After reading Brenda Mullen's post on Do I "sound" funny when I write key words in blogging and Lenn Harley's What is SERP? It's the secret to advertising our Real Estate Services on the Net!! it inspired me to write about one of my pet peeves...and how to turn this aound to your advantage for better placement.
Here's my pet peeve...when people REPEAT the title of the post in the first sentence of their blog post! It really annoys me because it reads soooooo poorly and it wastes space in their snippet. (I sometimes use the snippet to determine whether or not I will read on and I bet I'm not alone...both others here do this and customers do too...when they see it in google).
If you were writing for a real person, would you do this? Would you do this in an email to a customer? Would you do this in a type written or hand written note? Would you talk this way? My guess would be no!
Google tries to optimize what they show to a user based on many factors. Of course key word stuffing is bad - we all know that. But, readability is also important, and I would guess will become even more important over time, especially as google continues to improve their algorhythms and as they try to filter out spam and robotic sorts of pages.
In Active Rain University, they seem to be teaching us to repeat the title in first sentence, and that is the reason that most people here are doing this. And, I know they may disagree with me. But, I would venture that there is a smarter way to do this....instead, reuse the key words in the first sentence, but mix it up and make it interesting so that is it not repeated word for word.
Here's are some examples from my posts:
Dark hardwood floors in Irvington NY 10533
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Maple flooring in Briarcliff NY 10510
If you're looking for a light colored hardwood floor, consider maple flooring for your home in Briarcliff NY.
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Selecting carpet for your home in Pound Ridge has never been easier...now, you can Shop at Home for your carpeting in Westchester NY.
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I try to mix things up a bit - so that it reads more natural and looks more natural. Sometimes, I'll use flooring in the title, and floors in the first line or New York vs. NY (or with or without the zip code). Or for laminate flooring, I might also say floating floor (or even Pergo) since that's what customers sometimes use. By doing this and incorporating synonyms and/or word variations throughout the post I accomplish a couple of things. First, I make it more readable and second I bring in more variations for the terms that customers may actually type into google.
I am not perfect, I and definitely get lazy at times, too. But, take an extra minute or two and look to optimize the combo of your title and first line of you post, and make sure that they work together. Just my two cents.
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