Most people use search engines to find what they are searching for. This means all of your writing for the web needs to be done with the search engines in mind. It doesn’t matter if you are writing SEO content for your website, new articles or postings for your blog.
SEO copy writing is much more than just writing keyword rich text for the search engines. It must appeal to your human readers once they arrive. SEO content writing means applying keywords to your website in a way that tells the search engines how to index your website.
- Research your keywords and keyword phrases. Choose one primary keyword phrase to focus on. It doesn’t matter if you are writing a web page, an article or a blog posting. Web pages can handle up to three secondary phrases as long as they are closely related.
- Headline: A well written headline will catch the interest of your readers and the search engines. Use your primary keyword phrase prominently in the headline so the search engines will take notice. Remember the purpose of your headline is to attract attention and generate interest.
- Write: Start writing with your keyword(s) clearly in mind. Try and form your main topic around your keyword phrase. You don’t need to worry about working the keywords in…yet. Your entire focus is on writing a quality article that will interest your audience.
- Apply: Work in your keyword(s) into the top 25% of your text. Search engines put more importance into “prominence” which are the words used in the beginning of your article or web page. Do not use the keyword phrases at all in the last 25% of your text. Search engines place extra emphasis on words used in bold, italics, ordered lists and numbered lists. Use keywords here where possible.
- META tags: The only META tag that is still important is the Title tag. Place your keywords into the beginning (for prominence). Place your company name or website at the end of the Title tag. Title tags should be 65-70 characters. They can be longer, Google just won’t display over 70 characters.
