Search Engines Won't Buy What You're Selling

This search engine optimization tip is brought to you by the Austin SEO Guy — search engine wisdom for Austin, Texas companies.

Whenever I coach copywriters on how to write for search engines, my lessons are pretty short. They usually go something like this:

Writer: How do I write for search engines?

Me: By forgetting about the search engines.

Writer: How is that possible?

Me: It's possible by pretending search engines don't exist.

Writer: But they do exist.

Me: But you shouldn't write for them, you should write for people.

Writer: Aren't you an SEO expert?

Me: Yes, that's why I'm telling you not to write for search engines.

Writer: This is exhausting.

Me: [Letting writer off the hook] Here's what I mean...

Search engines won't ever buy your products, so why bother writing for them? Instead, write about your topic in specific, detailed and helpful way. Explain the value of your product or service for people, since they're the ones who will (or won't) give you their business.

Write for people first. And then, when you're done writing for people, go back through and make sure you have the right phrases in your copy. Then have the webmaster add those key phrases to the title tag and description of each page. Then see what you can do about getting people to link to your pages and your site.

Write for people. Optimize for search engines. Take a passionate approach to your writing, and a technical approach to SEO.

Until next time...

-Austin SEO Guy