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SEO COPYWRITING
When writing copy for web pages, remember the two types of visitors to your website—search
engine “crawlers” and humans.
Search engine “crawlers” look through your website’s content. Based on what they find, their activities have an effect of your website’s ranking in search engine results.
More important than “crawlers” are the human visitors. The Internet exists primarily for them—for entertainment, information, and business. It’s human visitors—not search engine "crawlers"—that "pay the bill".
Here are pointers for writing clear, smooth-reading pages for the human reader yet are fully Search Engine-Optimized (SEO).
Keyword/key phrase research. Determine the keywords and key phrases for which your site should be optimized.
Keyword/key phrase selection. From the keyword/key phrase list developed in your research, choose one for which the page you’ll be writing for should be optimized. The keyword/key phrase you choose should be one that relates closely to the copy on that page.
Write copy for the human reader. At this point, forget search engines. Write the strongest, most natural-sounding copy you can for your targeted audience.
Add keywords to your copy. As you’re writing, selectively insert your chosen keyword/key phrase for that page into your copy. Do so as often as you can without making the page sound forced or unnatural. If the keyword/key phrase makes a sentence sound bad, leave it out.
As long as the keyword for a page doesn’t interfere with copywriting, place it in the following places: page headline, the first and last sentences, and in middle paragraphs where appropriate.
Write “metatags”. These tags are part of a page’s HTML codes. There are three basic types.
- “Title Tag” is the most important. This is what your visitors will see at the top of their browser. Keep this tag to six or seven words and start the tag with the keyword.
- “Description Tag” is what a person sees on a search engine results page (SERP). The maximum tag length is 220 characters.
- “Keyword Tag” is where the main keyword and any other related keywords are placed.
After posting the page, an analytics package can be used to measure performance. But the most important criterion is where the page ranks in a Google search for the keyword/key phrase for which it was optimized.
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