Forum Moderators: not2easy
Obviously, as good webmasters, we all write our copy for users rather than search engines.
But of course we want our pages to be found, so we also ensure that our content contains all the relevant 'keywords' and phrases that might help a user stumble across our content.
And of course, in many cases, people read less on the web than they do offline. Or rather, they don't read huge blocks of text ion the way that they might offline.
Personally I have found that my writing style in the offline word has changed somewhat. As the result of constantly thinking about succinct, keyword-driven content — as opposed to padding out articles when I used to write off-line in the 'old days' — I have to be constantly aware when I switch mediums.
In many ways, writing offline has helped me to focus on sticking to the subject at hand. But in other ways, an online writing style can be rather cold and formulaic when transposed to the printed medium.
Anyone else got any observations, positive or negative?
It's really a good point to ponder though.
Writing for the web has definitely changed the way I write in general. I tend to write in shorter paragraphs and use a lot of subheadings and lists in my content writing - something I rarely did before writing online.
I personally think the format and layout of the writing is the main change though. Listen carefully to the commercials we're bombarded with each day, especially those on the radio. They're actually keyword optimized just like our web content most of the time!
SEO is not all that new, imo...it's just a new name for tried and true marketing techniques!
Those are my opinions :-)
But it's a good point about radio adverts. Except you can get away with keyword repetition spam on the radio ;)
Fortunately I have not fallen into the "keyword chase." Online or off, I always stick to one writing rule I've learned:
Write what you want to say. Take out every word that you can and still have it say what you want it to say. Leave it alone.
My first impression was as Write_2 mentioned, valuable content should do as well online or off. The keywords should come as a natural part of the message. It's when you go in and try to "work in" keywords that it starts to become bland and calculated.
But it's true, in many ways the short - to the point - approach of the web has improved my paper content. And funnily enough, being aware of keywords has also helped to ensure that my paper written content includes all relevant concepts.
