Building a Better Ranking Website: Copy
How to Use Copy to Create a Search Engine Optimized Site.
Oct 8, 2009
When it comes to search engine optimization, copy is crucial. It is perhaps the most important thing on a site for several reasons other than it being used to index your site. Copy defines what a site is all about. A site can have wonderful graphics and photos but it is all meaningless without some copy to accompany it.
Many companies hire or have professional copy writers to come up with copy for their website. Most people don't have that luxury but with some time and research can still create meaningful, provocative text that is useful to visitors and web crawlers. The site owner/copywriter should keep in mind a few things when writing copy for their site.
First, the copywriter should make sure that the desired products and services are represented in the copy. If at all possible these product or service keywords should be linked to other pages on the respective site to help guide visitors.
Next the copy should say all it needs to say and at the same time be skim-able; that is it should be quickly read by someone who just wants to get the main points of the site owner's business. Most people nowadays don't read lengthy site copy but rather look for words and phrases that stand out.
A good way to help the readability of a site's copy search engine rankings are to include titles and headers that are optimized with keywords.
Copy and Keywords
Keywords and phrases should be placed throughout the copy but they shouldn't be put in every sentence or so close together that it looks like spamming instead of selling your site. Too many keywords can be a bad thing. In fact if a site has too many it may not get listed at all.
To avoid the keyword problem one should just focus on clean, clear, writing.. Good copy should ultimately keep someone interested, sell a product/idea and be written with search engines in mind.
Baiting the Reader
One should also keep in mind using linkbait. Linkbait is something of value that is provide to a site's readers. This can be useful information or even something free. Linkbait can be the difference between good copy and outstanding copy.
Ultimately, when a reader is done looking at text he or she should come away with something. If it is something they didn't know before or if it is a free product or service then they feel like they've been given special treatment. This creates a great subtle yet great sense of connection between the reader and the business/site.
Useful Tips
Below are listed a few more tips and pointers of what makes good copy and what doesn't.
Things to do
- Copy should answer the question: "Why should I buy from you?"
- The most important copy should be placed above the fold or the area where the webpage is first seen without scrolling.
- Use wording that sets up a distinction between the site and other similar sites.
- Keep message clear and interesting.
- Use keywords in copy, headings, and subheadings but use it sparingly.
- Keyword density should be 4-6% of the total content. That is only about 4-6 words out of 100
- The site should be updated regularly. Search engines like freshly updated content - it means the site is active and evolving.
Things not to do
- Use the wrong words for Search Engines to pick up on.
- Use an insufficient number of Keywords.
- Bad layout.
- Do not use hidden text (text that is the same color as the background).
- Do not provide irrelevant content.
Writing good copy for that will grab a readers attention as well as look good to site crawlers is an important aspect to any website. It requires the proper use and placement of keywords and phrase. It should be informative, as well as skim-able and whenever possible it should include linkbait. Keeping these helpful points in mind will lead to a higher ranking website as well as one that is more user friendly.
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