A Deadly Web Writing Search Engine Optimization Myth

Written by Joel Walsh


Continued from page 1

As a website copywriter, I hear this myth repeated back to me allrepparttar time by new clients and prospects. "Don't bother search-engine-optimizingrepparttar 138820 content," they say. "Just make sure it is well written andrepparttar 138821 keywords will flow naturally intorepparttar 138822 content." Self-styled gurus constantly repeat, "don’t write forrepparttar 138823 search engines, write for people who will be reading what you write"--as if there were necessarily a conflict of interest between SEO and humans.

If you're one ofrepparttar 138824 people who says that, you're operating under two misconceptions:

  • Misconception 1: you know more about what people want to read onrepparttar 138825 web thanrepparttar 138826 search engines do.
  • Misconception 2: you know more about both search engine optimization and what people want to read onrepparttar 138827 web thanrepparttar 138828 people who making a living out of this stuff.

Search engines know more about your website visitors than you do

"I want a well-written web page, not a list of keywords." It frightens me a bit when I hear this, since it demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of both SEO and what search engines do.

A search engine is not simply a massive find function, likerepparttar 138829 one inrepparttar 138830 "Edit" menu of Microsoft applications. It does not just pull up any page that hasrepparttar 138831 keyword in it X number of times. If it did, all pages that show up on search engine results would simply contain a list ofrepparttar 138832 keywords. You see, you're notrepparttar 138833 only one who would like to rank high in search engines. If there were an easy trick to do it that didn't involve expending resources on good content, you would have been beaten torepparttar 138834 punch.

Ultimately, writing forrepparttar 138835 search engines means writing for web surfers. Think about it: services like Google thrive on giving peoplerepparttar 138836 pages they want to read. If they consistently failed to give people what they wanted, people would stop using them.

Writing what people want to read onrepparttar 138837 web

Most ofrepparttar 138838 time, people don't want to read onrepparttar 138839 web. Reading on a screen hurtsrepparttar 138840 eyes. It doesn't help that a lot of web pages make it harder with text that's too small, backgrounds that are colored rather than white, and lots of extraneous graphics. Besides, an unfortunate amount of what’s onrepparttar 138841 web isn’t worth reading, and there is an overabundance of choice. Time must be rationed.

In fact, people treat a web page much as a search engine does: they scan it. In particular, they scan it forrepparttar 138842 keywords they entered intorepparttar 138843 search engine. If they arrived via a link from another website, they are still looking for keywords related to their interest--which are generallyrepparttar 138844 same asrepparttar 138845 keywords people enter into search engines.

In short, Nobel-prize-winning literature makes bad web content. You have to write specifically forrepparttar 138846 web. That's whyrepparttar 138847 web hasn't fueled much of a resurgence inrepparttar 138848 short story or other literary writing, dashing many hopes. Ebook versions of paper books have also disappointed expectations. Newspapers arerepparttar 138849 only paper publications that have made a smooth online transition, precisely because they are written to be scanned rather than read word-for-word.

Still think good SEO web content makes for bad reading?

You've just read almost torepparttar 138850 end of a piece of search-engine-optimized web content. This article was optimized forrepparttar 138851 keywords, "SEO," "search engine," "search engines," "keyword," "keywords," "search engine optimization," and "writing."

The keywords were present in headings and throughoutrepparttar 138852 content. The content itself is easy to scan: paragraphs of one-three sentences, broken up by sub-headings every four paragraphs or so, and keywords in boldface.

Naturally, those keywords are too competitive for this page to have a chance of ranking high in Google for them. But they will help with allrepparttar 138853 atypical search keywords that account for as many as half of all searches. So, if someone types in a phrase like, "keyword writing search engine optimized content," this page would have a pretty good chance of showing up.

To be sure, this article is onrepparttar 138854 long side for a web page. Most people won’t even scan more than 600 words of text; 300-500 is ideal. But this article is destined primarily to be shown in an email newsletter, where attention spans are longer since people are more confidentrepparttar 138855 source ofrepparttar 138856 content can be trusted to repay their investment of time. Besides, as a well-structured page, it can be split into two or three pages according torepparttar 138857 subheadings.

In short, there’s much more to writing well forrepparttar 138858 web than just writing well. If you’ve had enough sense to have your web content written professionally, have enough sense to takerepparttar 138859 advice of most website copywriters: search-engine-optimization for keywords and good web writing arerepparttar 138860 same thing.



About the author
Joel Walsh is the head website copywriter for UpMarket Content. He suggests you visit this web page to get SEO website content copywriting services or information: http://upmarketcontent.com/seo-content.htm




Yes, Muffin, There Is a DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act)

Written by Joel Walsh


Continued from page 1

An open letter to a web content copyright violator who pled ignorance torepparttar DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act).

Dear "Muffin,"

You don't know me, and I don't know you, except that you are a thief, and a pretty shameless one at that. Please, don't take offense at that. If you'll recall, you already admitted to being a thief in a public web message board. The topic ofrepparttar 138819 message board wasrepparttar 138820 Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA).

Let me refresh your memory with what you wrote:

"I've use some picture from japanese artist on my web and this morning i've receive email about to sued me..... I never hear about DMCA before....PLEASE....i don't know what to do...."

Funny thing was, your message almost made it sound like you were a victim.

Muffin, not only were you not a victim, you were very, very lucky. You see, your victims actually asked you nicely to stop stealing from them. They even implied they wouldn't call inrepparttar 138821 cops if you stopped stealing and promised not to do it again.

Muffin, let's conduct a little life experiment: next time you’re in a shop, walk outrepparttar 138822 door with a bit of merchandise stuffed down your trousers. It doesn't have to be anything too expensive. Just make sure it has some kind of inventory-control tag sorepparttar 138823 people who runrepparttar 138824 shop will be sure to know what you've done, because that'srepparttar 138825 whole point of this experiment.

You see, Muffin, more than likely--and I mean, much, much, more than likely--the shopkeepers will not just ask you nicely to take their merchandise out of your trousers and put it back onrepparttar 138826 shelf. You might even have to pay for that stuff! Heck, if they really are out to victimize you, they might even callrepparttar 138827 police! Seriously!

Muffin, I have to be honest: I would not be so nice to you asrepparttar 138828 people you stole from. You see, I'm one of those crazy creative types who actually create stuff from scratch or maybe pay for it rather than just take it off someone else's website. (I know, if all of us creative types were as smart as you we'd all save a lot of time just copying stuff rather than putting it out there for other people to…ouch! Excuse me, I think I just stumbled over a logical paradox.)

You see, Muffin, I'm a writer, and a pretty generous one. I even let people put most ofrepparttar 138829 articles I write on their websites for free. All I ask for is that atrepparttar 138830 end ofrepparttar 138831 article, they leave inrepparttar 138832 little link to my site I include there.

Muffin, would you believe there are people who put my article on their site withoutrepparttar 138833 link to my site?

And when I told those site owners about their mistake, some of them just tookrepparttar 138834 article down off their sites! As if that undidrepparttar 138835 fact that they had already been using my article and making money by showing advertisements next to it.

The owners of those websites were not as lucky as you, Muffin. You see, I'm likerepparttar 138836 shopkeeper who doesn't just politely ask you to putrepparttar 138837 stuff back onrepparttar 138838 shelf. No, I called inrepparttar 138839 police.

More torepparttar 138840 point, I called in Google. You can read Google’s official policy here: http://www.google.com/dmca.html Yes, that's dmca as in DMCA, as inrepparttar 138841 Digital Millenium Copyright Act.

Don't worry, Google lets you file a counter-complaint when someone reports you as a DMCA violator. And you can feel free to email your counter-complaint to allrepparttar 138842 people who won't find your site when they do a web search.

Of course, I didn't just send a message to Google's legal department. You see, some of those thieves' websites were even showing Google Adsense advertisements. Note that I said *were* showingrepparttar 138843 advertisments. You see, Google's Adsense TOS doesn’t take as rosy a view of copyright violations as you do, Muffin.

The companies that owned those websites' internet hosting servers didn't like being accessories to crime, either.

Well, Muffin, in closing let me just introduce you to a PDF ofrepparttar 138844 Digital Millenium Copyright Act: http://www.copyright.gov/legislation/dmca.pdf Sadly, this definitively means you can't say anymore that you have never heard ofrepparttar 138845 DMCA.

But maybe you can still try telling shopkeepers you never heard of shoplifting?



About the author
Joel Walsh is the owner and head writer of UpMarket Content (upmarketcontent.com), Check out the website promotion content package by clicking here: http://upmarketcontent.com/website-promotion-package.htm.




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