People are Looking for Answers, Not Questions

I see a lot of wannabe SEO experts flogging the dead horse of keyword stuffing. What worked 10 years ago does not work now. Once upon a time, before WordPress, webmasters stuffed keywords into their websites using white text on a white background. And repeated the same phrases over and over in the Keyword and Description Meta Tags. These were the main ways of getting search engines to notice. For years my little ol’ website was high on page 1 for one targeted keyword phrase. Yes, even in incognito 

Keyword Stuffing

Looking For Answers

When someone types a question into the search box (address bar of their browser) they are looking for answers. They want to know how, or why, or when, or who, or what, or where. They are not looking to have their question repeated back at them so why do so many bloggers write with the question as a ‘keyword phrase’?

And then they keep repeating the ‘keywords’ scattered throughout the article attempting to get keyword density according to the dictates of the SEO plugin or the latest SEO guru.

Write Naturally

Write with your reader in mind. If you were looking for the answer to a question what would you like to read?

Google is employing artificial intelligence to determine if your article is helpful to the person searching for answers. The most helpful and comprehensive articles are going to rise to the top of the search engine results. And they won’t be the ones that are written for the search engines instead of the reader.

As a friend recently told me “the crawlers are thinking like humans while we are trying to think like machines”.

Are you still trying to stuff keywords into your articles? What is working for you now?


Please scroll down for comments.

7 thoughts on “People are Looking for Answers, Not Questions”

  1. Hi Marion,
    Thank you for your post, it helped me understand more about keywords and phases.
    I will be checking your site for future articles.
    Thank you
    Fran

    Reply
  2. Hi Marion

    I enjoyed your post! It made me realize that when I am writing, that I should be focused more on how my post or article comes across to the person who views my post rather than being more concerned about what the SEO’s think!

    ~ Sir Timoth

    Reply
  3. Hi Marion

    I liked this post! It reminds me of what just happened at WA in the way the metrics changed in how we are ranked. Sometimes I believe when writing our posts, we need to focus more on how we interact with each other from a human point of view, rather than writing in such a way or manner where it appears we are writing to a machine or analytical search engine such as Google. At the end of the day, it is not going to matter what the machine thinks, but what the person on the other end of our post thinks or does!

    Your post also helpe me thinking more of how I write!

    ~ Sir Timoty

    Reply
  4. Hello again. I recently commented on one of your other articles, and you recommended this one to me. I can see why. Very interesting subject. I do have a question though…

    So, often times if we title our articles with answers instead of questions, then we are totally ignoring the idea of using low competition keywords (phrases). Answers are typically much shorter keywords with a lot more competition. Do you think that no longer matters with the way search engines work now?

    Reply
    • Keywords will always continue to be important. After all, keywords are what people type into their browser’s search bar to find answers to their questions. But what is changing is the repeated use of keyword phrases as part of the articles which actually answer the question. Keyword stuffing is a thing of the past and is no longer relevant in today’s internet.

      In my opinion the only competition that really matters is what appears on page 1 of Google’s search results. Your article just needs to be better than any one of the top ten and you should get ranked on the first page. When was the last time you clicked over to page 2 of the search results?

      Reply
  5. Wow!! This is a most excellent and exciting post to both creators and innovators of marketing going forward as it means the best and brightest are recognized over manipulation and the readers are the true winners.

    Thank you for such a delightfully insiteful article.

    Reply

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