Morty,

Your conclusion is the perfect antidote for all those drinking too much of the SEO Kool-aid: "Search engines don't buy products.... People buy products." Successful websites are written for people first and search second. Google does an incredible job of delivering relevant pages, and a lot of that rests on its ability to parse the content on the page, not hidden key words in the meta data. Granted, for the web you should make a conscious effort to repeat your key words more often in your text. And you need to get news, articles and links on other websites or blogs to make your site more visible to people and search engines. Beyond that, I frankly don’t see much value in agonizing over key words in the meta data. Whether it’s your own meta tags or social tags, tags just aren’t all that helpful in producing more relevant results.

Don Dunnington
Don Dunnington | Homepage | 02.19.07 - 11:21 am | #

Don,
You just gave a one-paragraph course in SEO copywriting! I think I'm going to print it and hang it over my desk!

Morty
Mordechai (Morty) Schiller | Homepage | 02.19.07 - 1:06 pm | #

Thank you for bringing the greats of advertising back to life. Caples was a genius and the things he repeatedly tested continue to convert. Those things work on the net too and every copywriter, whether on the web or not, should take a few lessons from these guys.

People haven't changed, much. They want the easiest, best solution to their problem without any BS in between. However, the overwhelming influx of spam has made for web shoppers to be a bit more skeptical. As copywriters we need to be aware of this and give honesty. Let them see the benefit and the return on investment.

Like the saying goes, you can lead a horse to water , but you can't make him drink. Unless, of course, you make him really thirsty.
Katie Cummings | Homepage | 05.02.07 - 4:45 pm | #

Absolutely!

Reminds me of what Gary Halbert (bless his soul) used to say, "The only advantage I want, is a Starving Crowd!" (See http://tinyurl.com/3cyvuf)

I guess thirsty also does the trick!

Thanks,
Morty

Edited By Siteowner
Mordechai (Morty) Schiller | Homepage | 05.02.07 - 5:18 pm | #

I'm new at all this SEO stuff, but it's good to know that skill and talent are still needed in the Digital Age. My advertising professors have been redeemed!

Ed
Carolina Event Planning | Homepage | 05.07.07 - 8:12 am | #

Yup! You might want to take a look at Dianna Huff's book on SEO. See my review at http://tinyurl.com/37oqp7
Mordechai (Morty) Schiller | Homepage | 05.07.07 - 9:09 am | #