The Negative Side of Blog SEO: A Call to Return to the Basics of Style and Interest
SEO is such a popular term today that every blogger is striving to incorporate it into the content, meta tags and image tags. Is there any negative side to blog SEO practices? The truth is that excessive reliance on search engine optimization techniques could eventually lead to problems.
Too much SEO can never be beneficial. Apart from the fact that it may alienate readers, the excessive usage of optimization practices could even get the blog penalized.
Writing for Crawlers, Not for Readers
The biggest asset of each blog is its content. Some of the best bloggers have managed to demonstrate a unique style and to fill in a niche that was previously deprived of information.
If SEO becomes the focus, the blogger will start writing for search engine crawlers rather than for an audience. This is where the problems start. An article that is stacked with keywords, bullet points and subtitles could become dull. Readers will probably be disappointed to discover too much SEO and too little style.
Forgetting to write for an audience is one of the biggest mistakes that bloggers make. Finding the balance between useful content and SEO may be difficult but it is always better to write for the readers. This is when search engines will give good evaluation to the content, as well.
Excessive SEO Often Results in Penalties
The main aim of SEO is to get search engines positioning a certain website well in results for specific keywords. This strategy results in higher traffic from search engines, giving a website or a blog the chance to sell ads and to maximize revenue.
Excessive SEO, however, is more likely to result in penalties than in search engine popularity.
If keywords are placed inside a text without logical flow, search engines will take a notice. Illogical inclusion of the wrong keywords may even get a blog deleted from search engine results.
SEO is effective solely when it is done in an intelligent way that does not interfere with the completeness of content. Blackhat (illegal or questionable) SEO practices may be very effective in the short term but they will result in penalization.
Content Limitations
If a blogger gets too carried away with the introduction of SEO strategies, certain content limitations will occur.
Many people, who are too dependent on SEO, will use keyword analysis as the sole reasoning behind the selection of topics. This move is too limiting. It determines what articles are written and how they are formed.
The audience might get seriously disappointed with a blogger’s content choices, especially if these are produced to solely please search engine crawlers. Many topics that intrigue readers will be left out because they may lack SEO value.
The Manner in Which Headlines Are Formed
The headline is the first aspect of the text that grabs the attention of a reader.
SEO is very determining when it comes to headline selection. It involves the inclusion of primary keywords in the title. Naturally, the rules of SEO restrict creativity. A catchy title is not necessarily search engine friendly.
Readers may lose interest if the title of the article fails grabbing their attention. Naturally, if a title is seen as boring, the person is very unlikely to move on to the blog posting.
Too much SEO will affect the style and the writing potential of the blogger.
High Bounce Rate
A well-optimized blog will derive large portion of its traffic from search engines. If this is the main way in which readers are attracted, the blogger risks having a high bounce rate.
The bounce rate is a term used to calculate a certain percentage – the number of people who leave a website after exploring only one page. The bounce rate will be low if people are interested in the overall content. After reading the page they discovered through the search engine, they would move on to another intriguing article.
If SEO is the main priority, people are likely to leave the blog after reading the page that holds interest to them. When they discover the sought content, they are unlikely to explore another posting, which has been optimized for different keywords.
SEO is certainly useful but it needs to be implemented in a careful way. Optimization should never interfere with the writing style and the manner in which the content is written. People need to get intrigued. Too much SEO will please search engines but it will distance readers. Knowing how much of it is needed and avoiding blog SEO mistakes will determine the success of a blog.
Image source: freedigitalphotos.net, Idea go
