SEO (search engine optimization) is moving on up. Both the BBC News and Huffington Post have recently announced plans to use SE optimization in their online content. It’s one of the latest attempts by the journalism field to compete with user-generated content and maintain a presence. It’s also an example of SEO’s gradual shift into the mainstream. As content optimization becomes more widely adopted, the number of companies (and writers) specializing in SEO copywriting will also be on the rise.

Great writing never calls attention to itself – this statement is frequently repeated in Composition 101 courses. While it is essentially true, it immediately begs this question: what about bad writing makes it so obviously bad? If you’re paying SEO copywriters for services, you need to be able to spot poor work, even if you’re not a writer yourself. Here are some great tips for identifying writers you need to cut out of the payroll.

No one likes spam. Now, while the narrow definition of spam refers to unsolicited marketing content, I think it would be safe to broaden that definition just a bit to include content that people have tacitly agreed to (for example, by signing up for a newsletter) that provides nothing of value to the reader.

Certainly, the average web-surfer will run into a few pages that are duplicate content or “scraper” written. But with the use of a search engine, such as Google, sites like this get banned in no time at all. Meanwhile, SEO professionally-written sites move to the top of the search list, making them more accessible and more likely to be read.