When writing content with SEO in mind, it’s easy to be tempted to stuff posts with keywords, relevant and irrelevant. This black hat SEO practice can lead to Google penalizing the blog and eventually, the website. Because content is king, the pressure to write about original and interesting SEO content is one of the most challenging parts of any internet marketing campaign.
From Business News Daily comes the top five writing mistakes to avoid, as shared by Jason Hennessey, Everspark Interactive CEO, an SEO company whose goal is to place their clients in the top ranking pages of major search engines.
1. Poor quality content – Because Google released guidelines that ultimately separate high quality content from low quality content, many websites opted to outsource for SEO content production in efforts to produce better materials, not realizing that it is a useless expense because many SEO writers can produce high quality and original content in their native countries. While there are many excellent non-native writers who can produce good SEO articles, outsourcing is not a necessary move for better content.
2. Keyword-stuffed content – Keyword stuffing is a no-no for internet marketing practitioners. Stuffing articles with keywords with hopes that search engine crawlers will index the site is practiced by some websites but this should not be the case. Keywords should be placed contextually and not just to repeat them without being relevant to the matter discussed.
3. Factually-incorrect content – Producing any article, whether for academic, leisure, or marketing purposes, involves proper research. Sharing incorrect information is not only frowned upon but many readers will turn away from the site if they find that writers provide data that is not well-researched. With Google, high-ranked sites are deemed authorities, which means that high quality content means providing factually-correct and publication-worthy posts.
4. Duplicate content – Plagiarized articles are not only major turn-offs for visitors but Google penalizes these websites as well. Google advocates the “Do Good” policy, which encourages SEO writers to produce articles that are insightful and helpful to its readers.
5. Spam – Articles infused with too many ads are deemed “spam”. “Spammy” content means having too much advertising that it distracts the readers from appreciating the article. Avoid looking like a content farm by focusing on well-written, helpful, insightful, and original articles.
For businesses, the temptation to get into black hat SEO is strong. However, as long as content produced is well-written and high-quality with the main goal of informing readers through facts, writing for SEO should be a challenge that is easy to overcome.
