Many people find it hard to reconcile the differences between a quality piece and known SEO strategies. While some tend to compromise their work for better SEO, others stay true to the writer in them and focus solely on the piece.
The make-believe conflict has caused many content specialists to choose a side when really there’s nothing to fight about.
What Search Engines Really Want in Content
The truth is that search engines like Google try to achieve a similar level of intellect for their system as an average human. They want to be able to think like a person and will continue to advance their algorithms until they can achieve that end.
As a content writer, you should always write for the future. Seeing the current trends for search engines is good for now but when they decide to update, you might find your content falls behind.
Instead, start by writing what you know is good content and then implement subtle SEO tactics in your writing.
Ever since Google’s Hummingbird update, they’ve been pretty good at finding picking up synonyms. Instead of stuffing the same keywords (which is bad writing anyway) you can use synonyms so more people can find what they need from your page.
In a sense, the best approach might be the writing purists. The one thing you can do is make sure the content provides a great user experience for your audience.
Correlation between Reader and Search Engine
The end result of good content is users coming back, which translates to better ranking from search engines.
At the end of the day, content is all about the reader and what they like to read. That being said, Googles approach is similar enough to a human to “future-proof” your content.
One thing that Google and people love is a good structure. If you think about it, so do you. A page that has a title that reflects the content perfectly, subcategories so you can navigate easily, and short, precise sentences that would make Hemingway proud is definitely the way to go. Google can follow your content easily and so can your reader.
Conclusion
So when you’re sitting at your computer looking to write a new content piece you should ask yourself, “How would I like to read this topic?”
You don’t have to choose simply because you already know where search engines are going. Think like a human and choose the most logical routes, which just happens to be an easy-to-read approach to content writing as well.
