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Less Pronouns and more Synonyms

Posted by Rafiq Phillips on March 14, 2006 on 7:28 pm | In Search Engine Optimization |

Q: What do pronouns and synonyms have to do with SEO?

A: Everything.

What are pronouns & synonyms? According to wikipedia…

In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun is a pro-form that substitutes for a noun phrase. The replaced phrase is normally the antecedent of the pronoun, but can also be precedent.

Synonyms (in ancient Greek syn ‘συν’ = plus and onoma ‘όνομα’ = name) are different words with similar or identical meanings and are interchangable.

To demonstrate:

Apples have long been considered healthy, as indicated by the proverb thats states that one of them a day keeps the keeps the doctor away. Research suggests that they may reduce the risk of colon cancer, prostate cancer and lung cancer. Like many fruits, these fruit contain Vitamin C as well as a host of other antioxidant compounds, which explains the reduced risk of cancer (with the free radical explanation of reduced cancer risk to due prevented DNA damage). The fibre in the fruit (while less than most other fruits) helps keep the bowels healthy, which may be a factor in the reduced risk of colon cancer. They may also help with heart disease, weight loss and controlling cholesterol, as they do not have any cholesterol, have fibre (which reduces cholesterol by preventing reabsorption), and are bulky for their caloric content like most fruits and vegetables.

Lets drop the pronouns and add a few synonyms.

Apples have long been considered healthy, as indicated by the proverb thats states that an apple a day keeps the keeps the doctor away. Research suggests that apples may reduce the risk of colon cancer, prostate cancer and lung cancer. Like many fruits, apples contain Vitamin C as well as a host of other antioxidant compounds, which explains the reduced risk of cancer (with the free radical explanation of reduced cancer risk to due prevented DNA damage). The fibre in apples (while less than most other fruits) helps keep the bowels healthy, which may be a factor in the reduced risk of colon cancer. They may also help with heart disease, weight loss and controlling cholesterol, as apples do not have any cholesterol, have fibre (which reduces cholesterol by preventing reabsorption), and are bulky for their caloric content like most fruits and vegetables.

I enjoy eating apples

We could have also added more synonyms to the text but in the case of apples there aren’t many. This simple, yet effective method might decrease the quality of the read but will increase your rank on Search Engine Result Pages (SERP’s).

Proof available here.