So, Merriam-Webster broke down and let “w00t” into its dictionary. Yeah, well, they’re trying to stay relevant. That doesn’t mean anybody should ever use this word outside of World of Warcraft or, at the most, instant messaging. How long do you think it will be before w00t is as silly as gnarly, tubular, radical waves (can you see the zinc-oxide on my nose, dude?) or those ridiculous Hammer pants?
Word to your mother. Right, homey?
This isn’t about w00t, or any neologism soon to be placed in the pop culture closet of fame until VH1 dusts it off for “I Love 2007” in ten years. This is really about the importance of quality language on your website, especially if one of your goals is to be respected by Google’s ranking algorithms (and by your readers).
I’m not saying to stay away from slang, especially if that’s part of who you are and an integral part of your message to the world. I’m just saying you should probably spell it right, whichever abominable pseudo-pidgin lingo you decide suits you best.
I’m from Eastern Kentucky (yes, there) whereupon a visit I might slip into hillbilly homespeak as soon as I’m pertnear the holler where folks ain’t got no judgment on me for nothing, Gawd love’em, because they knowed me as a boy, and they heared I was doin’ alright for myself over yonder.
I exaggerate a little, but not much. The point is, some things change and some things don’t. Earning credibility with people depends a lot on how you speak, and earning credibility online depends a lot on how you write.
That doesn’t mean you have to be James Joyce. It does mean that, for the majority of the language you put out on the Web to represent yourself, that spelling and grammar are important. It shows you care enough to pay attention, to polish the brass.
Your online prose, when your goal is to build an online franchise via a blog or website, should be simple and to the point especially if targeting a large, broad audience. I have trouble with that one, you might have already guessed. Simple and to the point is for readers; not everybody’s got a Master’s degree.
Length and format is debatable. I say choose whichever suits you. Write monster posts, or write quick-hitters. Or better, write a mixture of both. People on the Web tend to like things in list-form, bullet points, and quick scanners. You’ll need to write for the consume-mass-quantities crowd, and you’ll also need to write for readers that want depth.
Do that—create quality content in a variety of formats—and keep it presentable with what you learned through eighth grade English. This isn’t just for readers, or an idea born of snooty correctness*, or for whatever you wish your reputation to be, but also for love from the search engines. And by “search engines,” I mean Google.
The first thing you earn with a solid writing style that has good grammar and spelling is respect from authority linkers. People that care about the sources they link to will note deficiencies or lack thereof in a writer’s posts, and use that as a guide to the source’s authenticity. Poor English brings with it a fair amount of automatic distrust or denigration—the authenticity is especially affected if it seems a non-native speaker wrote it.
In short, remember this: good writing equals good links; good links equals better visibility. Good writing also means prime opportunity to be scraped. So watch your back.
Also, poor grammar and spelling can send off spam signals in people, as well as search engines. And by “search engines,” I mean Google.
It’s unclear if Google really has what members of this DigitalPoint thread refer to as a “good writing filter,” and thus a penalty for bad writing. But Google’s algorithm is generally pretty smart, maybe even smarter than Microsoft Word’s grammar checker, which wouldn’t be hard.
It’s reasonable to think and safer to assume, though, that Google’s algorithm measures the writing level of content as part of its overall quality assessment. If quality sources are what the algorithm is looking for, solid writing would be a clear indicator of quality. How strict such an aspect to the algorithm would be is unknowable. Would it allow for regional, more dialectical prose? For hipsters?
I wouldn’t risk it if my goal was to earn the right kind of reputation.
It used to be, and to some extent may remain, that purposefully misspelling words was a decent traffic-gaining strategy. Lots of people misspell words and typos happen all the time. Your misspelling, in accordance with that theory, creates a keyword nobody else is targeting, and the searcher finds you sort of by fate. Google’s “Did you mean…?” feature as well as a somewhat new tendency to bring back results it thinks you mean the first time, may have cut down on the effectiveness of this strategy.
Still, as long as you’re not in danger of “stuffing,” it might be okay to add a keyword misspelling or two to your tags, where nobody but spiders see them. At least your public face won’t be tainted by poor spelling, but throw those misfit words at Google at your own risk.
*I’ve often thought that what is considered correct or proper, whether in speech, action, or even table manners, is a tool of the powerful to separate themselves further from the weak and the poor, as well as a tool to maintain their statuses of rich powerful or weak and poor. Slang works in much the same way: it is a special language developed by a small group of people with the purpose of excluding others. Thus, with all that is good and proper, a word like “ain’t” is unacceptable, because the good and proper folks use “isn’t.” If those good-and-proper, powerful people were using “ain’t” a few hundred years ago, your third grade teacher would have warned you that “isn’t” ain’t a word. Truth be known, there is no force more powerful in society than language, except for bullets.
