Q: Does writing for search engines mean you aren’t writing for humans?
A: Nope. It’s not an either/or thing — it’s a both/and thing.
SEO copywriting used to mean keyword-stuffing and “black hat” nonsense that tried to trick search engines into ranking rigged landing pages higher. So, it’s understandable if “SEO Copywriting” evokes stiff, jargon-y drivel. But it’s not like that anymore. Promise.
Search engines haven’t quite caught up to the way humans think, but they’re getting close. Modern SEO guidelines exist to prioritize sites with good user experience. They rank sites and pages higher if they’ve got good information organization or have proven helpful to many readers. Writing to SEO best practices, therefore, also means improving writing for humans.
That’s why I always keep up to speed on SEO best practices for copywriting. Because in a way, it’s really keeping up with how people consume info online.
I make sure to maintain enough straightforward language that search engines can effectively analyze the copy I write and serve it up in the appropriate results pages. Strong headlines, concise bullet points and smart paragraph lengths are all important tools to help your copy appeal to Google and Bing. Writing this way also ensures that content has maximum “scannability,” since that’s how people tend to peruse sites these days, too.
It’s a textbook win-win.
