I can’t even remember how I came across this blog post on DaveFleet.com but it’s a discussion on whether or not SEO could devalue news releases.
Dave does an excellent job conveying the aspect of SEO sheep within his post.
My problem with this, as with many SEO principles in general, is that people will take it to an extreme. They’ll follow the advice like sheep and will force inappropriate keywords (read: jargon) into their writing, and their products (and clients) will suffer.
Sure, these releases may rank highly for some words but so what? People arrive, see a poorly written release or page, fail to find what they want and leave. It’s a cheap tactic – one that’s no better than spamming people with emails.
When I read that paragraph, I wanted to shake Dave’s hand as that is how I feel about SEO in general. As I’ve always pointed out, SEO is not hard. Why people spend thousands of dollars on an SEO guru is beyond me. I have yet to spend a dime and Jeffro2pt0.com shows up on the first page of search results for things that I have written about. No optimization needed.
As for news releases? I don’t want to read a news release which contains a bunch of keyword stuffing crap. Instead, the release should be relevant, useful and to the point so as not to waste the readers time. Dave hits the nail on the head when he says, “Just Write Well“.
It doesn’t matter if it’s a news release, blog post, book, story, forum post, just write it well and everything else will fall into place. It’s worked for me and no, you won’t have to hire me as an SEO consultant for $500.00 an hour for me to repeat this common sense.
Three golden steps of SEO:
- Write Well – Writing well can make or break content. The best of both worlds is writing well while injecting a sprinkling of keywords into the content. There is nothing wrong with adding specialized keywords into your content just so long as they don’t take away from the article/release.
- Be As Relevant As Possible To The Niche You Are Writing About – It’s all about relevancy. From the blog title, meta site description tags and meta keywords, it’s about taking everything your site has to offer and making it relevant towards whatever niche you are writing about. For example, if you are writing a tech blog, don’t write about popculture events or if Brittany Spears is back in rehab. Also, don’t use hundreds of keywords in your meta tag area. This will penalize your site in the search results.
- Write Unique, Desirable Content – This one is pretty self explanatory. If the content you write is unique, chances are, people will link to it. This creates back links and will propel your content ahead of others. The desirable content is content that your audience wants. Find out what your audience needs and provide that to them. Desirable content will also aide in generating back links if your content covers a wide audience.
Do those three things on a consistent basis and I guarantee you’ll notice a spike in organic search engine traffic.
Thoughts and Insanity From Jeff 
I think the duration of the domain as in how long the domain has been active also plays a part.
I’m blushing. Thanks!
Oh, and… I agree :)
Jeff, it is really great to hear that I am not alone with the idea that SEO is no rocket science and that the three points you mention at the end of this article + good web development skills is everything one would ever have to know in order to create good websites that are appreciated by the readers and the search engines.
It is really interesting to read how some SEO “experts” have convinced the big media to publish content just for the sake of keywords: about telegraph.co.uk, another view.
Actually, proper SEO copy writing is a challenging task, but I think you just learn how to do it time. I mean, for English writing, there is always a way to write a genius article for human beings, loaded full with desired keywords for googlebots. Trust me, this thing doesn’t go as easy when it comes to more complicated grammar, like French, German, or Polish!
I have been listening to these so called SEO experts and their podcasts. Most of them have some good ideas but their implementation is pretty much over the top. I personally value my reputation and value my customers privacy. Most of their techniques border on spam or whatever you want to call it, it is just annoying. They are very sneaky with their techniques. I feel that if you have a good product and present it in a professional manner, you and your website will rise to the top.
Most of these experts are just out to make a quick buck, if their techniques work so well, then why do they need to hack them on the internet. I know there are some good people, that are trying to do some real consulting work. These people get a black eye from the swindlers. Most of the this isn’t rocket science, it is just good business sense. They say that the internet is different and you have to market differently, but that doesn’t mean we become pains in the rears for our potential customers or communities. Just my two cents worth.
My thoughts exactly. If you have a good product, a good website, and just continue to please readers/customers, who needs SEO? Things will end up taking care of themselves. That is what happened to me and this blog so I can vouch for the technique to work. I don’t even care about SEO for this site.
I totally agree with your concept. Selecting the proper keywords is important, and making your content related to the keywords is vital. It is also important to get high-quality incoming links in order to get organic listings in the search engines; however, if your content is desirable, that will happen without a lot of effort.
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