Writing for Google

“When writing a website the writer needs to be focused on the reader; that is write for readers. Even though human readers are those who are going to be active and do something about your site, one of your primary readers is Googlebot. Writers need to be aware that building information has an effect on your site and also any site to which you create links within that information. The web is a connected world and what you do on your site may greatly affect not only your position in search engine results, but also other people’s position and how Google perceives their web pages.” Elwyn Jenkins —Writing for GoogleGoogleVillage)

While Elwyn does acknowledge that human readers (or at least scanners and skimmers) are the primary audience for your web site, I think it’s also worth noting that if your writing appears to be optimized to attract Google hits, expert readers may be able to detect the Googlebot bias, and may find themselves less likely to link to the page that you have designed to be so useful to the Googlebot. Just a thought.