Starting an online business nowadays is really a promising thing. I’d say we are lucky to be in this age where we have so many tools, resources and outlets to the word out.
It doesn’t matter if we run a completely web based business or if we have a brick and mortar business that has a web property - gaining online visibility matters a lot.
While that is really important on the one hand, you should also think about user experience on the other hand - and these two should be given equal weight when creating a business blog or website and writing copy.
You should aim at offering user experience rather than thinking about ranking higher on search engines - but I am not saying that you should totally ignore SEO.
SEO is really important and that’s what helps people to discover the content or information you have at your site. But first you have to make sure what you are about to create (the content) provides value in the first place.
Search engine optimization is about optimizing your content for search engines. The search engines are involved in the process.
Although we optimize the content for search engines, we do it so that people can find our content easily. So we make our content easily findable for people. In other words by SEOing our blog content we are actually helping people find great content.
But if you read that previous sentence again, I said great content. This means you should have great content at your site in the first place.
And SEOing comes second.
What happens today with most blogs is that bloggers try to get in the SEO game too soon - very soon that they optimize mediocre or to be honest, crappy content.
There’s something they miss in the whole process. SEOing crappy content will never please either the search engines or people (if they ever find it).
The result? Your efforts go wasted! And you wouldn’t want to do that to yourself, right?
Let me discuss why you should remove your SEO hat sometimes.
Do you have quality content in the first place?
As I just discussed above, most bloggers put on their SEO hat too soon. Even before they know what their readers want and even before they create good quality content, they start to optimize their posts for search engines.
This might have worked a few years back, but not anymore.
Today SEO is all about pleasing both people and search engines.
So when you do everything to get your content to #1 position for a money making keyword and when search engine traffic rushes to your site, it is all good.
But soon after people land on your site, they are clearly going to see that the content is not worthy or it doesn’t close the gap. So people are just going to jump off your blog.
And the traffic you gained because of your “so-called” SEO techniques simply bounces off. There is no conversion. The traffic that doesn’t stick is of no use - you already know that!
It’s the content hat you should wear and you should be focused on creating high quality pillar content for your website.
The point of over optimization: Too much SEO
As they say, too much of anything is good for nothing. And many bloggers simply tend to over optimize their content for search engines. As a result the content is gibberish and apparently useless.
Further, over optimized content just adds spam to the whole internet. There is so much information that is good for nothing - the internet is littered with this kind of over optimized content.
But that doesn’t end there. All the search engines want to offer their users a good experience. They want the good quality and relevant content to come up in the SERPs for a particular keyword.
If your content misses this point, it is not surprising that your site will simply be washed away from the SERPs. Talk about getting penalized!
Remove your SEO hat and wear your content hat
I’m not asking you to ignore SEO altogether. But don’t take SEO too seriously. And don’t think about SEOing crappy content.
You have to create a good quality website first. You should create unique and useful content first. While doing so, feel free to use the on-page SEO factors reasonably.
Again don’t overuse them too!
What are your thoughts? I’d love to hear from you!
Again a nice SEO post from you Jane!
Yes, I too read in many blogs that over optimizing the content for search engines is really bad and this would not please the readers. So i never do it.
I really like your first point that the bloggers should not have SEO too early. Sure, I love to concentrate on creating high quality posts for my readers and will have the SEO later as you told.
Am suggesting you to write about “how to make perfect keyword research and how to proceed with it” with the basics. If you have already written it, will try to find that post.
Thanks for writing a useful post for the bloggers!
Agree with you….
Even I am looking forward to some keyword research advice….
It would be good to know how to build some niche with enough money to pay our bills………
Thanks jane for another exhaustive post.
My simple mantra for ranking well in search engines, is to write quality content, benefit the search users and maintain a good bounce rate.
Even I didn’t bother with SEO until I had spent around 3 months for writing content….
after doing that only i went for some SEO……
I just hate the process of backlinks for creating SEO…..
Hey Jane, Is there some other way to do off page SEO???
I agree with you Jane. Over optimization is good for nothing. So sometimes it is better to stop doing SEO work and better spare time in social media.Thanks for sharing such a nice blog.
Kristina, yup social media is a good place to concentrate after creating good quality content!
Thanks Jane for this post and please keep sharing like this amazing thoughts.
I appreciate quality content! Now Google just quality work. ! This is also right over optimization is also not a Good for successful result. Well JaneSheeba you teach some good point’s in your this article & I happy to learn.
Happy to help Vivek
Over optomization is almost equivalent to spamming the website and its like blinding their eyes with knives. Updating the blog with fresh ideas always best and it attract million of peoples’ eyes over the web.
Agree with you…..
Specially “blinding your eyes with knives”…..
Really nice metaphor used………
You’re so right. Social and SEO work in tandem together. Your content IS SEO and because of that, every time you write new content and share, you’re already engaging in SEO without having to over-optimize or go over the top just to get ranking.
Just because a company ranks #1 on Google, doesn’t mean anyone is going to do business with that company. These days, people need to SEE that you’re a real company, and that means great content through blogging, news, social media and other platforms.
That great content will bring people in much quicker and will keep them engaged way after the sale is done.
Thanks for the great advice, Jane!
Great content, great content - there’s absolutely no short cut to this
There are three ways to popularize a business……
Great service or goods……….
Great internet content……
Great use of Internet Marketing…….
i totally agree with you.content is king. unique and quality content is get more readers and traffic to your blog. thanks for sharing.
Agree with you Hiren…….
Content is the king and the readers are the audience…..
The poor blogger is just an intermediary to make the above to ends connect……
Hi Jane,
I do agree we should not implement “over SEO”, it just making worse the spam world on the net. But I think the advice above is perfect for a well established blog/blogger like yours here. For those who are new on the blog world, it’s best bet to keep the white-hat SEO on the head. Search engine is our final resource to find readers.
I dont agree with you….
For a new blogger also, people will first see your content…..
Unless you want disloyal readers…..
One should not start with SEOing right away……
Even if the reader turnover is low atleast they are loyal since they are willing to join with you even when you are a new player…….
Hi JaneSheeba, You did a great work to share this amazing & helpful article about SEO ! Actually this is something new to learn & come close of SEO.
I guess the main emphasis here is on content creation….
Even I am saying this from experience…..
I started my blog for students and that was the sole reason I didn’t have to go for lot of SEO…..
People like my content and I have the most loyal readers possible……
Siddharth says
Hello Jane,
really well said in the post, sometimes we only think of SEOing in the post and make our post not worth to read, and in such cases it creates negative impact as it might increase your visitors to that page the reader do not stay long at that page and even the Bounce rate increases.
Siddharth
Truly said…….
The bounce rate increases and our rate of income decreases…..
Inversely proportional……
that is so true because if you create quality content and focus on the primarily, you will be better off than trying too optimize first. focus on the delivery and the readers
Agree with you completely……….
For me loyal readers are more important than the number of readers………
I agree with you, Jane. Content of the blog must be prioritized more than SEOing because good blog content will catch anybody’s attention. If your blog becomes popular, you don’t need to spend so much for SEO.
Agree with you…..
Even google is fed up of SEO practices……
Worthless bloggers are out here spewing out garbage at an alarming rate and they tend to think that SEOing will make them money…..
I come across so many worthless blogs on a daily basis which have high Page Rank and I always wonder what exactly they did to get such high rank for such crap……..
I agree that SEO is the great option for online business and Content is the main part for SEO. You mentioned a good point that about content hat means we have to focus more on content and content marketing, etc. It’s about how can you approach to people about your service/product.
Hello respected.
I visited your blog after a long time as my research was in progress. I have seen a lot of people, especially newbie. Before writing content they talk about SEO and doing some type of stuff to make their website Serp friendly. They don’t focus on the contents and as we know that the contents are king. So they just simply waste their time. I agree with you point of to wear content hat instead of SEO especially in the start.
Totally agree with you.People now-a-days concentrate only on seo thereby neglecting the content which results in totally worthless content .Even pages with higher PR have a very useless content which causes a great inconvience to users.Following the methods you suggested can actually help in both the ways ,generating good content besides seo