I recognize the fact that the economy is tough and a lot of people are out of work or underemployed and looking for a way, any way, to make some money. Some of them find their way to this field, and there are also a lot of individuals from India, Pakistan, and the Philippines who are bidding on some of the same jobs that I bid on.

Due to the fact that the cost of living is much higher here, coupled with my education and experience and the level of quality I provide, I am awarded a very low percentage of the contracts I bid on, in spite of the fact that I have a 100% customer satisfaction rating.

My point is not to moan or decry globalization (though the second part may be worth doing). I want to contend that there is such a thing as the cheapest price, but there is another factor to consider as well: the best value. Let me provide you with a quick analogy. I bought a mop at the dollar store a couple of week ago. The head came off the first time I used it and I had to throw it away. It was definitely the cheapest mop around…but it didn’t provide the best value. If you bought ten of them they wouldn’t last a week. But if you bought an $8 mop in the first place, it would probably last you a year.

As we say around here, your content is your voice on the Internet. It is your identity, and prospective customers can’t see you and look into your eyes or evaluate your physical location. They may not know where you are located at all. The only measure of trust that they can draw from is the appearance of your site, and the content that you have conveying your message and/or describing your offerings.

If your content sounds like it was written by a non-native, or if it is lacking in creativity, professionalism, and clarity, you will not inspire confidence in your visitors. Yes, it’s true that I’m a content provider so it is in my interest to make this contention. But let me tell you a secret…I’m a lousy salesman because I’m a terrible liar. But, if I believe that what I’m saying is true, I have no problem making a recommendation. And I am genuinely certain that paying a little bit more for really solid content is well worth it.

When I see what people are willing to pay, and what I’m asking, the difference is not all that great, and there is no doubt in my mind that the better value lies in going with impeccable, well written content. People wind up with either bad or mediocre content that basically does more harm than good, when they could have paid a fair price to an experienced and seasoned professional and walked away with optimum value for their money.

I have my finger on the pulse of things, and I think that many people are beginning to recognize the fact that the Internet is plagued by horrible writing, and I think they’re coming around. Hopefully, lots and lots of them will find their way right here.

The best way to continually improve as a writer is to pay attention when you are reading. I am utterly amazed by the grammar and spelling errors that professional people make on a routine basis when I am going about my day-to-day correspondence. It’s not that I have zero tolerance for someone making an honest mistake…it’s the fact that I know for sure that they have seen these misspelled words in print thousands of times throughout their lives. I simply cannot understand how someone can spell the word “prefer” “prafer,” or the word “trust” “thrust,” and do so repeatedly so you know that the errors are not typos.

I’m not going to stand on a soapbox decrying our culture of texting and spellcheckers diluting respect for the written word in some broad context. What I’m laying out here is a suggestion for those who endeavor to compose content for websites, blogs, and articles: if you aren’t certain about something, look it up. Do so all the time, 100% of the time. It’s never okay to guess or assume something must be right. For instance, when I used a colon earlier in this paragraph, I started the phrase that followed it with a small letter. I didn’t know if this was correct or not at one time…but I looked it up. Many people capitalize after a colon, but that is simply incorrect in most cases.

For the layman to make an error like that one is probably understandable and no big deal, but if you are a content provider, you need to set a standard for yourself and never compromise it. If you make the commitment to ongoing self education and welcome opportunities to look into things that you are unsure of, you will continually grow as a professional. But you will also evolve as a writer and as a person of integrity for integrity’s sake, and that is a something that is truly priceless.

Humility is key in every endeavor, and it is important to recognize that you don’t know it all when you are engaged in writing content for SEO, and even when you do for a fleeting moment, the situation will change before you know it. So, I like to work with the assumption that the people who are programming search engine algorithms are bright, they know what they’re doing, and they are always looking forward and trying to make improvements.

I was told back in the day that you need to identify keywords and phrases based on search volume and consciously stuff your content with these. There are many who still feel that this is true. Other say you should indeed use these pre-selected terms, but they toss out a metric, like “2% to 5%” is the “correct” keyword density. The fact is, they don’t know this for sure. But businesses always want to operate under a set of numerical absolutes, when in fact, none exist in many if not most instances.

There is a process called Latent Semantic Indexing that Google has been interested in for several years that I believe plays a big part in the future of search algorithms. LSI is basically a method of recognizing the subject matter of a body of text based on semantically related terms.

Smart people are going to be annoyed by an algorithm that encourages a lack of semantic elegance and rewards poorly written, keyword-stuffed content with positive SERPs. There has to be a better way, and I think that LSI is that better way.

So when I deliver content, I get a general idea of the relevant keywords and their search volume using SEO tools, but I keep them in the back of my mind and write naturally. I’ve done that throughout the writing of this post, and I bet that if you look back through it to see if there are relevant keywords winding through the text, you will find them. But none are overused because I am trying to write something that reads well that is intended to convey my thoughts on this topic clearly and concisely. So I am at once writing compelling and useful content while inadvertently, as it were, using a hefty number of key terms and phrases.

When you think about, content that is clearly written around keywords is not going to convert even if it helps a site place well in the SERPs. People will click, say “yuck, spam,” and move one. Content has a dual purpose–optimization coupled with genuinely useful and compelling information that leads to conversions. We learn and adjust day by day, but we feel as though we have an advanced understanding of quality content creation and endeavor to provide our clients with the best of both worlds.