SEO – The Balance Between Keywords and Content
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is one of those phrases that often gets SMEs into a cold sweat. They can become so preoccupied with the notion that everything has to be optimised within an inch of its life, that they can easily lose focus on what really matters. Simply put, content is King.
It’s a mantra I believe is the most important thing when it comes to writing your businesses corporate copy – and by corporate copy I mean everything written about your business, from traditional mission statements, to your website, to your social media presence; your company's public face revolves around its copy.
There’s nothing worse than logging onto a website and reading stale, clunky copy that has so obviously been written to include as many keywords as possible, it no longer resembles English. Instead, it reads like a badly translated set of instructions. It’s lazy, frustrating and a huge turn off to your readers, but crucially it’s not going to help your page rank higher up the search engine listings. Indeed, ‘keyword stuffing’ more often than not, backfires.
The key is to balance well written, fresh content with carefully placed SEO keywords that enhance the copy, rather than take away from it. The keywords have to fit in naturally with the copy, so that the reader is practically unaware of their presence. This not only improves the readability of the copy, but it’s a big YES for Google when they are ranking your pages. Here’s a simple example below -
Let’s say I want to optimise a blog post with the term ‘blogging tips.’
Example 1 – ‘Looking for some top blogging tips? Then check out these helpful blogging tips that will improve your blogging in an instant. These blogging tips are the quick and easy way to improve your blogging. Read our blogging tips below’
See what I mean? Keyword stuffing leads to badly written content that will turn readers off and won’t gain you any brownie points with Google either.
Instead, a sharp, fresh sentence with a naturally placed keyword wins hands down.
Example 2 – ‘Check out our blogging tips, packed with clever insider advice and hints on how to optimise your corporate blogging for your audience.’
If you’d like to chat about how I can help bring your corporate copy to life, then please email me.
