Writing SEO Copy - 8 Steps to Success

By Glenn Murray*

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) Categorize 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 analyzing 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:

<style type="text/css">
<!--
a {text-decoration: none;}
-->
</style>

Then format the HTML of each link as follows:

As well as providing cheap second hand Macs, we sell high
quality <a href="pcs.htm" style="text-decoration:none"><font
color="#000000">cheap second hand pcs</font></a>.

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 categorize 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
http://www.gorank.com/analyze.php and type in the domain
and keyword phrase you want to analyze. 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.

*************************************************
* Glenn Murray heads copywriting studio Divine Write.
He can be contacted on Sydney +612 4334 6222 . Visit http://www.divinewrite.com for further details.

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