Boost SEO and improve search traffic? go keyword crazy

I'm going to go against all that you will ever hear about what makes great content marketing. Indeed, everything wrong about content writing for websites will spew forth from my keyboard now...

Why? 

Because despite what they all tell you, keywords are still king. In the words of Public Enemy, don't believe the hype. It's so easy in all the talk of relevant, interesting and timely content that we forget what it's all about - keywords.

OK links are fabulous and you may well get a lot more with genuinely great content, but only over time.

Ask yourself, no matter how good your content is in terms of readability and interest - is it relevant to the search query you are targeting. After all despite Google's attempts at making search rankings more dynamic and more human there is simply no way to get around keywords - they are still the major marker points for search engines.

The reason I'm saying all this now is because of a tweet I was drawn to earlier today. As the screen shot in the link reveals, keywords are still beating everything else when comes to climbing search rankings.

Panda and Penguin hard at work ow.ly/iYieW Nooooooooooot!

— Matt Sawyer (@mattuk) March 15, 2013

It reminded me that while we delve into the realms of generating truly wonderful content, those that keep bashing away at good-old keyword-based articles continue to win the game.

I'm not talking about keyword stuffing or so-called 'black hat' SEO. No it's all about bona fide content - just remember to get those keywords in or you won't boost SEO or improve your website traffic any time soon.