How to write user-first SEO copy.

We’ve all been there. You’re reading through the first few sentences of a webpage and you begin to wonder if you’ve lost your mind. You’re thinking, why doesn’t this make sense? I know what these words mean but they’re in an order that is rendering them meaningless. What is happening??

Lauren Macnab
Bootcamp
Published in
3 min readJul 28, 2023

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Close-up of a person’s eyes. They look confused.

The answer is probably that the author of that webpage is writing “for SEO”.

Old school SEO meant incorporating keywords x amount of times so that search engine crawlers would rank the website for those terms. This deference to the Google bot was often at the sake of the poor human who had to read the copy. The thing is, back then it worked. Search bots were advanced for their time but they needed obvious signals about what a site was about and keywords were the main way they figured this out. As the search engine results became more competitive and keyword research became a national pastime, so started a frenzy of keyword stuffing.

But that was then. These days, search engines have far more advanced ways of understanding what a website is about and importantly, whether it offers the user a great experience. And user experience is now at the heart of SEO.

So, if keyword stuffing is a thing of the past, which SEO factors work now?

  • Replace keyword research with interest research. Spend time looking at the topics and general themes that your audience is interested in that are relevant to your website.
  • Replace keyword stuffing with well-written content. Prioritise high-quality content that humans will want to engage with.
  • Replace over-optimised web pages with comprehensive resources. If there is sufficient information on a topic or theme, think about how you can break it down into a user-friendly online experience. A landing page linking to articles, for example.
  • Text is only one part of the story. Also think about how to use imagery, videos, downloads, etc.
  • Join the dots across your channels and platforms. Creating a webpage that you then link to from your socials isn’t the worst, but it’s also not the best. Instead, create content that is designed for the channel and platform. Embedding your video on your webpage and then posting it on social won’t get you the same traction (with humans or search engines) that modifying it for the platform will. This also builds your authority on a subject in the eyes of your audience.

These days, terrible writing that is “optimised for search engines” is just terrible writing. Keywords still have their place and using them thoughtfully in a way that isn’t a nightmare for a human to read is still going to work. But they are no longer the powerhouse they used to be and if you’re not creating human-first content, you do not have a futureproof SEO strategy.

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Bootcamp
Bootcamp

Published in Bootcamp

From idea to product, one lesson at a time. Bootcamp is a collection of resources and opinion pieces about UX, UI, and Product. To submit your story: https://tinyurl.com/bootspub1

Lauren Macnab
Lauren Macnab

Written by Lauren Macnab

Digital marketing specialist and digital wellness coach. Interested in how we can make digital products more ethical for users.

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