If I’m being completely honest, as a writer, the fact that there is so much emphasis on SEO (search engine optimization) these days really bugs me. Why? As a writer, my job is to sit down, research and architect out whatever topic or project I’ve been tasked to generate word work for, then choreograph and finesse letters, words, sentences and paragraphs until they hit the bulls-eye for that piece.
SEO has complicated that process and in many cases, I feel like it actually draws strength away from a blog, article or other online content and affects the reader experience. That is just my opinion as a copywriter who does this everyday.
You have to force feed keywords into specific places where often they just don’t make organic sense all for the sake of algorithms “discovering” those keywords and possibly upping your ranking on a SERP (search engine results page). Or you have to add external hyperlinks which is always a cautionary tale as even reputable sites move around content so often that links end up with 404 (page not found) errors. Or you have to find a way to backlink to previous company blogs that someone else wrote that aren’t all that good and are inconsistent in tone and/or voice to whatever blog I’ve been recently tasked with writing.
SEO is Not an Exact Science
I get it, sort of, as many clients hear that they should push out content that might be found by someone googling a generic term (aka keyword) and consequently find their website, product or service through the company’s, possibly but never guaranteed, higher ranking on a SERP page. People normally are googling terms for generic information, to search for something specific (such as a website) or to be transactional so again in my opinion, it is a bit of a crapshoot if they find you without knowing about you previously.
However, having to follow a specific format and incorporate keywords that may or may not make sense for a particular piece is a complex and very nuanced layer to writing exceptional content. And the algorithms are constantly changing, much like the never ending Apple updates for my iPhone. The best practices for SEO are updated seemingly all of the time so what I wrote two-three months ago may no longer be SEO optimized, eh gads.
People typically hire copywriters like myself once they realize how challenging and time consuming it can be to string words together cohesively. Now, with SEO being a buzz term that many hear of but don’t really know that much about, they insist all writing hit SEO benchmarks without fully understanding how tricky it can be to balance all the SEO parameters AND create a well-written, catchy, compelling, on-brand, and memorable piece of content.
And the ironic thing is that I’ll ask clients where they currently rank or ask to view their google analytic reports and they have zero idea where they fall or how to access their reports. They don’t have KPIs that measure how their SEO is translating but they want me to write copy that is SEO optimized. (Hand to forehead). They are on the SEO train only because they read about it or heard it matters greatly from someone else and somehow they think magically that SEO practices will equate to sky high conversions for them. *sigh*
Sorry, that isn’t how it works folks. Yes, you can over time increase website traffic and maybe up your SERP but it doesn’t happen with one piece of content, nor five or even ten. Consistently you have to be adding NEW content to your website all the time for SEO to really make an impact in your ranking and one or two new pieces a month is not going to make a huge difference. Note: most of my clients don’t want to pay for new content all of the time, as it gets expensive.
Another Issue with SEO Focus and Writers
Many vendors, outside of the small-medium size businesses that make up roughly 50% of my freelance work, are organizations that curate digital content for their clients and outsource to freelance copywriters to get that done. It used to be that I would get paid per word but with the uptick in SEO being such a large element of online content writing, the actual working time on assignments also significantly increased and the pay by word wasn’t taking into consideration that extra time.
Thankfully, there has been a shift and recognition that writers were getting the shaft being paid by the word since it wasn’t including time for SEO composition nor research time itself. Since 2021, I have been increasingly paid a higher flat fee tiered rate based on overall word count that is more in alignment with the actual time spent on assignments. That has softened some of my frustration over the hyper focus on SEO.
Final Thoughts
I feel like those of us that are content creators, editors, and copywriters would much rather be the builders of your brand narrative, that helps people encounter a journey with you; one that informs, inspires or educates and that is useful, credible and relevant. And less a detective lurking in the search query space, unearthing rankings, keywords, and meta descriptions attempting to get buy-in from behind the scenes.
We shall see how SEO continues to evolve and whether it remains truly viable. Technology innovation is happening at lightning speeds and eventually, probably not so far into the future, some tech wizard will come up with the next wonder of the world wide web that will create a frenzy and change how we do things, again!