When does an article cross the line from “informative” to “optimized?” Hey, who knows? I have my own definition: when it stops sounding natural (or organic, as the freaks say) and starts reading like a bunch of keywords with punctuation.
This won’t be groundbreaking information, but I try to approach an SEO assignment like any other, from an audience perspective. I try to write as if I were addressing people, not search engines.
Of course, I have my list of keywords in mind, and I try to reference them whenever it feels natural. Then, when I am done, I go back and look for any additional organic opportunities I may have missed.
After that, I look for any in-organic opportunities, no more than two or three, to wedge in a few extra keywords. I do this because, without a few sore-thumb phrases glowing on the page, some clients don’t feel like I have earned my two-point-seven cents per word.
Hey, that’s why they call it “adding value!”
Anyway, here’s a recent example. Again, a topic I knew nothing about: employee benefits. See what you think, both in terms of sounding intelligent and in organic SEO.
A Lively Exchange 