With an attitude like this you'll be lost and out of a job before you know it. Good marketing always considers how customers find you, and search engines are top dog whether you like it or not. You can't just ignore it – you have to learn to live with it and deal with it. Yes, good copy is paramount, but if nobody ever finds your beautiful, salivation worthy copy, its all for not. Learn to live in both worlds – its those that do that will survive.

With an attitude like this you'll be lost and out of a job before you know it.

Consider me gainfully unemployed then.

Good marketing always considers how customers find you, and search engines are top dog whether you like it or not.

Not in all cases.

I think search engines should be a consideration in many of the things that you do, but I do not like the idea of writing copy primarily for them. Put another way, I started doing really well in and out of then engines when I stopped heavily considering them when writing page copy.

Good idea, Aaron. I think you're right. The way to write copy is totally for the reader. After the fact you can go in and add some keyphrase variations. But while writing the copy focus totally on the reader and his/her wants/desires.

LVV Search: Right. The copy should focus on the reader only, but before writing you should have checked useful keywords to keep in mind while writing. Sometimes it ist only the right expression to choose instead of one only the people who work with the stuff will know, but not the reader/customer. So there's nothing wrong in copywriting for searchengines and readers.

Good point Susanna, but honestly if you are writing for the end user/reader you are likely to be using the right phrases in the first place.

If you are writing for those in the know/experts - unless that is your buying audience - you are writing your articles wrong anyway.