The web was dominated for a decade by two key elements. Search engines and content.

If you wanted  information you asked Google. It was simple.

This led to the rise of a new industry called “search engine optimization” or if you love acronyms “SEO”. Experts good, bad and scammy emerged from the web mist to offer your website the holy grail of being ranked number one on a Google search result page. This was important because that gave you 40% of all clicks. Ranking number one could mean the success or failure of your online business.



This led to dubious practices and activities and content farms that just replicated content popped up. Unique and interesting information was being buried and overwhelmed by poor duplicate content.

Google decided to change the game as their search results were becoming more irrelevant and of lower quality.

They decided to work out ways to identify great content through social signals (hence the launch of Google+) and other technologies that rewards the content creators and not the content copiers.

Google got smarter. The web became more human.

Content on purpose 

Content creation on a smarter and social web requires you to ask some questions. So before we start writing our next piece of copy we better stop and ask ourselves what its purpose is when published on the Internet.

• Is it fresh and unique, or are we just adding to the duplicates, risking to get penalized?
• Is it readable and persuasive, or it pushes our readers away?
• Does it answer the questions the readers ask, or are we wasting their time?

Writing a high quality copy requires thorough research on the subject, taking you to all sorts of blogs and articles people from all around the globe have shared, but sadly, this pile of content often consists of far too many articles that fail to comply with the three goals we mentioned above. Not that these three goals of a quality copy are all we should meet, but if you want to truly grab the interest of your target audience, you should give them a second thought before you or your marketing team decide to publish the next post.

Since Google Panda was launched  you should be aware of duplicate content on your website, so writing the unique and quality content is extremely important, with free duplicate content checker PlagSpotter you can find out who steals your works without citing you.

Google is changing copywriting

It is true that Google’s algorithmic updates have caused many transformations in SEO copywriting. We all need to align the way we write with these constant changes. But, instead of us trying to stay one step ahead of the search engine equations, we can create our content with our human audience in mind, and meet them at the finish line.

Google will always have good user experience as their primary goal, and each update they make will be in the direction of better understanding of the content from a human perspective. If you guide your copywriting to provide what your readers look for, not only that you’ll get more loyal audience that loves to come to your website and read what’s new, but Google will also award your actions with a higher ranking in their search result pages.

So how should you write?

Here’s what you should ask yourself before you publish your writing on the Internet:

#1. Would my friends or colleagues walk away if I read this to them?

Read your copy out loud to better understand the flow for each sentence and paragraph and to see if the content is interesting enough to capture the interest of an audience. This will also allow you to clean up your typos, punctuation errors and unnecessary words.

#2. Do the headlines in the copy explain enough about its content?

If somebody reads only the headers of your article, will they understand what the article is about and what is its main idea? Ideally, the headlines should, provide transition and a description for each of the paragraphs.

#3. Are the keywords repeating too often?

When writing content for the Internet there must be some focus on the important keywords, but the density should always float somewhere in between 1% and 3% if we don’t want the writing to sound forced or spammy.

#4. Are my intentions being honest as a writer?

Why are you writing this copy? What is your purpose with it? Is it a complete plagiarism, or an effective idea sharing? Provide your readers with links to other websites, articles, pictures or videos related to your content to be able to achieve better SEO.

#5. Does the copy offer anything new to the readers?

This question builds off the previous point – will those who read your writing learn something new? Your content should match your goal of satisfying the curiosity your audience has on the particular subject. Only new, fresh and organic content is the way to more quality visits and better rankings.














































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Sony announced the PlayStation 4 with a lot of fanfare and in-your-face visuals. The two-hour presentation inundated the media and gaming industry with a lot of pretty lights and sounds, but left more questions that needed answering.

While we're not expecting to see the PlayStation 4 on store shelves until late in the year, there's a lot we hope to learn before then. Even Sony doesn't have all the answers right now — the company admitted that many things are still being ironed out. With so many gaming options on the marketplace for 2013, including Microsoft's rumored next-generation Xbox, gamers have a lot of choice, so here are the biggest things we'd like to see answered soon.

1. How Much Will This Cost?

This figure could be all over the place. Sony had the most expensive console by far at the last cycle; a PS3 was $600 at launch, a number plenty of people balked at. This was in 2006, too, a time before powerful tablets and cellphones took our gaming mobile, or Android-based consoles were on the horizon. While these might not have the processing power of the PlayStation 4, the market's diversity proves gamers can find content in a lot of places, and Sony will have to consider that in the price.

Along with the system cost, there are the potential extra monthly costs of playing. While the PlayStation Network has been free for years, with the exception of the premium PlayStation Plus membership, Sony might take another look at pricing. Its presentation confirmed free-to-try games in the store, a powerful social service that allowed players to share game video, and games served to other devices.

In a roundtable with journalists Thursday, Sony's worldwide studios president Shuhei Yoshida said the company was investigating a lot of different pricing structures dependent on what consumers want. He couldn't confirm if any part of the online experience would remain free, or if Sony would offer it all to gamers without charging them.


2. Will the PlayStation 4 Play Used Games?

After Sony patents were uncovered last month that discussed technology that would associate a game disc's identifier with an account, there was speculation if the upcoming console would refuse to play used games.

Sony didn't exactly put this rumor to rest. Yoshida says that "PlayStation 4 discs will work on any of the consoles." But then he added that publishers could decide to lock their titles, similar to what EA has already begun doing on recent games like Dead Space 3, which requires a code from the box if players want to play online.

When a reporter in the room pointed out the console maker was also a game publisher, Yoshida admitted Sony had not yet decided how to handle used games that it publishes. How Sony's first party games will be handled will likely set a precedent for others publishing on its console.

3. What Does The Console Look Like?

Sony doesn't even know that yet, Yoshida confirmed. We'll probably see something closer to E3 in June.

We originally wondered if Sony would do something bold like ditch the optical drive, but Yoshida's other comments about used games dissuaded that idea.

4. What About Old Games?

The PlayStation 4 is not backwards compatible, Yoshida said. Neither game discs nor old games bought on the PlayStation Network will work on the system. But Sony talked about the power of Gaikai's streaming services harnessed with PlayStation Cloud, and said that older generations of PlayStation games would eventually be accessible. While this is exciting news, it leaves us with two questions: can we re-download games we already own for free? It would be total gouging to have to pay full price for games twice. And when will these older libraries come to the PS4?

5. What Does the Touchpad Do?



The PlayStation 4's DualShock 4 controller's touch pad can't be ignored. It's prominently placed in the center of the controller's face, and changes its whole look. While Sony was happy to brag about this addition, there is little idea of what it does.

A Killzone Shadow Fall developer said on Late Night with Jimmy Kimmel that the touch pad was useful for navigating between menus, but that's a lot of real estate to devote to that function. Will we see more games moving from mobile to the PlayStation Store that feature touch controls? Was this influenced by the OUYA design? We have yet to see this demonstrated with any of the game technology.

6. How Will the PS4 Support Indie Developers?

The PlayStation 4 presentation focused on how great the console is for developers, and included a video talking to those working at studios large and small on how great the new features are. 2012 was also a big year for indie games in the PSN Store, with such massive successes like Journey and Sound Shapes. With a bigger store potentially coming to the PlayStation 4 ecosystem, how will Sony attract indies to provide quality content for the system?

Yoshida said he already respected the iTunes model, and hoped Sony could do something similar with the next-gen PlayStation Store, but of course couldn't announce any specific plans. With so many indies focusing on mobile because of the ease of publishing, can Sony attract them with a self-publishing model that resemble's Apple or the upcoming Android home consoles?



7. What Games Will Be Out at Launch?

Launch lineups are ridiculously hard to set up, with games often taking longer to develop than anticipated. At the same time, launching with an anemic list of games doesn't help a console's chances. While lots of publishers and developers partnering with Sony spoke at the presentation, not all were even showing games; Square Enix, Quantic Dream and Media Molecule only showed concepts.

A couple of those titles have been confirmed for launch: first-party Killzone Shadow Fall and Ubisoft's highly anticipated Watch Dogs. While there are still many months for games to pop up between now and launch, Sony is also still promoting huge games for the current-gen PlayStation 3, including Naughty Dog's The Last of Us and Quantic Dreams' Beyond. Let's hope they fill out the lineup much more before launch.

8. When Will We See the Console?

Holiday 2013 is the best answer we could get for that, which is reasonable. We don't expect to get a clear answer on this until June at the earliest, though it's worth noting that Nintendo announced its Wii U launch date only 80 days before it was to arrive in stores.

What questions do you have about the PlayStation 4? Let us know what you're curious about in the comments.

Controller and game images courtesy Sony Computer Entertainment America. Used games image courtesy wlodi.






















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