Nine years ago, SEO was very different. I remember being taught how effective lots of keyword-laden navigation links were in the footer of your page. When articles could be written, spun into 100 versions and uploaded to every article directory on the Internet (and there were hundreds). Oh, yeah, and you could buy tons of backlinks. No problem!

But this is 2013, and in just the past two years, search has changed dramatically. With the activation of Google’s Panda and Penguin filters, we’re living in a Brave New Internet. It’s a world of content, of adding value to the Web, and of being good business people.  Oh, sure the charlatans are still out there, but what really crushes it today is branding your business and keeping brand integrity high throughout the Web.

One Keyword or Five?

And concentrating on a single keyword or group of keywords is no longer relevant. Now, because of LSI (latent semantic indexing), search engine bots understand more and more and more. Now, it’s about the words we use in our writing, but mostly about the keywords, synonyms, and other text that we use to teach not just spiders, but also our audience what our content is all about. Write for your reader. Sure, keep a keyword in mind or two, but don’t beat them!

Write naturally. Let your readers enjoy what you write, and add the most important component — passion. Be passionate about your niche and it will show in your content. No doubt about it. That’s where you get to shine — to show your potential audience that you’re an expert.  Putting crappily written content out there that you paid $3 per article for won’t cut it anymore. You either need to learn to write well or to pay someone else to do it for you.

We can help

That’s what we do at MagnaSites. We have a team of killer writers who are writing about several different niches at the same time. Some of them are specialists in one topic, while others are able to tangle with anything that comes down the pipeline at them. And I’m the editor. I make sure that everything we produce comes out clean, relevant, and worthy of your brand.

So, that’s the lesson for today, kids. Stop worrying too much about spiders and start worrying MORE about people — your potential raving fans.

Remember keyword density? Don’t even think about it!

Remember PLR? Used to was that you could take it as-was and upload it all over the place. Now, you’d be a fool to do that. Actually, if you took raw PLR and uploaded it, you were still being rather foolish, but now, kiss of death.

Remember sites like Unique Article Wizard or Jet Spinner? Not so hot. You need 100% unique these days. Don’t allow anyone to kid you.

Remember blog networks? They worked really well! That is, until Panda put the kibosh on them. Stay away.

Mis-spellings and horrible writing? Hazardous to your business health.

Bite the bullet. Write the content (or pay someone else to do it). Get the traffic.

The End.