Are you writing for (search engine) spiders? Take a quick look at this copy:
This article provides free writing tips, so be sure to check out this free writing tips article if you are interested in free writing tips.
Does that writing style sound familiar? I’m sure anyone familiar with search engine optimization and SEO copywriting realizes that an article with such an “introduction” is (desperately) optimized for the term “free writing tips.”
But is this approach one that actually works?
Will Search Engines Spiders Subscribe to Your Feed or Newsletter?
It surprises me that a lot of innocent webmasters think that this is a healthy on-page SEO approach and that the results will be great. They read about SEO from all sorts of reliable sources and decide to implement some of the tips.
Let’s take blogging as an example and see what results you can expect. Let’s forget for a moment that search engines will likely view an introduction such as the one above as low-quality, and good luck getting any organic links to that type of content, which you’ll need to rank.
Let’s pretend instead that it’s actually smart SEO. What happens from the perspective of your loyal site visitors and subscribers?
It’s only natural that once your readers realize you are no longer providing quality content and shifting instead to useless keyword-filled articles, they will not be thrilled to stick around. As a result, only a handful of your initial readers will continue to follow your website, if that many.
Let’s also see things from the perspective of a visitor who finds you through a search engine. Yes, that person drops by, but once she sees that your content is keyword-stuffed garbage, she leaves and never looks back.
Is Short-Term Thinking the Way to Go?
Are you willing to risk losing most of your loyal visitors for some short-term search benefits? Even if an approach such as the one I’ve mentioned would work, it can only be seen as something short-term. What happens once the inevitable occurs and you no longer rank well?
Your initial loyal subscribers are gone and the ones coming from search engines don’t stick around. As you can see, the results are definitely not worthwhile and that’s why you need to wake up and understand how things actually stand.
Subscribers Come Before Spiders
A business model that doesn’t provide value at its core won’t get you anywhere. Building upon a shaky foundation is never a good idea, and that applies to being a webmaster just as it does everywhere else.
A business model built on a targeted audience of loyal subscribers, on the other hand, leads to many possibilities. So concentrate on building your fan club.
Stop searching for shortcuts and work towards establishing a solid foundation worth building upon. You don’t write for search engines and you most definitely don’t write for spiders. You write for human beings and try to convert them into loyal subscribers. And human beings are, without a doubt, interested in quality content.
So who are you writing for? Do the needs of subscribers always come first or are you still looking for a quick-fix and chasing after something that simply isn’t there?
About the Author: Alan Johnson is the author of The Online Business Handbook.
