These shifting sands...

There's always something new out there. This blog has focused on what we might call 'classic' copywriting. And that's for a reason, as you'll see shortly. But today, and for the first time on this blog, I'd like to take a look at the future of this whole copywriting deal. See where we're headed.

Copywriters generally don't like being bound by keywords for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) campaigns. In fact, there are still guys in direct mail who barely know what any of that stuff is. I can attest to the pain of having to perform surgery on great copy to implant artificial keywords to feed google, lowering the persuasive power of the sales letter. Which is an argument in favor of using fast, scientific (albeit expensive) PPC campaigns.

On the other hand, no marketer worth his salt would ignore SEO completely. At least none that I know, though I'm sure it's possible. And keywords are key for both online and online SEO efforts.

The good news, for people like me at least, is that google's programmers, in their quest for world domination, are constantly improving their Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI), thus rendering the old keyword stuffing techniques pretty well obsolete. Take that, black hatters.

They've gotten so good, that I predict it only a matter of time that keyword obsession is a thing of the past. And on-page SEO will truly lean in favor of the better (and better written) content.

This is good news for the marketers as well. There is already a great deal of traffic for profitable keywords. And enough good internet marketers to compete for all. So much for long tail. Of course there are still gaps and openings, but those will close soon enough, as the internet matures.

Bottom line: if you're building a business, if you're in for the long haul, quality counts. So use the tech tricks, but stay focused on your fundamentals.

To your copywriting mastery,
Sheridan Randolph