The pace of change in the digital marketing sphere means that best practices often evolve before advertisers are able to catch up. In content marketing and SEO copywriting, for instance, some agencies emphasize tactics that have long-since fallen out of favour with Google. SEOCopywriting.com recently listed a few “outdated SEO writing myths” that could hurt your search rankings rather than help them.

Overemphasizing key phrase density is a cardinal sin among enlightened SEO copywriters. Yes, you should still include keywords and key phrases in your copy, but no, there is no specific key phrase density that guarantees effective SEO copywriting. Google’s focus for the past several years has been on quality content, content that delivers real value and information to readers. That content can – and should – still contain relevant key phrases, but it should never read as spammy.

Overemphasizing word count is similarly misguided. It’s fair to say that longer content will generally rank higher than shorter content, but your focus should be on delivering robust information to your site visitors.

In other words, don’t blog for Google! Regularly adding fresh, relevant, informative, and readable content to your website is awesome for customers and your SEO – but doing so with the sole aim of pleasing Google is a recipe for disaster. “Google doesn’t care how often you publish new content,” SEOCopywriting.com says. “Instead of quantity, think quality content.”

To summarize: SEO copywriting remains an important digital marketing practice that should deliver real, tangible benefits for readers. As Google’s ranking tools become more sophisticated, expect key phrases and content length to take more of a back seat to high-quality writing.

As a Google Premier Partner digital marketing agency with access to valuable insights on Google’s preferred practices, GrowthEngine Media provides content marketing and SEO copywriting services that adhere to the latest and best approaches.