Articles
Copywriting for Higher
Sales and Higher Search Engine Ranking
You have probably
heard something about how important your <body> copy
is. (The visible text on your website)
For those of you that haven't heard; let me tell you
right now,
good content is critical to your search engine
rankings. Why? Mainly, because search engines want to provide
their users with good content. How do they find
it? By surfing the web for it. However, search engines don't view websites
with human
eyes, instead they use "spiders" (also known as
crawlers, or robots), a "spider" is an
automated program used
to browse the web in a methodical manner.
These spiders rely on actual words to provide the search
engine with information about the topic and related
content of a website, and its relationship with other
related topics or websites. They love text copy, so give it to them! (This is why flash and
image based websites don't work!) The more content
you have the more text the 'spider' can find and the
more valuable your site will be to search engines.
(The more valuable your site is
ultimately means you will have higher rankings) Plus good
content makes your visitors happy too!
If a website only contains images, there is nothing for
the spider to read and it won't stay on your site very
long, and your site will not likely be indexed. Some
images can be read by some spiders if you use proper
naming and the alt text feature. (Name your images
something related to the topic of your site and use the
alt text to describe the image and try to use your
keywords within the alt text. But be careful not to
"stuff" too many keywords in there ... this is seen as
search engine spamming) Optimizing images
should be used in addition to optimizing text, not
replacing it!
So if this copywriting stuff is so important to search
engine marketing, then why do
so many website owners and designers neglect this
area? The simple answer is that good copywriting is
time-consuming and difficult. However, it is an
essential part of your search engine optimization
strategy. If you take the time to do it right (or
even pay
someone else to do it for you) your efforts will
pay off in the long run.
So when you are working on your website keep the following
tips in mind:
- Write for
real people, not for search engines.
I know what you are thinking, this seems a bit
contradictory from what we talked about above; let me
explain ... you do need to have plenty of relevant text
content on your site for the search engine spiders; but
you don't want to just fill your pages with lists of
keywords. Remember, your ultimate goal is to sell to
real people
with real human eyes. So anything you write and post to
your website should be targeting your visitors. Yes,
you
want to optimize your copy for the search engines but
you don't want to loose track of the people you are marketing to
that will read it too. Creating the proper balance
is the key.
- Careful not
to repeat yourself.
Repeating the same
information on multiple pages may
seem like an easy way to increase your site's content,
but this practice is seen as spamming (plus it is
not useful to your visitors; see number 1 above) Spamming the search
engines will get you into big trouble. Your whole site
could be 'blacklisted' in all search engines!
Repetitive websites just don't make for happy visitors
or happy 'spiders'. Good, useful content is what
we are after folks.
-
Use keywords that
your targeted visitors will actually use.
Keyword research is another big factor in this
search engine optimization thing. You have to have an
idea of what words or phrases people use to to
search for information on the products or services you
offer. Without the right keywords, no one will
find your site. Once you have your keywords
down, make sure that you include them in the body copy of your website. You will also
want to have your most relevant keywords in the first 25
words, then again in the last paragraph of your copy.
(this is "keyword proximity") Target one or
two keywords/phrases per page; with the exception of the
home page. You want the home page to have as much
info about your site as possible.
But all this has to be done in a way that does not
appear to be forced. Using the right
keywords, and using them the right way, will give you better targeted traffic and make
your site more relevant to the search engines.
This is where "keyword density" comes in. Keyword
density measures how often certain keywords appear on
a page as compared to the overall amount of
text on the page. Let’s say that your keyword is mentioned
10 times throughout the 100 words of text on your page;
this would make your keyword density 10%.
Keyword density is one of many factors that search
engines use to determine page rank today. You want
to have your keywords in the text copy as much as
possible, the more you use your keyword, the higher your
keyword density; but be careful, too much is seen as
spamming. (this is know as "keyword stuffing") Your
text should always sound natural and read well.
-
Update your site
and add new copy often.
You want the spiders to visit your site often, to keep
your site fresh; old, stale and stagnant pages get left
behind with lower rankings. To make sure this
doesn't happen to your site, you will want to update your pages on a regular
basis ... once a month is good. Search engines LOVE new
content. Try adding new pages, with facts, and/or
testimonials, or frequently asked questions, related
articles, or maybe add a news section or an archive
of past newsletters, or a combination of several of
these.
-
Sell but "Keep
It Simple Silly"
When selling products or services, your ad copy
should
sell your products for you. But you don't want to
be too pushy and scare people off. You also don't
want to be too formal; writing that is too formal tends
to bore people and sometimes can even make them feel out
of your league if they can't follow it. So think
about who you are selling to when you write your sales
message. If
you are marketing to the corporate world, you might want
to be a little more articulate but if you are marketing to
housewives, you want to keep it more casual and
conversational.
Use bold, attention-grabbing headlines and special
offers. Explain the benefits of using your product or
service. You want to lead the reader to an action;
whether it is to visit another page or to buy
your e-book. Keep in mind the steps you want the
reader to take and make a path for them to follow.
Create a question in their minds then explain how and/or why your product and/or service
is the answer.
Testimonials are great support in your
sales copy too! Positive reviews from past satisfied
customers will help to lower the guard of your potential
new customers. Good testimonials provide believability, and
offer social proof that you can really deliver what you say you
will. You can
never have too many testimonials!
-
Less is more.
Yes again, you want to fill your website pages with a lot of text content that includes your
most relevant search terms. But this doesn't mean that you should have really
long pages. Many people won't read the entire page
anyway and even less will when the page is excessively
long! Nobody wants to read a book, they just want
brief and descriptive information. As a rule, try
to keep the copy on each of your pages between 250-500 words long, not
too much more than that. (informational articles
and newsletters are an exception to this rule)
The
size and color of your text is important too. You want to keep
the text size to a nice average, not too big or too
small, so that it can be easily read by most of your
viewers. Approx. 10pt-14pt is a good size, but
try not to go much
bigger. Use colors on your site that are easy on the eyes, and
be sure to keep good contrast between the background and the text
colors. Stay away from bright, neon colors.
You will want to use a
common font face too; not only for
readability, but because not every computer has the same fonts
installed.
If you use some fancy font and then someone without
that font visits your website, the copy will revert to their
default font and likely throw off your formatting too.
You
might also want to keep screen size in mind and format your pages for the average screen
size which is 800x600. People are use to scrolling down for
content, but there should be no reason for the viewer to
have to scroll from side to side to see it all. Don't
worry about the larger screen sizes, if you do this right, your site will look great even on larger
screens. (I recommend using tables, no wider
than 735)
Don't forget about the multiple browsers available
today! Not all browsers will display your site the
same way. (the most common browsers today are Internet
Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and Netscape Navigator and
Opera)
-
Include hyperlinks
within your pages.
It is a good to trade links with other related websites,
just think about how and where you include these
links. Once you have visitors on your site, you don't
want to lose them! So any outside links should be at
the bottom of your pages (and/or on a dedicated "Links"
page) and should open in a new window so your
visitor stays on your site. When you do link to other
sites, ask them to add a reciprocal link back to you on
their site. Incoming links are another important part
of search engine optimization, this is known as "Link
Popularity"
You can also make your own links more search engine
friendly by using text instead of or in addition to
image buttons. Using text links ensures your links are
read by the search engine spiders, using keywords within
these text links is even better! And don't
forget to use the full URL in the link instead of
just the page link. (i.e. www.plushdesigns.net/article.htm
instead of just article.htm) Instead of using "click
here" or "Products" use a
few of your keywords in some links like "Web
design packages" and "website hosting plans"
If you can get other people to add your keywords within your
reciprocal links, you have added another plus to your
link popularity.
-
Utilize text formatting
and highlighting options.
Search engine spiders
often look closing at the different text
formatting elements used in your pages. Put some keywords in bold and
italics throughout your copy, use bullets and other
methods to draw attention to your important keywords.
Make sure to include your most important keywords in the
title of the page and in sub-titles. Be sure
to put the main title of your pages in the <Title> tag,
and for your headlines, and subtitles, use the header tags <H1>
through <H6> to make sure they are recognized by the
search engines. Header tags are another good way for the
search engine spider to know exactly what topic
your page is about.
-
Don't
just use your Meta tags, use them properly.
Meta tags are part of the HTML code of a web page, most
of these meta tags are not displayed as visible text on
your site. These tags include the main title, your
keywords and description tags, these
are important as they give the search engine spider
additional information about your site. Some search
engines will display part of the Meta description tag in
the search results. These is why you should include
your most important keywords in these Meta tags, but
keep in mind that the copy should still appeal to
potential visitors since it may be shown in the search
results. Also, the main <title> of your page is
displayed in the viewers task bar as well as in
their "Favorites" when the viewer adds your site to their
list.
-
Proofread,
Proofread, and Proofread again!
Read over your copy when you finish writing it, then
step away from it for a bit and come back and read over it again. You might
even add or remove something. Once you are happy with
what you have, get someone else read over it too.
Before you publish your web pages, check them for
readability, grammar, typos and spelling mistakes. Not
only do such errors make you look bad to your readers,
(and to your competition) they can also negatively
affect your search engine ranking.
Don't believe us?
Read Google guidelines
and see many of these tips and more suggested there.
Notes
from our webmaster: Be
sure to have your contact info easily accessible to your
visitors. Make sure to
have an email contact and check it regularly.
Contact forms are popular and they work well in some
cases but you should have the standard
email option available to; many people don't care to fill out
forms and some will often use false information.
If you are trying to hide your email address to
lessen spam, there are ways to do this in
the code so you can still have
the address visible to your viewers. You don't
always need to have a formal "Contact us" page,
just be sure your contact info is easy to find ... maybe have your email and phone number at the
top and bottom of every page.
List where you are located on your
website. Even if you have a broad national service
area, your location should be posted. You could have it
read something like "based out of "wherever" we proudly
serve the continental US" or something to that affect.
And if you work from home and don't want to post your
home address; (which is smart) get a P.O Box in your local city and post
that address. At the very least, you should have a
general location posted ... "Lovejoy,
GA 30253" as an example. I don't
know about you but when I am looking for something
online, I usually prefer to deal with local and/or U.S.
based businesses and if someone doesn't list there
location, I will search elsewhere ... but that may be
just me.
Ok, so lets talk about those ever popular "Enter" pages …
I say
don't waste your time with them! These pages are
typically some graphic
ad or logo image which may look great, but like we discussed above, this kind of
thing means absolutely nothing to the search engines.
So I don't see much point to this kind of thing. Why not just
have your main content page, as your "main" page.
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All this is too overwhelming and confusing? It
often is, which is why most people don't bother; don't panic, there are many website designers,
such as
Plush Designs, that also offer content writing
and search engine optimization (SEO) services at
affordable rates.
