Are Your Keywords Making You Sound Unintelligent?
by Dina
Giolitto
Ahh, so you bought some keywords and keyword-phrases.
How about a game of "Let's all guess what keywords you bought"
-- and I'll bet the SEO champs and more astute copywriters
will take home first and second prize for Most Correct Answers.
Dear Copywriter: if your web copy is starting
to sound like a sixth grader wrote it, that means you're repeating
a few too many keywords.
Are you getting a little keyword greedy?
You are if you're so tuned in to fitting those silly keyword
phrases in, that you're missing obvious goofs like periods
at the ends of sentences. You are if you're sacrificing your
once-poetic professional web copy voice in favor of repetitive
keyword drivel.
You know that word variance is the buff
in your copy shine. Yet, to trip the search engines and land
on that first Google page, they tell you to be a keyword stuffer.
What's a web copywriter to do?
Here's my opinion, and you can take it for
what it's worth: Keyword fanatics can take their keywords
and stuff them. (Okay, I really have nothing against keyword
fans - I just felt like punning on "keyword-stuffing.")
Even though the web stats report that Keywords
A, B, and C are the most popularly researched terms, and you
can bid on these keywords so that your Adwords ads appear
here and there and everywhere... it doesn't mean that in
the end people are going to want your business.
Being visible helps. It really, really does.
But let's not forget that before keyword cheats came crawling
out of the woodwork, the web was driven by Content Au Naturale.
Even if you calculate and plot it all out,
web traffic is still pretty random. You cannot control what
the ideal client is looking for when he goes to that search
engine box. You just don't know what he'll type in there.
We simply cannot predict what route that person will take
to land on our websites!
If you want to buy keywords, that's cool.
It works for people. But really now, as a pro copywriter with
an image to maintain, the last thing you need is for your
copy to sound like Hooked On Phonics.
Think about this. You're paying more and
more money to own the most popular words on the web. But they're
so popular, that all the dumb and unimaginative people are
typing them. And, and, and... many of the people who type
these keywords are on such a generic type of information hunt,
that what you offer may not even fit their needs anyway.
Buy SOME keywords. But good lord, don't
be a keyword hog! This is your professional reputation. You
carved out a name for your your big, bad, beautiful and talented
self. Your keywords didn't do it for you, bro. YOU DID IT.
So stop using your keywords as a crutch,
and start writing kick-ass copy again. Please. We are your
copywriting audience, and we want to love and respect you
and be in awe of you. Ease up on the keywords. You're starting
to sound dumber than you are. And I KNOW that YOU are one
smart cookie.
Copyright 2006 Dina Giolitto, Wordfeeder.com
Copywriting and Marketing. All rights reserved.
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