Freelance Writer

Archive for the ‘Work’ Category

For the longest time, most of my clients have been infatuated with the whole concept of keywords or key phrases. Many of them seem to misunderstand the whole density algorithm entirely, and call for copy that if written to their specification, would result in 60% or more of the content being made up entirely of key phrases. Luckily I am able to explain the problem most of the time and make them see sense.

However, one must wonder just how important key phrases now are? We have seen major sites such as EzineArticles take steps to stop their users posting keyword stuffed content, and they now impost a strict 2% limit on density for any phrase. Quite frankly, this is just about the percentage that organically written content tends to come out with for the same key phrases, strange that isn’t it?

We can only presume, that when a heavyweight article directory such as EzineArticles takes steps to prevent keyword stuffing, then they have become aware of the fact that major search engines such as Google, are now attempting to differentiate between organically written, valuable content, and key phrase stuffed SEO content.

Personally I think this is great, as eventually, once my client base catches on, I will no longer be receiving lists of key phrases to be used at a certain density and placing throughout the content I write. Instead I will be told to “make it look natural”.

It must be that time of year again, as I am now inundated by students who need me to prepare their essays/course work for them. This is always a busy time of year, and also a profitable one. Typically a student will need a 7000-15000 word essay, completed and delivered, written using any one of a handful of citation standards, within a week, and this costs.

However, what most students do not realise, is the more work they do in preparing for the essay before they recruit me, the cheaper it will be. If a student simply gives me the essay question, and requires me to find sources to quote, then the price is going to be higher. If the student prepares a list of acceptable sources, and outlines the document, then the price will be lower.

I think I might actually write a set of guidelines for academic clients, explaining to them the way in which they can save some money and streamline the entire process.

There can be no doubt that SEO/SEM experts are now firmly of a mind that website content is truly king, when it comes to generating organic traffic. However, some webmasters prefer to pay very little for their site content, regardless of the fact that the quality will be lower. This is because they only care about the quantity of traffic they achieve, and not the quality of the experience visitors receive when spending time browsing the site. This short articles aims to discuss why this approach can be detrimental overall.

Why do we need Great Website Content?

Many people invest significant resources to develop a feature rich, great looking website. They will then spend even more resources upon the marketing and search engine optimisation of the site. Yet they trust a third party SEO provider to verify the quality of the website content that is being used to promote the site. The problem here is that the SEO team may not share the site owners desire to create a quality visitor experience. They may simply purchase the cheapest site content, in a misconstrued understanding that they are doing good, by saving the site owner money. However, it is easy to see how the image of a site could be affected detrimentally should the quality be of low enough quality to cause comment. Content used upon a website needs to be crafted no less carefully than the graphics, template and functionality of the site itself.

SEO Content v Organic Content

Many webmasters and site owners see their web page content as nothing more than a tool to be exploited, in the quest for higher search engine ranking position. And whilst web content is a fine tool for SEO experts to utilise, it should never be considered to be solely in place for this purpose. The content found upon the pages of a website has value, once a visitor arrives at your site, and has taken in the impressive graphics and awesome colour scheme; it is the actual words upon the pages of the site that will keep their attention. If the content of the website is bad, then people will simply surf away, as there will be nothing upon the page to offer them a return upon the investment of the time it takes them to read it. So yes, bad content can be used to pull organic traffic, but it is unlikely to retain that traffic once people begin to read. Great website content on the other hand, can still be written with the search engines in mind, but will also present visitors with something to capture them, keeping them upon the site and reducing bounce rate.