Three months ago, I published two identical blogs in an attempt to evaluate the significance of keywords in a blog title in relation to Search Engine Optimisation.  The only difference in the blogs was that one had my preferred choice of title; the other had a title peppered with a few favourite search terms, but had little to do with the contents of the blog.

Well, the results are in.

Admittedly, my sample of participants was rather small––not up to the rigorous sampling of cosmetic companies, where 63% of 27 women agree––but I believe a trend is clear.

The blog with the buzzwords received twice as many views and three times as many ‘likes’ as the blog with my own preferred title.

The results are not unexpected, but I am disappointed nevertheless.  I still advocate literary invention over SEO pragmatism, and I don’t intend to be cowed by the algorithm of Google in order to dumb down the words that I want to use.

I must just resign myself to the fact that I may not be read so widely as a result.

© Fergus Longfellow

Fergus Longfellow manages to prove very little other than he was right.  Which is all that matters in the end.