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Writing_SEO_Copy_ _8_Steps_to_Success
| Writing SEO Copy - 8 Steps to Success
We all know that the lion's share of web traffic comes through
the search engines. We also know that keywords and links to your
site are the two things that affect your ranking in the search
engines. Your keywords tell the search engines what you do, and
the inbound links tell them how important you are. This
combination is what determines your relevance. And relevance is
what the search engines are after.
There's a lot of information around about how to incorporate
keyword phrases into your HTML meta tags. But that's only half
the battle. You need to think of these tags as street-signs.
That's how the search engines view them. They look at your tags
and then at your copy. If the keywords you use in your tags
aren't used in your copy, your site won't be indexed for those
keywords.
But the search engines don't stop there. They also consider how
often the keyword phrase is used on the page.
To put it simply, if you don't pepper your site with your
primary keywords, you won't appear in the search results when a
potential customer searches for those keywords.
But how do you write keyword-rich copy without compromising
readability?
Readability is all-important to visitors. And after all, it's
the visitors that buy your product or service, not search
engines.
By following these 8 simple guidelines, you'll be able to
overhaul the copy on your website ensuring it's agreeable to
both search engines and visitors.
1) Categorise your pages Before writing, think about the
structure of your site. If you haven't built your site yet, try
to create your pages around key offerings or benefits. For
example, divide your Second Hand Computers site into separate
pages for Macs, and PCs, and then segment again into Notebooks,
Desktops, etc. This way, you'll be able to incorporate very
specific keyword phrases into your copy, thereby capturing a
very targeted market. If you're working on an existing site,
print out each page and label it with its key point, offering,
or benefit.
2) Find out what keywords your customers are searching for Go to
www.wordtracker.com and subscribe for a day (this will only cost
you about AUD$10). Type in the key points, offerings, and
benefits you identified for each page, and spend some time
analysing what words customers use when they're searching for
these things. These are the words you'll want to use to describe
your product or service. (Make sure you read WordTracker's
explanation of their results.)
3) Use phrases, not single words Although this advice isn't
specific to the web copy, it's so important that it's worth
repeating here. Why? Well firstly, there's too much competition
for single keywords. If you're in computer sales, don't choose
"computers" as your primary keyword. Go to Google and search for
"computers" and you'll see why... Secondly, research shows that
customers are becoming more search-savvy - they're searching for
more and more specific strings. They're learning that by being
more specific, they find what they're looking for much faster.
Ask yourself what's unique about your business? Perhaps you sell
cheap second hand computers? Then why not use "cheap second hand
computers" as your primary keyword phrase. This way, you'll not
only stand a chance in the rankings, you'll also display in much
more targeted searches. In other words, a higher percentage of
your site's visitors will be people after cheap second hand
computers. (WordTracker's results will help you choose the most
appropriate phrases.)
4) Pick the important keyword phrases Don't include every
keyword phrase on every page. Focus on one or two keyword
phrases on each page. For your Macs page, focus on "cheap second
hand macs". For the PCs page, focus on "cheap second hand pcs",
etc.
5) Be specific Don't just say "our computers". Wherever you
would normally say "our computers", ask yourself if you can get
away with saying "our cheap second hand Macs" or "our cheap
second hand PCs". If this doesn't affect your readability too
badly, it's worth doing. It's a fine balance though. Remember,
your site reflects the quality of your service. If your site is
hard to read, people will infer a lot about your service...
6) Use keyword phrases in links Although you shouldn't focus on
every keyword phrase on every page, it's a good idea to link
your pages together with text links. This way, when the search
engines look at your site, they'll see that the pages are
related. Once again, the more text links the better, especially
if the link text is a keyword phrase. So on your "Cheap Second
Hand Macs" page, include a text link at the bottom to "Cheap
Second Hand PCs". If you can manage it without affecting
readability, also include one within the copy of the page. For
example, "As well as providing cheap second hand Macs, we sell
high quality cheap second hand PCs". TIP: If you don't want your
links to be underlined and blue, include the following in your
CSS file:
Then format the HTML of each link as follows:
As well as providing cheap second hand Macs, we sell high
quality cheap second hand pcs.
7) Use keyword phrases in headings Just as customers rely on
headings to scan your site, so to do search engines. This means
headings play a big part in how the search engines will
categorise your site. Try to include your primary keyword
phrases in your headings. In fact, think about inserting extra
headings just for this purpose. Generally this will also help
the readability of the site because it will help customers scan
read.
8) Test keyword phrase density Once you've made a first pass at
the copy, run it through a density checker to get some metrics.
Visit GoRank's Keyword Density Analyzer and type in the domain
and keyword phrase you want to analyse. It'll give you a
percentage for all the important parts of your page, including
copy, title, meta keywords, meta description, etc. The higher
the density the better. Generally speaking, a density
measurement of at least 3-5% is what you're looking for. Any
less, and you'll probably need to take another pass.
Follow these guidelines, and you'll be well on your way to
effective SEO copy.
Just remember, don't overdo it. It's not easy to find the
balance between copy written for search engines and copy written
for customers. In many cases, this balance will be too difficult
to achieve without professional help. Don't worry, though. If
you've already performed your keyword analysis, a professional
website copywriter should be able to work your primary keyword
phrases into your copy at no extra charge.
About the author:
* Glenn Murray is an SEO copywriter and article
submission specialist. He is a director of article PR
company Article PR and also of copywriting studio Divine
Write.
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