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My mentor told me to stop optimizing for keywords and it actually worked | Digital Marketing Strategy - Opinions Matter

My mentor told me to stop optimizing for keywords and it actually worked

I had this guy I look up to in the industry, he's been doing SEO since like 2005. He watched me obsess over keyword density for a client in Austin last year and basically said I was overthinking it. He told me to just write content that actually answers what people type into Google, stop stuffing phrases in there. I ignored him for three months and kept fiddling with keyword placement in blog posts. Then I tried his approach on a single landing page for a plumbing company, wrote it like a normal person would explain a pipe leak. That page went from page 4 to page 1 in about 6 weeks with zero backlink building. Now I'm rethinking my whole content strategy for almost every client. Has anyone else dumped keyword research and just focused on answering questions directly?

2 comments

2 Comments

fisher.adam3mo ago

Have you noticed that the same thing happens with basically anything people get good at? I mean think about it, a lot of times the more you know about something the more you start overcomplicating it and adding extra steps that don't need to be there. It's like how a painter who knows every color theory rule might actually make worse art than someone who just paints what looks good. Words are the same way, people have been talking and writing clearly for thousands of years before SEO was even a thing. You were probably doing all that keyword stuff because it made you feel like you were in control and doing something technical. But really Google just wants to match a search with content that makes sense and helps the person out. Your mentor was basically telling you to trust that normal human communication already does most of the heavy lifting.

derek_schmidt63mo ago

You ever catch yourself doing that thing where you think you're being smart by adding all these layers, but really you're just making a mess? I used to be the same way with writing, thought I had to stuff every sentence with fancy words and technical tricks. But after watching my guys screw up a simple paint job by overthinking it, I realized your mentor was right, keeping it straightforward is usually the way to go. Now I just try to write like I'd explain it to someone on my crew, and it actually works way better.