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Better writing: Pronouns are evil (NEW: Now with examples!)

Submitted by Markus Merz on November 11, 2007 - 7:20pm in

Don't use pronouns - Use nouns

Better writing by avoiding pronouns.

1. The part of speech that substitutes for nouns or noun phrases and designates persons or things asked for, previously specified, or understood from the context.
2. Any of the words within this part of speech, such as he or whom.

Source: pronouns

Cryptic rule

1. Wherever natural, eliminate pronouns and replace with descriptive nouns.

The idea with this tip is to help the search engines identify the semantics of your article. Nouns help specify your article and also reduce the noise-to-signal ratio. For the most part, think of pronouns in the same way as clunky, excessive HTML code -> they keep your article from reaching it's highest potential.

Source: 7 Easy Tips To Maximize Your Blog Posts

You ask for examples? Here they come:

Examples

It was a sunny day.
The last day in October was a sunny day.

As I said before he is a great guy.
As I said before Markus Merz is a great guy. Read his (oops?) articles and sometimes he (oops!) is doing it (oops!) right. Catchy example, isn't it (oops?)?

I tested it and it is a really useful product.
I tested that toaster and it is a really useful product.

Got it?
Got the semantic argument?


Arghh, what a glitch :-)

"I tested that toaster and it is a really useful product."

Doing not enough affiliate marketing lately :-)

What's the glitch you

What's the glitch you reference?

Interesting thoughts about

Interesting thoughts about using nous to help search engines. Also, using different related nouns (like synonyms) can help your content rank for more keywords.

Personal treasure hunt

@Ryan: You don't see the affiliate pronoun? (hidden hint)

Lesson Learned

As I've said to my friends, Performancing is a great website.
I've tried many of their tips, and they are really useful.

Lesson learned.

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