Article Content vs. Real Life – Keyword Stuffing
The first in a series of videos that brings poor article-writing practices into the real world.
For months we’ve been struggling with the question of how to explain the “wrongness” of certain article practices. Practices that are fairly common, yet provide no real value to either the reader or the author … or are just downright unethical. They include everything from keyword stuffing and plagiarism to article spinning and copyright infringement.
What we realized is that despite the fact that almost all Expert Authors are good, decent human beings, many are doing things in their articles that they would never dream of doing in the real world. Their reaction when confronted with this fact is almost always one of confusion. They find it difficult to understand what’s wrong with doing what they’re doing.
Last week, with the help of our Editorial Staff, we found a promising method for explaining this concept. When these bad article writing practices are brought into the “real world” of day-to-day life, it quickly becomes stunningly obvious how wrong they really are.
It’s also pretty dang funny. :-)
Normally there would be a recap of the video right here. Hopefully, it’s not necessary. The point of this video should be fairly obvious – keyword stuffing is a really bad idea. So please don’t do it in your articles.
Why is keyword stuffing bad?
- It creates a poor user experience for your readers.
- It’s a violation of author/reader trust.
- It diminishes your credibility as an Expert Author.
- It generates almost no clicks in your Resource Box and even fewer conversions.
So why do some people do it?
In most cases it’s a combination of laziness and ignorance. It’s easier and faster to write a keyword-stuffed article than it is to write an article that’s full of fresh, useful information. Yet, ironically, keyword stuffed articles tend to rank high in the search engine results, so many people feel it’s the smart thing to do. The reality is that once a reader starts reading the article, they quickly realize it’s useless garbage and immediately click away. The results are negative for everybody, including the author.
Watch for more of these Article Content vs. Real Life videos in the coming weeks. We hope you find them enlightening and entertaining all at the same time.
Please share this video with others and let us know what you think of the concept by leaving a comment below.
Love your pun.
May 28, 2010 at 6:34 PM[Reply]