Keyword Use and Search Engine Optimization

Blogging and article writing for the web have two things in common:

• Must be keyword rich comment without appearing to be “stuffed”
• Content must be compelling enough that readers come back again and again

How do you know when you have the right amount of keywords embedded in your work to keep the SEO spiders hungry for more and not overstuffed? First, if the writing is natural and flows normally, the spiders will be happy and will return again and again.  Keyword stuffing is a naughty practice of unethical bloggers who are trying to drive adsense dollars to their site. Fortunately, this ends up backfiring for many of these smarty pants bloggers and they get their blogs banned if they continue to misbehave.

Keyword stuffing is when you use words over and over in a way that the work is impossibly silly to read. For example, if you were to encounter the following sentence what would be your gut reaction:

John went to John’s uncle’s store to buy John’s mother a can of beans and John’s sister a bag of chips and John a pack of gum.

What keyword do you think the author was trying to embed? No one speaks or writes this way naturally. The spider’s know this and really resent landing on these types of sites.

Keywords should appear in your title, headings, and scattered naturally as they occur in your writing. Writing well is important. Engage your audience by offering value through your words. This will keep the audience returning to your work again and again and the spiders will still get fed.

Sticky Secrets of Blog Headlines and Blog Titles

Blog titles, blog headlines, and blog sub-headlines need to be ”sticky” for SEO spiders to crawl in and out of your work and catalog the content. Becoming a master of stickiness is much like become a master of yoga…you better be ready to put in the effort, study, and practice or you won’t make the cut!  

Creating sticky titles and headlines takes a little bit of familiarity with the key words and ideas that are popular search terms in your niche on the web. This is not really a closely guarded secret. With a little research in Google and other Search Engines you will find what works best for driving traffic to your blog and expanding your audience.

Sticky Headlines:

1.   Incites interest – Titles that are provocative or controversial stimulate the reader’s interest. They act to inflame the emotions of the reader who feels compelled to stay and read.
2.   Questions and Queries – Headlines that ask questions and raise uncertainty keep the reader hooked.  They will continue to read until resolution is achieved. These readers want answers and will hang around as long as they think the writer is working toward one.
3.  Benefits – Readers want to know that they will gain some kernel of information or knowledge from your work. They will hang around as long as there is something in it for them that promotes, assists, or gives them an advantage in their world. 
4.  Power Words – Certain types of words appeal to readers who are looking for a bargain, a particular benefit, or are trying to solve a problem. Words like ‘benefits,’ ‘rewards,’ ‘secret’ and ‘free’ all make readers pause. If you reveal a secret or provide breaking news you will capture reader attention.

Accurate, clear and concise titles that truly relate to your main topic are crucial to the success of your individual blog entries. Think of each headline as a definition of your article. If you stick to that and use keywords that define your article’s content you will attract readers and search engines.

Longer titles are often more persuasive giving readers the extra “hook” that gets them to stick around and read the content. Make sure the title is not so long that the keywords are lost on the reader. People scan headlines they don’t really read them carefully. Make the title jump out and grab the reader, holding their interest.   

Shannon Evans, senior editor of www.mywritingmentor.com lives with her best friend Rick on Bainbridge Island in the Puget Sound just a “ferry ride from Seattle.” She works at her desk with her two Labrador virtual assistants, Mocha and Luke, and her feline copywriting assistants, Caesar and Yoda. She is widely recognized as one of the top writing coaches to authors of non-fiction.