Posts Tagged ‘organic copywriting’

Writing Right

Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008

I was always frustrated in English class as we learned the myriad rules to stylized writing. It occurred to me that while there are rules to writing correctly, those rules are somewhat flexible.

Writing organic SEO copy is flexible to the extent that you can write just about anything you want, however there are points to be gained for technical correctness.

With search algorithms becoming more and more sophisticated by the minute, it is becoming ever more important to include proper sentence structure and punctuation to set yourself apart from the masses. Proper punctuation, in particular, will not only help your readers get through your ideas, but will show the search engines that you are writing something more important that a love note to a high school crush.

And as you can imagine, Google and the other search engines are interested in understanding the difference between a silly note and a serious article.

Take care to include punctuation in your content. Punctuation will help you get your point across in a meaningful manner, and will appeal to the search engines as they digest your sentences and organize the keywords. Take care, too, to add highlighting. Highlighting is also recognized by the search engines, and when used properly can provide a little extra credit to specific keywords and phrases.

I have be reading an excellent book titled Eats Shoots and Leaves. This hilarious book is a great introduction to punctuation and proper use of language. Give it a try, and make sure to include punctuation in your organic content.

Natural Language

Tuesday, July 15th, 2008

Natural language is, of course, engaging. It's the way that we talk, in a natural flow with relevant thoughts bubbling in and descriptive sentences playing out in rhythm.

Writing web content in a natural tone is a good idea for a number of reasons. For starters, human readers want to engage with content that creates emotional interest. It is hard to create emotional interest with bullet points and lists (although these tools do have their place).

Natural language is what search engines are looking for when they read through your content for indexing. Search algorithms look for sentence structure and patterns that indicate natural language. Why? Because this is a good way to measure the integrity of a site, and to find keywords in context.

What is Natural Language?

Natural language includes extensive vocabulary, as well as commonly understood syntax. It is expressive, and rich with descriptive terms and added insight. Most importantly, natural language includes structure.

Building structure into content is where the trick is, and it can be intimidating for inexperienced writers. However, it isn't that hard once you establish a method for getting your ideas onto paper.

The opposite of natural language is when you use extensive lists, bullet points, and 'word clouds'. As I mentioned, these tools do have their place, but they are not considered 'natural language' tools, and are not considered good practice in an organic content writing campaign.

Good examples of natural writing for marketing content can be found in our ListPipe blogs.