I’ve had it, folks. I’ve seriously had it.

I just got off a phone call with someone close to me. She’s a business owner, a mother and an all-around wonderful person being taken for a ride by a self-proclaimed “SEO guru” out of Toronto.

It was not a fun conversation. I had to tell her that she had almost certainly just flushed hundreds of dollars down the drain.

She called because, after a round of revisions, the “SEO copy” recommended by said guru looks more like a dumpster fire to burn your brand’s reputation in than anything that a reputable business would actually want to publish.

And it absolutely infuriates me.

The “content” (read: keyword-drenched  cyber vomit) was commissioned from a “writer” (read: person with two arms, a keyboard and 10 minutes) by the “guru” (read: con artist with a 1998-level understanding of SEO) as a means of helping her site try to rank for phrases containing her city’s name.

The content contained such useful gems as: “We have a lot of customers in [X City] who rave about our products, and we’re proud to be a [Company Offering] in [X City]. If you’re looking for [X product] in [X City], you won’t find a better [Company Offering].”

That is outrageously bad.

No human being talks like that – but that was only the beginning.

His recommendation was to “throw it in the blog, or through a link visitors won’t have to see.” Ah, the ol’ “Only Google can see it!” gag – a classic! “We’ll just shovel this pile of manure under the digital rug and let it fertilize our glorious rankings. I’m sure nobody will notice the stench.”

He also noted that “the only people who will see it are people who click on the link from search engines”.

Those people have another name: her leads and prospective customers.

When they click through, they’re greeted with the wafting chili-dog-fart odor of “SEO copy” written for nobody – and now, they’re supposed to trust her brand enough to buy from her? Even if it ranked, customers would have to side-skirt the awful copy and click through to an internal page before hunting to find the product they want to buy it.

Give your head a shake.

The sad thing is, even though that’s a terrible SEO tactic and even worse  copy, I honestly don’t think Mr. Guru knows any better. He doesn’t know the value of copy. He doesn’t respect it. He just knows he needs it.

That’s why kind of thing is EVERYWHERE!

It’s on landing pages for business locations. It’s on home pages in fold-down “Read More…” sections website owners pray people never click. It’s on product pages, where the writer rambles on about “the most innovative” this and “the highest quality” that. It’s stuffed into footers, hidden on internal landing pages, and sometimes it even makes it onto the “About Us” page.

 So to bogus SEOs and the brands who hire them: See that banner up there?

Before you publish one iota of content – before you even THINK about recommending a strategy that involves creating a bunch of words for a bunch of pages, there’s only one question you need to answer:

“Is This Good for the Company?”

(And, by extension, their customer.)

I don’t mean good like, “Well, they might rank, and that might make them more money.”

I mean, concretely: Are you about to embarrass an established brand and make them look like idiots with the half-baked idea you stole from someone’s decades-old playbook? And yes, I know we all know the mantra, “Write for humans not for machines”. But that doesn’t just mean “Write something that is unique and sounds like a person wrote it.”

The “Should We Publish This?” checklist is remarkably simple:

• If you’re counting on nobody reading it, it doesn’t belong.
• If someone would never choose to read it, it doesn’t belong.
• If you wrote for the sole purpose of hitting a self-imposed word count, it doesn’t belong.
• If it doesn’t solve a pain point, answer a question or further your case, it doesn’t belong.
• If it’s not relevant and useful to a human being, it doesn’t belong.

Brands, be careful who you put in charge of your messaging.

There are some great, very smart SEOs out there who think like businesses and know copy is a worthy investment. You can tell who they are by the way they talk about your content. If they’re echoing my sentiments here, stick with ’em.

But no matter who you work with…

1. Stay vigilant. Read every ounce of copy your SEO commissions for you. If you don’t know what’s being published under your brand name, that ought to terrify you. It’s not “just a few blog posts”. It’s your reputation, your values, your quality, YOU – all on display for the world to critique.

2. Spend wisely. I will not pretend everyone has the kind of budget to hire the best copywriters in the business, but that remains no excuse. If it means publishing less, publish less. If it means directing funds from elsewhere, do what makes sense. Whoever you’re paying is your new brand ambassador – don’t let ’em work for peanuts.

3. Think critically. This really isn’t that hard. If the copy being published in your name embarrasses you, exists solely for search engines or offers nothing to the world, burn it alive without mercy or thinking twice.

For more general guidelines, read Death to SEO Copywriting.

Your copy ought to be beautiful to read, persuasive to encounter and delightful to consume.

Otherwise, it’s just keywords.

Facebook

Twitter

Google

Linkedin

Pinterest

Email

Leave A Comment

• Apr
  12
  Social Media Marketing World 2026 – Joel Klettke’s Slides
• Mar
  4
  Social at Home (SocialNext) Virtual Conference Talk
• Sep
  28
  Whitespark
• Apr
  9
  Growing a Writing team: My TCC(N)IRL Talk (and upcoming course)
• Dec
  10
  Joel’s Super Mega Birthday Bash