I received a very challenging question today from a reader of mine named, Don, who has a blog called Essential Health Nuggets. He is faced with a situation I am sure many people are faced with. He is passionate about his natural writing and feels turned off with the idea of changing his style to conform in a way that will enable him to rank better in the search engines. Basically in the email he wants to know if he should continue to write using the style that is comfortable for him, or if he should change his style which will enable him to possibly rank better in the search engines, but cause him to be unhappy. Here is a copy of his email:
Hi Garry
Thanks for your friendly approach. Ok then …
My question is: I find writing to be “spider friendly” is artificial and a departure from one’s natural style. But I also realize that there is minimal organic traffic without bowing to the SEO Gods.
Do I stay with my gut and just write what comes naturally … or do I shoot for a keyword density of 2%, download a bunch of keyword software and spend my days doing something I really hate?
Surely at the end of the day there is more value in unfabricated content?
My blog is at http://essentialhealthnuggets.blogspot.com
I update twice a week and get between 10 and 70 visitors a day … and I make zero bucks!
Many thanks
Don
Here are my thoughts. Most search engines, especially Google, illustrates the importance of natural writing. I have to agree. While I have experience with writing content in a way that is geared towards pulling rank in the search engines, learning how to adapt your writing style can be tricky.
Instead of changing your writing style there are actually other things that you can do towards optimizing your articles to rank better in the search engines. One of the most important things you can do is with giving your article an excellent post title.
If you are more comfortable writing off the cuff then my advice would be to name your article after you finish writing it. Re-read what you wrote and summarize your article giving it a title which would also be something that a user would be likely to search for in a search engine.
I often ponder that question myself. I had an interesting experience not long ago. A frind of mine was surfing as I watched. He typed in a search term to google and then went right for the top listing, I asked what was so appealing about the first listing, he said nothing and then as I watched he went through all the top five above the fold, scanned and went onto the next. So It appears in this case it was really a matter of a surfer type habit, just clicking on each listing and scanning till he found what he was looking. My girlfriend tends to look at the url below the description of the listing. What odd about that is that she is very web savvy, she thinks the titles are some how manipulated to grab your attention and prefers the url “description” weird huh. Mind you she spent an hour referring back to a vegas MFA page, LOL she must have that guy a small fortune. She thought the adsense blocks were an actual directory of vegas links. I should really dig up that page I have it saved in my faves some where and post it