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Writing SEO Copy – 8 Steps to Success
by Glenn Murray ©Copyright 2004

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  
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 or at 
glenn@divinewrite.com. Visit www.divinewrite.com for further 
details.   
================================================================

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