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Plugin Fetishism?……… Ok, I have a guilty pleasure and it’s called Rank Math – I love using it but it is sending me to weird places. If you are not a web building nerd let me explain, Rank Math is a ‘Search Engine Optimisation’ plugin suite rammed with powerful SEO tools. In my humble opinion it is the best, the GOAT and believe me I have tried a great many donkeys.
I’ve been rebuilding a voice-over website recently and, inevitably, found myself staring at Rank Math scores again. At first, the advice makes perfect sense. Add a keyword. Write a meta description. Use headings. Link between pages. Fair enough. Then things start getting a little strange.
Apparently, my Contact page should contain a power word, a positive or negative sentiment, a number, a table of contents, and enough content to satisfy a plugin that has never met a human being.
I found myself wondering whether I should rename the page:
“7 Amazing Ways to Contact a Professional Voice-Over Artist”
rather than simply:
“Contact”
This is where I think a lot of website owners disappear down the rabbit hole. There is a difference between SEO and what I call plugin fetishism — endlessly tweaking perfectly natural content to satisfy an automated checklist.
Is Plugin Fetishism detaching you from SEO reality ?
A table of contents on a 300-word page. A power word where none is needed. An awkward title stuffed with keywords. The score goes up, but the writing gets worse.
Don’t get me wrong. SEO matters, but at some point, it is worth remembering that Google is trying to understand whether a page is useful, while the plugin is simply counting things it can measure.
The irony is that the more naturally you write, the more useful your content often becomes. Sometimes the best optimisation is to stop optimising and publish the page.
Has anyone else found themselves chasing a perfect SEO score and indulging in a little plugin fetishism, only to realise they are actually losing their minds ?
Voice-over has its own versions of this. Sometimes it feels as though performers are being judged by automated systems rather than human ears. Website owners are being judged by SEO scores rather than visitors. We end up optimising for the measurement rather than the outcome.
Whether it is a voice recording or a website page, there comes a point where you have to stop chasing the green tick and ask whether the result is actually better.
#SEO #WordPress #RankMath #WebDesign #ContentMarketing #DigitalMarketing #Blogging #VoiceOver #Freelancing #SmallBusiness
Information for Nerds – what actually happens.
Now this is where I am finding my self-compromised by plugin fetishism as I watch my focus keyword change from orange to green on the RankMath panel because I have included my ‘focus keyword’ in the alt text. These are the rabbit holes I go down. You may see if I find another 100 words and add a TOC I’m Golden, but enough is enough now. The little orange tick you see below right is hinting that with more images it will go green.
My writing tends to be rather succinct, yet statistically longer discussions are considered better. So I add a little something extra here.
The amusing thing is that none of these little coloured circles actually writes a better website. They simply nudge you towards patterns that search engines may reward. Sometimes they are sensible suggestions; other times they border on the absurd. It is remarkably easy to find yourself writing for a plugin rather than for a real person. I constantly have to remind myself that the visitor is the client, not Rank Math. If the page is clear, useful and enjoyable to read, then the plugin has done its job—even if one stubborn orange light refuses to turn green.
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