How Can SEO Kill Your Content

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Undoubtedly, search engine optimization or what we call SEO is really helpful in making a huge amount of traffic.  There is no successful blog that was not search engine optimized. 

But what is the limitation of optimizing your post?

A post can become a turn off when a blogger starts applying all he knows about search engine optimization in one single post.

We all know that Search Engine Optimization is about putting meta tags, keywords, using the right title, repetitive keywords, etc. A Blogger kills his own blog when he is tempted to place all kinds of meta tags and reuse unnecessary keywords in just a single post. Doing this can definitely lose the voice of your writing.

Voice is one of the most important elements of a successful blog. Period.  - Joy Tanksley

To understand the voice of your writing, try to do this very simple activity.

Go to your room and get a recorder (maybe a MP3 recorder). Get someone to listen to you. It can be your younger brother or someone else.  Start talking to him as if you are teaching him while you are recording it. Don’t let him interrupt you as you try to become a teacher to him in as short as 10-15 minutes. Tell him to just listen to you. And just go on with the flow.

Did your younger brother listen to you? Are you getting his attention? After 10-15 minutes, stop and go back to your recorder. Listen to it. If your younger brother is listening to you, it is most probably because he understands what you are saying and he believes that it is important. Furthermore, he recognizes your voice and he know he needs to respect that. 

This is exactly what we want to do in blogging. Your voice needs to be heard. Though there is no literal voice that can be heard, your writing must be compelling enough for your visitors to stay.

Here are some tips in putting a voice in your blog.

1.    Try to talk normally. Use almost the same words just as you physically and literally talked to your younger brother.
2.    Use the lingua franca. Use words that are normally understood by most of your readers. While conventional writing is important, you have to remember that blogging is communicating to your readers. It is important that you use the same language, a language that is understandable.
3.    Just go on with the flow. Do it normally. Imagine yourself to be talking to literal people. Don’t be over-acting. Just let it flow.

But why SEO freaks loses the game?

They will lose the game simply because too much SEO’ing can affect the grammar, form and voice of your article. Those who are trying to fool search engines will never be successful in blogging. Blogging is not all about money making nor SEO’ing, it is about delivering a high-quality useful content.

Just come to think of this, why would someone stay in your blog when all he is reading are repetitive and unnecessary keywords that do not make any sense?

People use and search the net for information.

They did not arrive to your website by accident. They made the click believing that you have their information that they are looking. So what if they have found your blog? Was it useful to them?

Remember this, most of your blog-visitors arrive in your blog because they are looking for information, they want to learn something, they want to listen to you. Giving them bunch of useless information does not only destroy your integrity and credibility as a problogger, but also gives them the reason to unsubscribe and forget everything about your blog.

If you want them to stay, give them the reason to stay.