Stop talking and start saying something!

I was reading a post on an SEO Google+ community I belong to about the modern way to keyword stuff for search engines. For those that don’t know, keyword stuffing as it was back in the day, is the act of placing a bunch of keywords in a web page for no other purpose than to attract search engines and to trick them into thinking a page is about whatever keywords are being “stuffed”. Often those keyword stuffed pages weren’t really about the keyword, or didn’t have any quality content to fully support the use of it. Less often, the page actually provided quality content. By throwing more fluff into an overstuffed bag of crappy content, the disservice it does to search as a whole is a burden to everyone. The person searching for information must weed through all the garbage to find something of value. Those with something valuable to say have a hard time being found through all the garbage. It’s Lose – lose.

Just a few things I try and keep in mind when writing content:

• Write for PEOPLE – *Ahem*… Writing for search engines may get people to your site, but won’t engage them. So what’s the point?
• Write genuinely, as if you were talking to someone – people see through staged content and will tune it out.
• Write without rambling – the internet is full of short attention spans.
• Impart wisdom, not a sales pitch – Your potential customer is not looking to steal your job, they’re looking for a reason to trust you. So give them a reason to believe you know what you’re doing by telling them how you do it (unless it’s a trade secret of course).
• Include unique visuals – Stock photos are so transparent. We all know that’s not you! I took a picture of my own hand writing this post for this post. And hey, now you all kinda know how messy my desk is.

Got some other ideas? Would love to hear about them! Until then, please please please write for people and put an end to keyword stuffing and writing for solely search engines!