Analyzing “SEO Bristol”

We here at Orange Whale have decided to do an optimized page for the search term, “SEO Bristol“. Why? Well, to be honest, purely for optimization purposes, although in the process we hope to demonstrate two things; firstly, what an SEO optimized page looks like, and secondly, to illustrate somewhat of the creative aspect of SEO; hopefully we can make a virtue out of a necessity, and serve up an interesting case study.

One question which repeatedly crops up on blogs and in discussions on forums is, “should I write for my audience, or for SEO purposes?” The conventional replies we hear to this suggest that people should write for one or the other, the stock answer usually being: “You should write for your audience”. This really is a slightly lazy, or to be more accurate, an ill thought-out reply. The truth is this: when creating content you should inevitably have as your top priority your audience. (We will avoid any digressions here into adsense style non-content). If you don’t write proper content, you won’t get an audience, as simple as that, and without an audience, what are you really hoping to achieve? Not even Google will rank faux-content anymore, because if no-one comes to your site and stays there, they will evaluate your poor bounce rate and analytics, and view you as worthless anyhow. So on all sides writing content not aimed primarily at your audience is a forlorn task. However, writing exciting content and simultaneously writing search engine optimized text are not mutually exclusive, anymore than, say, giving a business talk and using a powerpoint presentation are mutually exclusive. In the latter example, the powerpoint presentation formats the talk, and likewise, to continue the analogy, writing SEO optimized content simply involves tailoring your content to certain parameters. Writing exclusively for an audience is fine, but there is no reason to stop there. It is not particularly difficult to standardize your writing to appeal to the search engines, so why not do it? In fact, writers have been creating content that speaks on different levels since time immemorial, so I see no reason to stop the tradition now. At the time of writing, (and these things seem to be in flux), the precepts that apply to on-page SEO are things like using H-tags correctly, implementing keywords in titles, making your keywords bold and so on. These demands are really not particularly restrictive, although they usually require a bit of modification and a slight loss of poetic licence. However, as far as we can see, it is relatively easy to optimize text without infringing on your rights of expression. Let’s face it, it’s a whole lot less exacting than writing in quatrains and stanzas. At this level we really do not see SEO as particularly restrictive or prescriptive.

Who is interested in “SEO Bristol” ?

Certain terms as used by searchers do not lend themselves to optimization particularly easily. For instance if you were a saxophone player looking for work, then the search term, “Saxophone Player Wanted”, is one you would want to target and optimize for. But optimizing for that is actually quite an unwieldy process. Creating a page titled and themed around “saxophone player wanted” is an unnatural process since really the more natural page for you to create is one based around your services, e.g. “saxophone player for hire”. At this point in the SEO process, if you are going to continue on conventional lines, it requires a certain amount of juggling to resolve this search-content dissonance, and make “saxophone player wanted” appear as a natural page on your site. We now have a kind of creative tension. You have to create a page “saxophone player wanted” that appears natural and makes sense, and doesn’t look superimposed and incongruous in the overall context of your site. SEO creates these kinds of conundrums, which tend to require creative solutions of one kind or another. Likewise, the search term “SEO Bristol“, which in itself is not a grammatical proposition, as opposed to say, “How to be happy and prosper in hard times”, is another example of a creative tension. Writing material around a non-grammatical expression, out of search optimization necessity, requires the content creator to come up with some sort of creative solution that makes sense to their readers, while simultaneously allowing them to maximize their optimization process.

Creative text:- using “SEO Bristol” as an example

The search term “SEO Bristol” doesn’t actually lend itself very easily to natural syntax, if at all. So, in the working case study example of this page, I have fashioned a kind of meta-page, optimizing for the phrase by doing a study of the optimization process. At this level I am trying to appeal to the search engines, and their two dimensional reading of a page, as well as appeal to a human audience by creating something meaningful and relevant. [Whether this particular approach is working is probably best answered in the comments section, where presumably I will find out whether you the readers accept this ambivalence, or not.] Ultimately, reconciling the demands of SEO, (i.e. targeting high value search keyword expressions), and the demands of a hungry audience can require some significant contextual acrobatics. Trying to create interesting content, and at the same time positioning it for maximum SEO leverage can be challenging. I have set out on this page to fulfill two distinctly separate tasks; to optimize for a particular search term, and to write an interesting article, (in the form of a case study). Have I succeeded? Feel free to post your comments below.

So, to conclude, I personally believe that this “SEO Bristol” piece is in a way exemplary of the type of challenge and potential resolution that confronts search engine optimizers regularly, and, like I say, feel free to weigh in on the matter by posting your opinion below.