The Old Man and the SEO

In the midst of job hunting I have discovered that many companies now look for journalists who have knowledge of SEO. I didn't - so endeavoured to find out more. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, basically the process by which websites improve their rankings in search engine results. For example, when you type 'Search Engine Optimization' into Google, the first listing is the Wikipedia page on SEO. When you enter the name or URL of this blog into Google - Other Search Engines Are Available - the first listing links to an article on the top 100 alternative search engines; my blog doesn't figure in the first five pages of results - it's probably the 87,199,999th result out of 87,200,000. But hold on - the top 100 alternative search engines? I couldn't name 10 conventional search engines! 

Actually, I had heard of SEO - my understanding was that in order to list high in search engine results, a website should include as many keywords on a particular subject as possible. So, a website about funny-looking cats should have the words 'funny-looking cats' plastered all over the page. Given this, SEO SEO SEO. That should boost this blog's ratings. 

There is a particular factor of SEO that has concerned me, however. Whilst looking for jobs, I found websites looking for journalists with knowledge of writing for SEO; particularly, news websites. Now, I'm not the font of all journalism knowledge - I am unemployed! - but I always thought that writers should be as economical and concise with their writing as they can be, and not repeat words unnecessarily. (I once thought I'd invented a word, 'concision', as in, "the writer used concision", although apparently it exists.)

I have always tried to be as economical with words as possible (apart from that gratuitous last sentence on inventing words; oops, and this sentence). Most people don't associate journalists with ethics, but I think ethically I would struggle to purposely litter my writing with excessive words, even if I was just writing news on this month's funniest-looking cats. Funniest-looking cats.

I can think of only one writer who embodies concise use of language and that is Ernest Hemingway. What would that great man make of deliberately repeating words and phrases in reportage? I wonder.
Hemingway is a writer to whom I have only just been introduced; I have read one of his books, 'A Farewell to Arms'. I was surprised by his style and enjoyed the narrative and was pretty heartbroken by the book's end. It is semi-autobiographical, and I was left thinking, wow, either WW1 was pretty horrible or Hemingway loved a drink, or both. Probably both.

But having said what I have about repetition, Hemingway did use the technique in 'A Farewell to Arms' (and I guess in his other novels), repeating words willy nilly. Take this random excerpt:

'As we moved out through the town it was empty in the rain and the dark except for columns of troops and guns that were going through the main street. There were many trucks too and some carts going through on other streets and converging on the main road. When we were out past the tanneries onto the main road the troops, the motor trucks, the horse-drawn carts and the guns were in one wide slow-moving column.'

The lesson here I suppose is that repeating words can be used for effect, especially when describing a busy scene with lots of interacting characters. But personally I would never adapt my writing style to suit SEO SEO SEO and certainly wouldn't repeat words all over the shop.