A discussion about SEO came up on my forum recently, to which I replied with a suggestion that copy should be written for both search engines and visitors… and I recommended Karon Thackston’s SEO Copywriting Course (which is excellent, by the way).

Following that reply, I was asked: Have you seen this post by Brian Clark: SEO Copywriting is Dead? I have to admit, that piqued my interest! So I went to take a look…

The gist of the argument is that when it comes to search rankings, what’s written on a web page is less important than what other people say about that web page, and how many times.

It all comes down to links.

Brian brings us to the point that writing for the visitor is the ultimate goal, because it is the visitor that will link to your content - or blog about your content. Obviously these links will help your content pages to rank better, but the idea is to encourage ‘natural linking’. Which means you simply focus on writing incredible content, and the ranking will happen as a natural result.

What this article basically says is that quality content, human appeal and networking within your niche are the keys to both success and rankings. I couldnt agree more. I think that all too often people put entirely too much emphasis on ‘SEO’ and not near enough on developing a quality web presence.

But the key is balance - and this is relevant whether we are talking about Blogs or static HTML websites. If you ‘forget SEO’ altogether, and simply ‘write’, then you are missing out on a huge opportunity for free targeted traffic.

Obviously “if I write it, they will come” is not a true statement. We do have to take SEO factors into consideration when creating new web pages - though I agree that this should not be the primary focus. Its something you do when you create the page, and then you are ‘done’. After that it is all about content & networking.

My own strategy goes something like this:

• Research relevant keywords (which can be done in a matter of seconds using a free tool).
• Use keyword phrases in the Title of your blog post, or in the Title Bar and text headers on your web page.
• Link to this web page using keyword-rich Link Text (if you are blogging, the Title becomes your text link, so you get the same result).
• Network on the topic (technorati, blogs, forums, related sites, etc)

The outline in the article is the same basic outline that I use with all of my new sites - and certainly with my blogs. I do the basic optimization… then I write, write, write… then network, network, network… then write, write, write.

It doesnt make any sense to ‘forget SEO’ altogether. As little time as it takes to ‘optimize’ a web page (or a blog post), it would be foolish to disregard it altogether. But at the same time, I agree that a stronger focus should be placed on the quality of your content and on grabbing the attention of your target market.

Of course, Brian agrees with me on that point, as he closes with:

There’s no reason to completely ignore things like keywords in your writing. For one thing, it can influence the anchor text that is used to link to you, which is a good thing.

For example, take this post. It’s got the keyword phrase “seo copywriting” in the post title, and yet the headline still manages to be provocative. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t strive for human titillation and keyword relevancy.

Blogs are naturally ’search engine friendly’. If you write something worth reading, it’s going to get talked about and linked to. If you dont, it wont. And in the end, Google is more interested in what other people have to say about you… than they are with what you have to say.

Tags: seo, copywriting, seo copywriting, brian clark, karon thackston, keywords, blogging