SEO employs a vast amount of functions in today’s world of plug-ins, SEO programs, SEO professionals, SEO packages, SEO Page Structure, SEO Keyword Research, and the debate of needing any SEO for a good quality write up is ongoing. (I would have commented, but they closed their blog!)
I for one am going to continue course for high quality SEO, starting with a pupose of good content as a starting point to any website effort. In the above referenced article, how SEO got in the way of good content, I will never know.
Media, Journalism, Story Writing and Reporting has not changed one bit since the advent of the internet. On the contrary, I believe that it is only more pronounced with the traditional applications reflecting real time results. As the above article references, the internet news industry has gone so far SEO, that they lost sight of good journalism. This might be the case if you are strictly building pages for volume, or are providing good pages that can be found.
I can see how this can effect journalism, as the quality of Cable News Networks has gotten so bad, with several days at a time devoted to high profile subjects and pushing their political positions, rather than good features on them mixed with the rest of the world “still turning”. Cable News has gotten to total ratings for their goal. To ignore SEO however is not an acceptable position for us in our efforts.
In our opinion, the following has always been true with good written journalism on the web.
- Good article content is in demand, the volume of interest in this subject however will determine your reader base and volume. (A popular actor in distress might bring more visitors than an extremely well written article on RV septic tanks. The key word volumes reflect this too. Have any good “dirty jobs RV stories”?)
- Keyword targeted stories are strictly for volume; or is it that high keywords are what people want to read about, yet you do not have a good angle, information, or resource on the subject to stand out. (Key words climb, volumes go up, when something is in season, is a hot subject, or has any increased volume of interest)
- Keyword volumes are very competitive with good content too. You bet. When volumes go up, the market size of interest climbs, as well as volume of pages on the subject. Yours must have full SEO benefits, as well as the additional content people need to be seen on any hot subject. Do concentrate on the subject matter, and you will need SEO too for the good article, well read, home run. What is wrong with that?
- SEO is not needed if you have commitment to subject alone. That is if you care to be ignored and not read. No one ever writes a book to not get read. I mean, you don’t want a best seller, do you? Doesn’t best sellers have a reason for getting there, good content? Has a book ever been a best seller because of keywords alone? (I have not read Palin’s book…)
- SEO does not have to effect your content, and can include a few keywords that get you to your audience, as well as applied Sitemaps that notify the Search Engines, as well as good page structure with name, etceteras. The above link to the article shows that Guardian uses SEO, as it shows the title in the page name. Anyone that recommends SEO is not needed, is your competitor, that wants your audience.
- Content can rule without SEO. Yes it can. A full complete index of information unmatched in quality in any capacity is wonderful! Having the best text book case of information will get serious attention, but at what point do you end SEO, such as no links from anywhere, not notifying the Search Engines. (put a no follow on each page if you don’t believe me, if you dont need any SEO, right?) They are using “some SEO techniques” to do a website in the above referenced article examples. At one point they are stopping early. This does not make sense to me if you are wanting your information to be read.
Can you get by with no SEO? That is your call. We use all the tools we can, of course starting with a good reason to write in the first place. Good content is always key to a well written website. Well implemented SEO is not typically noticed by most readers, except they are reading the material, and it was found easily.
Can you get by without SEO? Check your stats and let us know if there is enough of an audience for you? If your mother is the only one reading your book, you might start to run out of motivation to do any story at all. That is success and failure of the web.
Do you need SEO, you bet…
by: SEODomainNames.com