Search Engine Optimisation, or S.E.O for short, has become a major marketing force on the internet these days. Most writers I see advertising their skills are declaring their knowledge of S.E.O as their primary selling point, and many websites appear to be pushing S.E.O techniques above all else in their content. As someone put it to me recently, "S.E.O is everything now".
Humbly, I must disagree. Take a look at this website, which provides a checklist of S.E.O. techniques. The site is informative, yes, but it also makes me feel like I'm getting my information from a used car salesman with greasy hair and a cheap, wrinkled suit. It's not an uncommon feel for a website these days, especially a marketing site, and most of the things making it feel that way are on that same S.E.O. list.
S.E.O. is a useful tool. The techniques should definitely be part of good practice in producing online content. Approached with subtlety, they shouldn't be ignored. They shouldn't be the focus, though. Put on a pedestal, as the clear and only apparent focus of your page? You're likely setting yourself up to make terrible content.
What is S.E.O. anyway?
For anyone who doesn't know what I'm talking about, or knows what S.E.O. is but doesn't fully understand it, let's clarify some terms.
S.E.O. stands for Search Engine Optimisations. It's the practice and techniques of, well, optimising something for a search engine. The end goal of S.E.O. is generally to get your website to rank as high as possible on search engines like google, since very few people ever see what's listed on page seventy four of a google search.
Companies like Google are constantly refining their search algorithms with the intention of presenting the most relevant and useful results for a given search. They generally work by sending small programs called crawlers through a sites HTML code to collect data, which is then used to rank the site and present it to searchers.
Obviously, this is all done automatically by code, since there are too many results to catalogue by hand. So what data the crawlers collect and how it effects ranking is all set by those algorithms. S.E.O. aims to both make the site easier for these crawlers to catalogue, but also make the data they return with produce as high a score as possible.
So what's the problem?
On the surface, this is great. It keeps search engines useful, and designing your site and content to be highly visible to those crawlers just seems wise.
The problem is this. S.E.O. means optimising your website for bots and algorithms, not always optimising your website for the user.
Roughly speaking, S.E.O. techniques can be split into back end and content techniques. The back end stuff has no impact on the user, and should definitely be put to use - it just makes your site more visible to search engines. The content side is, predictably, how you format your content to present to the reader, and that's the aspect I'm taking aim at here.
Going back to the site I linked above. The content is useful and informative. It's just not presented in a way that puts the reader first. It meets everything on the checklist for S.E.O. but at the cost of presenting badly.
The article is full of different media types and various highlight styles (for headings, boxes for quotes, etc.) which appeal to crawlers but looks cluttered and messy. They repeat information, almost word for word, between the graphic and main text, which again helps appeal to crawlers but feels like a salesman repeating the same thing over and over without giving you a chance to absorb it. The content is heavily broken up, using only short, punchy sentences, which appeals to crawlers, but breaks up ideas and disrupts the flow of the text.
I admit, I'm being a little unfair picking on this site in particular. I'll say again, there's nothing inherently wrong with these techniques - just that it's easy to overuse them in a way that sacrifices the reading experience.
The really sad part? That same site I'm ripping into here could eliminate this problem entirely without really changing anything that search engine crawlers would care about. A few adjustments to the articles layout design (and some tweaks to the website as well, off centre columns of text make me cry), and close up some unnecessary paragraph breaks in the text. Problem solved. The content itself is good, it's just being made to appeal to search bots rather than appeal to readers.
Sites like this, I usually close within three seconds of opening, just because that presentation makes me feel the page isn't offering anything worth my time. If I do stay, because the page was recommended or I can't find the information anywhere else, I usually feel like that information isn't being given freely, rather it's being held hostage with my attention as the ransom payment.
It's ultimately the same problem as sites with excessive advertisements scattered around and through the content, trying to grab your attention, something cracked.com has gotten fairly bad with in recent years. It puts the reader experience at a lower priority, or not a priority at all. That makes the sites visitors feel like they're dealing with that cliche' car salesman, who's only real concern is getting your money into his account.
What can we do about it?
At the end of the day, ranking high in a search engine is just a way of reaching more people. It's those people who should be considered the end goal of the content.
If your content is clearly designed to appeal to the search algorithm without trying to appeal to readers, not only does it make a cluttered, unpleasant site, but people like me are going to automatically assume your content is cheap and probably not worth my time.
But that page ranking slightly lower, with well written content, full paragraphs, and a sense they care about the user? I'll automatically assume there's value there. If the content offered is identical, it's still the later site I'm likely to share with others.
S.E.O. is a useful tool, and should be applied to content toward the end of the process. But it should always fall behind producing high quality content - and google agrees; Their page on S.E.O. specifically says "Optimise content for your users, not search engines". As in, that's a subheading for an entire segment of their best practices on S.E.O., an article written by the same people making the algorithm everyone's trying to appease too.
Yes, I'm putting S.E.O. techniques to work on this article. A tool is a tool. I'm just begging creators out there to remember there's other tools in the box, and it isn't always time to use a hammer.
User Optimisation
At the end of the day, search engines want to put the most valuable links at the top of the results. If you build your content to appeal to readers, then the algorithm will be on your side, with any future refinements acting to push your site higher up the ranking. If you just optimise your side for search engines, then those same refinements will be designed to push your site down and out of the way.
A user optimised approach means making the site as appealing to readers as possible. To some degree that will overlap with S.E.O. - but it means that whenever an S.E.O. technique would take something away from the reader, put the reader first.
Keep it clean, easy to follow.
Think about aesthetics - use highlights and images to accent your content, not overwhelm it.
Mix it up - especially with written content. Short punchy sentences are good because they're powerful, but using too many exhausts their impact.
Give everything purpose - don't include anything that doesn't add to the users experience in some way. If it isn't contributing, it's detracting, no matter what it's impact on S.E.O.
Readers are used to being swarmed by adds, links, and demands on their attention. Put too much in front of them, they'll automatically ignore it all.
Take a look at this article for some more tips.
Don't forget, if your site is valuable to users, they will want to share it. The algorithms designers will want to boost it. Putting user experience first might not be as straightforward to track in statistics, but that doesn't make it any less valuable.
That's enough of a rant for today, let me know what you think.
Cheers
Chris