Strunk & White, authors of Elements of Style wrote one of the best chapters ever anywhere (about composition). It reads: “omit needless words.” that’s it. And really, what more do you need to know? OK. a little bit more. But the idea still stands. Write less… get more. Write less… and get better copy.
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These days though, people are doing the opposite. In an all-out SEO onslaught, they’re stuffing their copy with as many (key) words as possible. I wrote a paragraph for a travel agent the other day that read: “My name is John Fortson. I’m a travel consultant - I help travelers get good deals, and have good vacations. It’s what I do, and what I like to do.” Pretty good, right? Well, now it reads: “My name is John Fortson. I’m a leisure travel consultant - I help leisure travelers get good deals, and have good vacations. It’s what I do, and what I like to do.” It’s still alright, but it has two too-many words in it now. The timing is gone, and with it, so is some of its’ effectiveness.
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Now, I’ve come a little way from my why new tech doesn’t need SEO post… I get why you should use SEO, and really, I think it’s a good idea. I even think a good SEO writer (which admittedly, I’m not) can find a decent balance between what appeals to spiders and what appeals to people. But the reality is that it’s always a tradeoff. You can’t ‘omit needless words’ while at the same time ‘adding important words.’ It’s just not possible.
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So, though I’d like to tell you to screw SEO, I won’t. I’ll tell you to consider it. But, I’ll tell you that if you’re in the position to trade SEO for readabililty (and I think a lot of people are), then you should. You should omit needless words, and you shoud write better stuff.
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