SEO and Writing

SEO and Writing

This article is intended to clear up a few details regarding SEO. The plan of SEO attack can be different for small and big websites. For example, for small websites with limited  pages, the influencing factors are a good domain name, good page titles, proper keywording and content, proper text tagging(like h1, h2) good link structure(incoming and outgoing) and sitemap. For large websites, many of the same rules apply, but a plan is must also be implemented starting at the home page. Then, the development process must be considered; such as blogs, forums and custom pages. There is much more to consider, but this is a place to start.

Small Websites
As mentioned above, the plan of attack is outlined. The results will be be limited since the site does not expand.

Large Websites
Large websites really hold much more power than small websites. With more pages, much more internal linking can take place and many more keywords can link together. For example, this website(less than 1 year old) has only one dominant author and its overall Internet traffic ranking is often much better than many other web development / seo companies with a team. Why? Because one technical writer can outdo a team.

Why? Well, here is some history. Before the web had blossomed, our blogger had began as a writer using a desktop computer running DOS. With intentions and determination to being a published writer, practice was the key ingredient. To make a long story short, it took about 3, 40,000 word books with text, images and perfect grammar before writing perfect copyedited material was possible. Until that time, organizing paragraphs, cutting and pasting sentences into the appropriate spot and making sure the text flowed was quite time consuming.

Alternatively, I believe a good creative writer from University is the closest thing to someone who is qualified as a blogger. Although they may lack some tricks about tags and writing text, they have a better chance to do what really counts…producing thousands of good words per day.

By comparison, if I wrote this article when I was starting to write(after 3 years of University and passing English ECT) it would have taken the better part of a frustrating day. This approximate 500-word article took about 15 minutes to write, edit typos and publish. It is not perfect, but Google will index it very quickly(without a sitemap) and search engines will find new, copyrighted material. At 500-words in 15 minutes, 1500 words an hour is possible with bathroom and coffee breaks. In three hours that could be the equivalent of a 5000 word term paper for a 4th year final.

Does this help reinforce some more truths about SEO? I am just trying to help explain the truth since it could be hard to see the bigger picture, especially if many SEO companies are annoying spammers who seem to focus on ‘Trix’ rather than truth.

In today’s era, so much focus regarding SEO is about magical techniques, Google algorithms, etc. But, such little focus is about getting the words to the page.

All in all, I believe a skilled writer is sitting in a much better position to create SEO content than a staff with inadequate writers that knows SEO. You can look around and it seems obvious that many people entering web design, web development and SEO are not skilled writers, but, rather more focussed on assembling a website.

As a person who has experience in web design, web development, SEO, blogging, technical writing, I can honestly say that being a decent web content writer is no easier than being a good web developer. Being a good web designer is the easiest of the three. Take that comparison lightly since I am just speaking from experience.

February 18, 2011 by kent