Why Duplicate Content Is Bad for the Web

Among the countless content problems found on websites, one of the most egregious and commonly cited is duplicate content. Content strategists — not to mention search engine optimization (SEO) professionals — love to hate on duplicate content. As soon as we spot it during a content audit, we quickly bring out our metaphorical red pens. Begone, duplicate content! But why? For those of us on the other end of the table, it’s easy to dismiss … [Read more...]

We Blog About Headlines. What Comes Next Will Amaze You

My first job out of college was working for the Boston Globe’s website, which afforded me the opportunity to write a lot of headlines. Perhaps the best (or worst) headline I ever wrote, after a Boston Celtics victory, was “Pierce nets 40 as Celtics pierce Nets.” Clever, eh? “Clever” could be an apt description for many headlines you read. The goal of the headline is to tell you what a story is about, establish its tone, and entice you to read … [Read more...]

SEO Copywriting for Content Contributors

Search engines such as Google are one of the primary ways people find our websites and the content they seek. As such, it's very important to be mindful of search engine optimization (SEO) best practices so that we enable search engines — and the people using them — to find and discover our web content. People often consider SEO to be a content editing task — something you hand-off to a specialist. The reality is that SEO is an important part of … [Read more...]

Google Says Users First With Lengthy Page Content

The simple secret to search engine optimization (SEO): focus on your users. In Google's latest attempt to improve search for web users, they have prioritized single-page versions of multi-page articles (if a single-page version of the article exists) in search results. This is a relatively minor tweak on Google's part, but it's a good reminder to create web content for people first and search engines second. Search engines aim to deliver … [Read more...]

On-Brand SEO Keywords for Meaningful Search

Search engine optimization (SEO) is an essential component of content strategy. If audiences can't easily find or discover your content through search, its value and usefulness is diminished. We need to understand the words our audiences associate with our content so that we can cater to their search habits with relevant keywords. This is a fundamental task for SEO. However, people often confuse valuable SEO keywords with the right SEO … [Read more...]