At the conclusion of last week’s copywriting panel discussion at Mike Sansone and Wayne Hurlbert’s Nut’s and Blog Bolts show on Blog Talk Radio, the participants were asked:

"Writing for the visitor is more important than writing for the search engines. Can both requirements be met without sacrificing quality?"

Michael Fortin and Ryan Healy have both responded to the question. Now it’s my turn.

To be honest, I’m not sure it’s the right question.

Why? First because we need to distinguish between writing sales-oriented copy and information-centric content. For the purposes of this post, I’ll address the latter.

Second, because search engine ranking doesn’t rest squarely on copy content alone. As Michel has already noted, SE ranking success depends on many factors — the code behind the copy (as we’ve discussed in my ongoing SEO copywriting series), inbound links from authority sites and directories, as well as other minor factors.

But are there better ways to present your site content that will help rather than hurt your SE ranking efforts — and still read like English (or your language of choice) to the human reader? Of course there is.

I covered much of this ground in Tip #2, Determining Relevant Key Phrases. If you think of keyword phrases as the working glossary OF YOUR READER, you shouldn’t find yourself getting all tripped up by keyword density (which I don’t pay much attention to) or making obvious rank-and readability-killing mistakes like keyword stuffing.

So what should you do to write good, readable content that SE’s will find meaningful and relevant? Prepare your initial glossary and …

#1 – Just write. You’ll find yourself using a lot of the right phrases but don’t overly focus on them. Write your content, first and foremost, for your reader.

#2 – When you’ve completed the first draft, go back and review. Edit for all the usual reasons – clarifying your message, eliminating obvious errors and reworking sloppy, awkward phrasing.

#3 – Now review your copy with a fresh eye toward incorporating your primary key phrases IN ALL THEIR VARIATIONS. So, for example, if "cancun vacations" is a key phrase, work in the variations –vacationing in cancun, vacation in cancun, vacations in cancun, and the singular cancun vacation. Expand your phrasing with more adjectives — vacationing in sunny cancun, enjoy a fun-filled family vacation in sunny cancun, etc. While the SEs will prefer seeing "cancun vacations" together and you should use the phrase where you can, the variations will make your copy read better and, if a sales piece, sell better. Keyphrase variants tell the SEs that your copy remains solidly relevant to the cancun vacation topic.

#4 – Review again for obvious redundancy and smooth out any of the rough edges. Read it out loud to ensure good flow. Remember, this isn’t about keyword stuffing or stringing keywords together in a nonsensical manner. It’s about writing good, readable content that uses the language of your reader (and which, in turn, will make good SEO sense.)

#5 – Review again your page title, meta description and alt tags just to make sure you haven’t missed any important phrases or variants.

See? Nothing fancy or overly technical. Just one personal caveat, tho.

SEO copywriting by its very nature will incorporate a little more word and phrase redundancy than the average writer or editor would prefer. (I named one of my personal information sites, Adopting from Korea: A Prospective Parent’s Guide to Korean Adoption, because I was able to work in two important primary phrases. Even its URL uses 2 key terms, adopt and korea.) As online readers tend to be content scanners, I don’t think a little redundancy will hurt your credibility. Just be smart about it :=)

Maven’s Maxim
There’s really no magic to SEO content writing. Think of keyphrases and their variations as the primary vocabulary of your readers – the words and phrases they use to describe or talk about your product/service – and just write. Edit, revise, and respect your reader. The SE rankings will follow in due time as long as you remain true to the topic.