for a natural sounding final product -- one that pleases both the reader AND the search engines. Too many people in their quest for SEO Nirvana tend to focus on the latter at the detriment to the former - and readers (and sales) suffer accordingly.

Actually article is a way of SEO. The main intend is to increase the rank of the both Article & SEO. So I think they are similar with each other. There is no specific difference between these two.

Normal Article Writing = No need of any keyword research + Can talk anything in general

SEO Article Writing = Targeting keywords in the article + Market your product or service

There is difference between writing article for a book or article directory versus my money site. So yes there is a lot of difference.

SEO writing is a condensed, targeted offshoot of traditional writing forms.
While,In traditional writing, the emphasis is on expressing ideas and relaying information, usually with a unique flair that is enjoyable for the reader. This desire for a rich style runs throughout many different traditional writing mediums—from daily newspapers to literary novels.

My eyes, my beautiful blue eyes, they burn! This thread has got to be one of the most painful reads I have experienced in quite a while.

Worse still, now I don't know maths.

-Chris