Copywriting for Search Engine Optimization - Keywords For Web Site
It's your goal when you write copy for your web site to get your site to the top three pages of the SERPs (search engine results position). Any more than three pages or 30 sites back, your site won't be found because that's where most web surfers stop after three pages. And the majority of people who go to your site to get information are people who go there to get information.
A part of your search engine optimization strategy should be writing copy for search engines. It's hard, to say the least. Most of us are either artists or scientists; very few of us are both. When you write online, that's what it's all about. Because it's both a piece of art and a science, most people end up going the wrong way.
It's important for web site copy to be rich, keyword-focused, and focused on a specific subject. Many web developers who aren't very good at what they do don't know how to write good web site copy. They just use brochures. Let them not talk you into it! The search engines will most likely not find your web site if you don't do this.
The ideal size for a web page is about two MS Word pages. If you have more copy than that, think about splitting it up into two or more pieces. If there are more than one thing on a page, break it up into two or more.
The first thing I do when I get a thought in my head is write it down. If you're like me, that's what you'll want to do right away.
And that's fine for your basic outline, but that's about as far as you'll get with it, as well. You can see that in the art. And it could be the wrong side to start with. Starting with the scientific is easier and faster than I thought, and I've learned this over time.
So, where do you start, then?
There's a simple way to figure out which words to use when you write copy. Head the four columns in your favorite spreadsheet program with the words "Four Columns." I use MS Excel.
It's then time to look for a good tool that can help you find good keywords It has one, and so does Overture. They both have free trials. They're not the only ones out there.
Tip: Use keyword suggestion tools to find more words and phrases that match your search terms.
So, you're going to come up with some keywords and phrases for your product or service, write them down in the "keyword" column, and see how often people search for them in your keyword tool.
Search a search engine for the phrase in quotations. This will show you where your competitors are for that word or phrase, so you can figure out how to beat them! Then, figure out how many times "#searched" to "#returned" you did, and how many times you got back. What you want is a low number of results for a word or phrase that people search for a lot, or a ratio that isn't very high.
Use keyword phrases instead of just words when you want to get your message across.
In your web site copy, you should think of a hundred or more words and phrases, then choose two to four to use in the text. Because "two heads are better than one," ask your family, friends, and neighbors for help if you can.
Try a broad term and start there. In most cases, there will be too much competition, so your ratio will be too high. A general keyword will be searched a lot, but there will also be too much competition. Then, look at different spellings, misspellings, and more specific phrases to see what works best for you. You want two to four words or phrases on each page.
Bodybuilding has a ratio over 4,000 while "body building" has less than 3,000, so they are not the same. To get more specific, look for women. Body building woman has a ratio of about 500 to 1 or 2.
Then we can start writing our web site content. But where do we put the keywords and phrases we want to use?
Search engines try to figure out what your web site is about by looking in certain places. Each search engine is a little different about where they look and how important each place is.
There are a lot of things that search engines look at when they decide what to show people when they search for something. Make sure your page title has at least one targeted phrase in it, or even better, two. People might call us Body Building Supplements – How to Build Muscle – Company Name as an example of a title. You can see that it includes two words we want to use and the name of our company. Or, we could change the name of the protein shake to the name of the company we work for.
There are some search engines that use meta tags, and there are others that don't. I usually put meta tags in for the search engines that use them, but I don't always.
From H1 to H6, the most important heading tags are the most important. If you remember, in our last newsletter, we said that headings are also important for getting clients' attention, so h1 heading tags have a lot of weight for both. One thing to look out for is cute headlines, which can be good for clients but not good for search engines, so be careful. To make the search engines happy, you need to put your keywords in the headings of your pages.
The last thing to keep in mind when writing for search engines is how many keywords you use and where you put them. Again, each search engine wants something a little different, but if you have keywords at the beginning, middle, and end of your text, you're pretty safe. However, you're looking for a good balance of keywords in your web site. If there are too many keywords, your site will be seen as spam by search engines, and if there aren't enough, your web site theme won't be clear enough to help people find it.
It's time to start writing, right? There are a few things that you can do to make your copywriting more effective. If you forget to keep these things in mind, your writing won't be as effective as you want it to be. But that's a subject for a different post.