Why Writing for the Web Isn’t Much Different Than Print Journalism

“This all sounds great, but isn’t this just gaming the system?”

The man brought up a valid point.

We were talking about link-building tactics, specifically keyword targeting, at the end of a packed Wine & Web session hosted by Andy Crestodina at Orbit Media Studios. The question was asked in skeptical fashion by a middle-aged man looking for a new way to drive traffic to his website.

It was a fair question to ask, and in fact, the man was right.

When we write with keyword targeting in mind to rise in search rankings, we are gaming the system.

Where he’s wrong is in his assumption that this is any different than the way news and information has been spread and sold for hundreds of years.

The Original Keyword Targeting:  Newspaper Headlines

The man had brought this up just after Crestodina finished talking about the techniques he uses to target phrases that his website can rank for. He uses a number of different tools, but in a nutshell, he gets inspired by an idea, searches for a keyphrase related to the idea, then as he writes, he uses that phrase on the page using Orbit’s own “SEO best practices.” Finally, he looks for opportunities to link to the page from other pages and older blog posts.

No, it’s not classic literature, and it’s not a New Yorker essay, but it’s not content-farm crap either.

When you write for keywords it doesn’t mean your writing is not high quality. In fact, it’s not really any different than the tactics that the news industry has been using for decades.

Think about how you look at an article in the paper or a magazine. One of two things grabs you first – the headline or an image. From there, you might read the image caption to get an idea what the article is about, then the subhead.

If those elements are strong enough, you actually start to read the article, but if the lede stinks, you probably stop there, or scan ahead to look for subheads to pull you to the interesting part, or maybe a graph or a sidebar.

You read an article on the web in much the same way. The headline or photo comes first, and once you click, you check the image and probably the caption before checking the subheads. Many of us still don’t start reading then – we scroll down to see how long the article is, to see if we can commit to it, We check the sub-heads, maybe scan for bolded names or phrases that we’re interested in.

Only then do we begin to read, and those elements – the title, the subhead (or H-2 tag), the image and alt image text, the keyphrases – are the ones that Google prioritizes in its algorithm as well.

Good Content Doesn’t Deserve to Get Dusty

Crestodina is a pro when it comes to content strategy – he literally wrote the book on it when he released Content Chemistry earlier this year. But at the heart of his link-building strategy is creating quality material that teaches people valuable lessons in an entertaining fashion.

Once you’ve produced that, does it do any good sitting on the dusty shelves of the cavernous library we call the Internet? No.

There is a lot of great work on the web that nobody will ever find, just as there are amazing stories, profiles, and life-changing news articles buried on page B24 of great newspapers every day (OK, no newspaper has 24 pages anymore, but you get the idea).

What has always sold a story on the printed page? A bold, well-crafted, attention-grabbing headline. A spectacular image. Perfect placement.

Have you ever read an article in which the meat of the story contradicts the sensationalism of the headline? Of course you have, because objective number one is to get you to the story. From there, the writing and content takes over and has to deliver to bring you back.

Those classic print techniques are just as much a way of gaming the system as keyword targeting, of headlines crafted for web audiences, and links placed to grab the attention of search engines.

I, for one, would have no problem if the New York Times could find a way to use cat memes to spread investigative reporting about Wall Street malfeasance, the undue influence of the Military Industrial Complex, or corruption in City Hall.

Next time you find yourself struggling to deal with writing for the web, remember this:

Writing for the web isn’t much different than writing for people.