It's the number one rule of organic search marketing. Jakob Nielsen calls it "using old words." I call it "speak the customers' language. Whichever phrase you want to use, it still boils down to the concept of writing for "findability." Best known for his rants against high-tech, flashy sites that leave users completely bewildered, Nielsen has a compelling article today that focuses on the need to keep it simple when it comes to writing for both search engines and users.

From the article:

Funny that just a few weeks after I implored search marketers to consider reading a 70 year old book to become better at what they do and this week, Nielsen is suggesting that copywriters take advice from someone that was Prime Minister of England more than 50 years ago.

It sounds so simple, but in reality, it's hard to get a lot of site owners to live by this rule. Consider the high end car company Lexus. Lexus, as part of their brand, doesn't really want to be associated with a term like "used." Obviously, if you are the branding or PR company for Lexus, you'd much prefer that people use the phrase "pre-owned Lexus." The problem with that line of thinking is that people are used to the term "used." In fact, the term "used Lexus" received 58 times MORE searches each year than "pre-owned Lexus."

I've seen similar issues happen with sites that try to hard to focus on being politically correct. I remember hearing about a site being run by a doctor that specializes in treating pre-teens that still have problems with wetting the bed at night. He was diametrically opposed to using the term "bed wetting" on his site, preferring the medical term "enuresis." He felt that the term "bed wetting" was stigmatizing and wouldn't play well with his audience. The problem? 99% of his audience had no idea that the word "enuresis" even existed. How in the world could he have educated people if he wasn't speaking a language that would draw them in in the first place?

Nielsen goes even further in his article on explaining the how's and why's of "new words" messing up your site's "findability." If you write copy for your web site, you need to make sure you take the time to read this one. If you don't write copy for your web site, you need to email it to the person that does.