Write Naturally to Improve Your Ranking in Google

Artificial SEO techniques designed to fool the search engines, particularly Google, are getting old and can actually have a detrimental effect on your search engine page rank. There is a strong indication that Google is using filters that identify and filter out pages that overuse keywords and links. The response of internet marketers, as always, is to try to find their way around this problem by reducing keyword density and by including words and phrases with a similar meaning. There is much talk about writing naturally for the search engines. Yet, when we write for search engines at all, how can that be natural? The result of even this type of natural writing can be a formulaic response that still reads badly. The problem is that Google will also filter out natural writing if it uses the same expression too often, even though there is sometimes only one way to describe something. So, here’s a new idea: write it anyway!

Truly natural writing is writing for people, not search engines. The adage “content is king” has been hijacked by a mindset that uses the idea for SEO purposes alone. Yet the original concept is very valuable to real human visitors who want to read original and relevant ideas that inform and benefit them. This requires us to take a step back from writing with a manipulative intent and instead write with the genuinely honest intent of providing valuable information. Of course, if you are trying to drive website traffic to a landing page to obtain sales, your purpose is obvious and that’s fine. Clearly directed marketing is not what this article is about.

There is a need to address the problem of shoddily written web content designed solely to attract search engines and which is polluting the worldwide web with bad English and bad information. Internet users waste hours wading through this cyber clutter so it is entirely understandable that Google is trying to address the problem. They have a reputation to maintain so it’s important that their search results have value to their users.

Not surprisingly, writing good web content for the benefit of humans alone, can attract loyal readers. Steve Pavlina’s self-improvement website is an excellent example of this. Only fifteen months after he started his website, he was receiving seven hundred thousand visitors per month. This success was achieved unintentionally in that he did not write his content for search engine optimization. Steve Pavlina’s philosophy is to write valuable, genuine, original and honest content for his readers. He believes that writing should reflect the genuine views of the writer and this integrity is attractive to readers and encourages word of mouth recommendations.

While Pavlina’s site initially received most of its visitors from word of mouth recommendations, this natural growth gradually increased his search engine page rank. Now his website is one of the top ranking self improvement websites. Clearly, natural writing can lead to search engine success and in the future may, indeed, be the only pathway to such success.

This approach can work for anyone. Write your web content naturally, with human readers in mind. Aim to write honest, relevant, informative and helpful content. Be the best at what you do. Share original ideas and offer something different. If you do this, your site will develop a readership naturally and your Google page rank will increase over time.