Do Content Writers Really Need to Think about SEO?

Do Content Writers Really Need to Think about SEO?

Reader Comments (14)

  1. In my mind, people need to think about distribution more than content. If you’re planning to win based upon quality alone, well… plan to wait a very long time.

    • Sure, but if you have great distribution on crap, you just get the word out faster about how crappy you are. Which can work (clickbait), but we’re not the ones to teach people how to make it work, because we find it grim and depressing.

      We never recommend that a content creator ignore promoting and distribution. But it can’t be either/or. You need them both.

  2. Great post, Sonia, and I loved the The Big SEO Myth! There’s a common misconception that being search optimized and providing original, reader-focused content are mutually exclusive. Nothing is further from the truth!

    Google is all about relevance to the searcher. It looks for great content that is original, helpful and answers questions. It’s not about keyword stuffing and robotic, unoriginal writing. For the content writer, it should be about providing reader value, writing in terms the reader understands (and would search for) and then giving some thought to good web and search formatting. It doesn’t hinder great and original content writing in any way. Thanks for addressing that.

  3. This is a great, great article.

    Often the penalties Google enacts for high volume scammers spooks white hat good guys into over-policing (and over-thinking) their own work.

    And even some of the SEO best practices everyone agrees on are unnecessary for 90% of us.

    For example, keyword research is for SEO professionals working for clients, because we don’t know the high intent questions a prospect will ask. But the business owner, or sales guy – they know in their bones which objections or interests an article should touch on.

  4. SEO just means making it easy to know what you’re writing about instead of waiting for someone to find brilliant scraps of paper in your pockets and dubbing you the next Emily Dickinson. Be easy for humans to find and comprehend, and Google’s gotten good enough to rank you accordingly. It’s so much easier this way, too.

  5. A timely article Sonia πŸ™‚ I often get asked by copywriters “how much SEO” they should focus on, I always tell them “none”. Just tell a great, robust story about the subject… and if there is any SEO work to be done, I can tweak the content later πŸ™‚
    *thanks for sharing your post Sonia πŸ™‚

  6. Is it also a myth that you need to publish constantly, even if you have nothing new to say?

  7. I actually love the fact that the evolution of the algorithms means that your biggest job as a content writer using SEO is to, you know, write good quality content that people actually want to read and will find useful. Google’s goal – to serve quality content – is actually pretty well aligned with the goal of content writers – to produce useful stuff. Hooray!

  8. Hey Sonia!

    Great topic to talk about. I think sometimes bloggers and writers can get too lost in the SEO game and forget what actually matters; genuinely helping the people in the niche.

    Now, we have Google RankBrain, which is an AI, and with this new algorithm factor keywords and backlinks are no longer so important in order to rank high in the SERPS.

    What’s more important to remember is that if you want Google to rank your content high you should take great care of their number one priority and that is their Searcher, their User. Google would not be as successful today if it wasn’t for the people using their tool. Take great care of these people and Google will take great care of you, πŸ˜‰

    Thank you for sharing this!

    Best regards! πŸ˜€

  9. Sonia,

    Now I learned a new word: canonical! πŸ˜‰

    I am more of a pundit blogger, so I mainly write short to the point blog posts, instead of long essays.

    What is your take on transcripts from a podcast? Is that good SEO for modern content marketers? I am in favor of organic SEO for the long run.

  10. Hey Sonia,
    Great thoughts about SEO.
    When it comes to content SEO, it really annoys me. I think most of the new bloggers hold them back from start blogging because of the fear of SEO.

    In my opinion, it’s nothing but finding the keyword phrases readers search on the web and writing content based on those keywords.

    When I write, I just write for my readers and use the keyword to make my writing understandable to my readers.

    However, thank you for sharing the post.

    -Liton

  11. Hi Sonia,
    This has been proved very useful; thank you for posting! We have been postings blog posts on nutrition for some time but didn’t really take into consideration the relevant practices and optimising it for SEO. We only wanted our content to be useful for our readers. Well now we have to make sure that is also optimised for the search engines. Thanks again

  12. SEO is all about good habits, once you are used to following those habits it’s second nature to apply them when writing content either for yourself or for others. Eventually it gets to the point when you’d have to decide not to follow your best practices for it not to happen when writing!

    Writing for your audience (as mentioned) is the most important thing, then you can go through and link to anything that’s relevant in the copy.

  13. Dear Sonia, thank you very much for sharing this great piece of information with us. I have always worried about google penalties. Especially the duplicate content. So I’m being careful. It was a relief to see your tips.

This article's comments are closed.