Yes that’s right. That perfectly, pretty, published piece of prose is going to hurt your site and maybe your rankings. Here’s why:

Content is for people, not Search Engines

Yes your content ranks well and your getting traffic. But what’s your bounce rate like? If your content reads somewhat so-so and you’ve included keywords just to rank for certain phrases and you’ve achieved this ranking then Kudos. You’re now getting a lot of traffic to your site. Unfortunately the content you’ve used to get this traffic isn’t engaging enough for your readers who quickly switch off and bounce right off your site.

As you’re getting a lot of bounces to this page Google can see that although to it’s search engine it does look like it’s relevant, humans clearly aren’t voting for this site so why should they continue to rank it there? They wont. You’ll soon start to see your rankings slip which isn’t good for traffic or sales.

Think of weak content like you would an attractive weed. When they’re first planted you do get noticed, people often stop and look at your garden and think “Ooh that’s pretty” before quickly realising that it’s a weed and moving on. The weed spreads and takes over your grass and evolves into and ugly weed until you’re left with a garden full of weeds where no one stops to look any more because it is just a weed garden.

Be a Human, not a Robot

People like to feel connections. And if they’re reading something that feels as if it’s been written for them, then there will much higher user engagement and a much much lower bounce rate. Here’s an idea on how you can improve your content writing.

Be Yourself. There’s a whole industry of content writers out there programmed to churn out text with the occasional keyword inserted into it. But of 7 billion people on the planet you and you alone are you. Unique. Let that show through when you’re writing.