The dreaded BTWP

We have all seen it.

We are quietly surfing along, minding our own business, looking up information, when we come across it.

The dreaded BTWP.

But what is the BTWP. I’m going to tell you, but first let me tell you why I am not going to tell you yet.

When ever I see the BTWP it tells me a few things. The presence of the BTWP on a page tells me that this page has not been written to inform or entertain. It tells me that this page probably has no useful content. It tells me that this page is probably written to rank high on the search engines and is not written to appeal to readers.

Personally whenever I see the BTWP I hit the back button because I know the page will be a waste of time. In order to prevent people like me from looking at this page and hitting the back button without reading the opening paragraphs I am going to add a completely unrelated picture to force the horrific example below the fold.

So enjoy the pretty picture, brace yourself and scroll down.

BTWP is the dreaded "Bold Three Word Phrase". If you want a search engine to rank you for a three word phrase then what to do it is to repeat that three word phrase as many times as possible. By repeating the three word phrase you are telling the search engine that the three word phrase is important and any searches for the three word phrase should come to this page because it is all about the three word phrase. The bold part of the three word phrase is important because when the search engine sees a bold three word phrase it knows that the three word phrase is important, much more important then the plain three word phrase. So any page that uses the bold three word phrase should be ranked higher on searches for the three word phrase than pages that only use the plain three word phrase. And just because I can I am going to say it a few more times. Three word phrase, three word phrase, and finally three word phrase.

Ok. I am done now. I promise.

Unfortunately I have created a monster. It was actually fun to write, I wrote 176 words and managed to use my target phrase 17 times. Almost 30% if my content is the target phrase.

Search engines love it. Readers hate it.

It’s painful to read; it doesn’t flow and is visually jarring. The content has been completely overshadowed by the presentation.

In the quest to create a page that will give the coveted first page search results the writer has created something that will get many visitors but few readers. If no one is willing to read your page then no one will buy your product or click on your ads.

I am tempted to start a rumor that Google uses blink tags to determine the relevance of keywords on a page just to see how many people start creating pages capable of causing seizures in their visitors. Don't worry, I will not be providing a example.

Let me finish with a couple of questions.