Web Marketing Poetry

Share This
Andy Crestodina
Share

Happy World Poetry Day! The purpose of this day is to promote the reading, writing, publishing and teaching of poetry throughout the world. Here is my contribution….

When you write for search engines
your writing might sound strange.
The words you choose, the style you use,
Lots of things may change.

Change your title? How could you?
You’ll compromise the page!
Keywords, linking, headers, tagging
Like writing in a cage.

You might feel like a criminal
committing writing crimes.
Repeat that phrase ‘til it displays
five to seven times!

Don’t go too far for rankings’ sake
by changing all your text.
When keywords cram, you sound like spam
Your visitors, perplexed.

Step once for you, and once for rank.
soon you’ll walk that line.
You’ll rank high and still get by
with writing that sounds fine.

“But I don’t want to compromise.
My writing art is true.”
You keep your art, but I’ll be smart.
I’ll see you on page two.

Every poet surely knows
how good constraints can be.
The rules of rhyme and metered time
force creativity.

Singers sing and poets rhyme
To get the girls to ogle.
I tweak my copy all the time
To win some love from…Google.

Writing in rhyming quatrains with iambic meter isn’t easy. But it forced me to think differently and it (hopefully) made this page more interesting.  This may be the nerdiest thing I’ve ever done.

Writing for search engines?  Much the same.  Harder but more rewarding. And when done well, the writing can still be good. And it’s fun!  So embrace the constraints.

Share This

What are your thoughts?

By signing up you agree to our Privacy Policy.

Comments (11)
  • Your search for “Web Marketing Poetry” has now gone up.
    -Pinnacle DECA

    • Yes, I think you are likely the only person who searched for that phrase this month! Thanks for the comment. I hope you enjoyed the poem.

  • See it read live by the poet here

    Nice job @crestodina ! That poetry class really paid off.

  • Just sent this to another client, they love it!

  •  crestodina , I think I’m in love! 😉

    •  @Jkabanuk Then you might like this one: https://www.orbitmedia.com/blog/guest-blogging-a-love-story Hearts!

  • Its beautiful, It was fun reading this. Thanks for sharing 🙂

    •  @SukhSandhu It was a lot of fun to write. I write another eventually!

  • I LOVE THIS!!! We were talking about World Poetry Day in our editorial planning session for the month but passed over it because it wasn’t relevant. We thought. Until I read this. Now I wish I had thought of this!!

  • My fave: “But I don’t want to compromise.My writing art is true.”You keep your art, but I’ll be smart.I’ll see you on page two.”

  • Well done, Andy — strong finish! I like your approach because sometimes this whole SEO business gets too serious for its own good. A bit of whimsy is healthy. It keeps everything in perspective.

 
Join over 16,000 people who receive web marketing tips every two weeks.

By signing up you agree to our Privacy Policy.

Share This