Content and Marketing-Uneasy Bedfellows

I just read an article from the Internet Search Engine Database that brought up some interesting points; mainly, that if you want to really drive away customers and screw up your business beyond your wildest dreams than you should totally focus on search engine optimization.

WHA?!? Well, before you flounce off in disgust, hear me out. I completely agree with the author's main premise:

"It is important to attract targeted traffic that is likely to convert to customers through quality, themed content. This means writing about things (keywords) that search engine users are searching for instead of writing with keywords."- Online Content: Where Websites Often Go Wrong, emphasis mine.

When you focus so much on the keywords and phrases that you have to have in your copy-and don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that you don't need them, quite the opposite-but when you focus ONLY on these phrases, your writing becomes, well, boring.

Stilted.

Stuffy.

Un-compelling. (is that a word?)

Don't lose the forest for the trees. Readers want to come to your site because you've given them a reason to come back; not because they can tell that your keyword density is at an all time high. This is a tricky thing to master, because you've got two main goals that seem almost at odds with each other: your copy must be compelling and readable, yet you've got to optimize your site so search engines will pick it up, thus those keyword phrases have got to be stuck in there somewhere.

Well, nobody ever said this was going to be easy, right? Somehow, you've got to make those two seemingly parallel goals merge. Write copy that's compelling, yet searchable. Create content that's bookmark-worthy, and sprinkle it with spider food. It'll take practice and maybe a few trial runs but if you keep these two dual goals in mind, you'll get there eventually.

Related: Learn what the top five mistakes are in search engine optimization, how to target your audience, and use these handy SEO tools to help you monitor your progress.