Writing for Search Engines AND Humans

Make it so both humans and robots can read it! Photo: Courtesy of Franz Steiner
Writing for search engines and writing for human readers are not mutually exclusive exercises. Search engines want to give searchers the best and most relevant results, so they value many of the same things human readers do; copy which is original, easy to read and well laid-out. Following SEO best practices for copy writing should make your website content easier to read and simpler to navigate.
Relevancy is a big component of Google’s search algorithm, so if you want to rank for the term “things to do in Sydney”, you need to make sure you use the term “things to do in Sydney” throughout your site, and especially in prominent places like headlines.
Having said this, using keywords too much is bad for both readers and search engines. Readers may get turned off by badly written sentences or headlines stuffed with keywords, and may not return to your site. Search engines may infer that a keyword stuffed site is spammy, which will negatively affect your search rankings.
The best strategy for any website to achieve a balance of SEO-friendly and human-friendly content is to write your copy as if it was for a human with a short attention span and no assumed knowledge. That is, make it clear and to the point.
Keywords
When you are writing for the web, you are hoping that someone will find your content and read it. To make that happen, you have to make sure that your content contains the kinds of words people will actually search for. By matching your copy to the way people search, you can ensure that more people will find your content.