Entries Tagged 'SEO copywriter' ↓

When you think search engine optimisation, what is the first thing that pops into your head?

• Keywords
• SEO copywriting
• Title tags
• Headings and subheadings

Yes, they are all very important SEO factors but for the on screen part of your strategy.  There’s a whole lot more that has to go on behind the scenes.

Off screen SEO is a vital part of your SEO strategy and has to work in conjunction with your on screen antics.

What are the off screen factors?

When thinking off screen you are looking at things such as:

Website

This has to be built by someone who knows what they are doing. A well designed structure and easily crawled and navigable site will do wonders for your SEO.

Links

These are vitally important. Every inbound link you get is like a vote for your website. And the more votes you get, the more Google will love you.

You can generate links from blogs, article marketing and directory submissions (e.g. DMOZ.org). But don’t just gather links from high ranking sites. Although a link from a site with a PR of 4 or higher is worth a lot, you need to mix in some lower ranked sites too.

The most effective inbound links are those where you have used your targeted keywords within the anchor text link. So, for example, if I wanted to generate a link back to my main website (Briar Copywriting) I would use an anchor text link similar to this:

“Copywriting, and especially the art of SEO copywriting, is essential to not only attract visitors to your website but also to generate and maintain great rankings within the search engines.”

Just remember that link building is something that should be done constantly.

Social media

You may have noticed that Google is using social media results in its SERPs these days. But more than that, social media activity will help you develop online communities. These people will talk about you and promote you to others and so drive more traffic to your website.

This is also the same for forums. Taking part in discussions will not only generate links to your website but it will get your name known.

For more information about SEO, take a look at Google’s own SEO starter guide for invaluable hints and tips on how to create an online presence that really works.

Nick Cobb is a freelance copywriter, online marketing consultant and the founder and Managing Director of Write For You Ltd. His principal website, My Freelance Copywriter, provides a wide range of copywriting services to domestic and international businesses, while his sister site. Red Hot Sales Letters, is dedicated to producing profit-pulling sales copy for online marketers.

The author’s views are entirely his own and may not reflect the views of FreelanceCopywritersBlog.com. If you are interested in producing a Guest Post for this blog, please get in touch with your ideas.

The concept of SEO copywriting has taken on a huge amount of significance in recent years. More and more companies are realising just how important a role it plays in pushing their website higher in the search engine rankings. But like anything else, there’s a way to do it right, and a way to do it wrong!

Do it correctly, and you’ll end up with beautifully crafted, search engine optimised website content that appeals to both human beings and the search engines alike. Do it incorrectly, and you’ll end up with an incoherent mess that will have your readers clicking away in seconds.

So if you’re new to the concept of SEO copywriting but can’t afford to hire a professional to do it for you, here are some useful tips to bear in mind…

Don’t Stuff Up

Back in the day, people used to believe that the more keywords you included in your website, the more relevant your site would become, and the higher it would rise in the search engines for your main keyword(s). This resulted in the practice of “keyword stuffing”, which only succeeded in creating ugly and incomprehensible content that repeated the same words over and over again! Google soon cracked down on this and started to penalise sites that did it.

So if you’ve read about the importance of “keyword density” recently and were planning on loading your web pages with your main keywords, think again. By all means, use your keywords in your content, but make sure that your copy makes sense and reads well.

Always remember that good quality content is the most important factor, because not only will it convert visitors into buyers, but it will also have more chance of being linked to, which will ultimately boost your search engine ranking anyway.

The Crowbar Effect

Whatever product or service you’re selling, the headline (or H1 tag) is crucial. This is where you’ll grab your prospect’s attention and pull them further into your website or sales copy. Get this wrong, and you may lose them for good.

So first things first, your headline needs to be intriguing, powerful, and of course, persuasive. And in order to achieve this, it needs to make sense! There’s no point crow-barring your keyword into your H1 tag if it don’t read so good! So think about your readers first. Write the headline or H1 tag with human beings at the forefront of your mind, rather than the search engines. Of course, be sure to include your main keyword, but not at the expense of clarity.

License to Kill

With many sites being built on WordPress these days, more and more people are being given license to change and update their website content. This can be a god-send when designers take 3 days to add a full stop to the end of a sentence, but it can also give people a little TOO MUCH power!

For instance, internal linking can be a great way to boost your search engine ranking, as it allows you to make your site more relevant to your major keywords. Likewise, putting your keywords in bold and italics can also help a little.

However, upon discovering this, I’ve seen many site owners adopt a policy of turning every single one of their keywords into internal links, or putting them all into bold and italics! This has the effect of making the copy extremely difficult to read, which will only serve to drive visitors away. So remember, internal linking is good. Putting your keywords in bold and italicizing them can be of benefit. But don’t go overboard, because you’ll lose potential customers if you do.

There’s a lot of great SEO copywriting out there but there’s a lot of bad stuff too.

Once upon a time it was considered that the only way to get your website to rank well was to create content that was purely targeted for the search engines. Inevitably, this resulted in a mountain of websites (and articles) that were stuffed to the rafters with keywords rendering the text unreadable.

Such as:

Brian is an SEO copywriter. He has been working with SEO clients for many years and excels in producing SEO copywriting that works. Through SEO copywriting he gains exceptional rankings for his clients. His SEO copywriting skills have been applauded the world over with his SEO clients the first to recommend his talents. “SEO is the way forward” said Brian, “SEO is what helps my clients get in front of their customers. Without SEO many didn’t get great online sales but now I have worked on their SEO copywriting they are getting more traffic.”

Yuk.

The sad thing is there are still a lot of people out there who think this works.

As more and more people realise that content marketing (articles, blogs and website copy) is the best way to get noticed, more and more badly written content is appearing.

If you want your content to get ranked and attract readers, here are a few things to bear in mind.

How to get your content read

1. Write for people

You may well be scratching your head thinking “Who else would I be writing for?”

Well most people, who generate content like the example above, don’t write for people. They are writing for the search engines by over stuffing their copy with keywords.

Writing for your reader is the most important thing. Naturally, you will include your keywords anyway so there’s no need to stuff them into every sentence you write.

2. Don’t be boring

When you try to boost the frequency of your keyword within your article you end up with something repetitive and boring. Plus if great rankings came solely down to the number of keywords you’d included you’ll end up in a ‘frequency war’ to see who can add the most. Therefore nothing that appeared on the web would be readable.

Therefore it is much better to keep your writing natural and concentrate on getting your keywords into other prominent on screen areas.

3. Maximising on screen SEO

To explain that last statement in number 2, the key on screen areas are in your headings (H1 and H2 etc.) and ALT tags for images.

Basically that means breaking down your article by using sub headings.

This not only gives more prominence to your keywords it also makes your article easier and more attractive to read.

Remember, the search engines will read every word of your articles but your reader will skim read and look at the sub headings.

4. Link out

Although you are trying to generate inbound links to your website through your content, it’s always a good idea to link out to other information.

After all, to create your article you would have probably done some research so why not link to it? Providing your reader with this extra information will add value and enhance your status as an expert in your field. And, with a bit of luck, might encourage more inbound links to your site.

5. Be natural

Last but not least, be natural.

As stated in number 1, you have to write for your reader first and foremost. But make sure the way you write is also accessible.

If you write in jargon and industry ‘speak’ you’ll reduce the accessibility of your work. Writing in simple language and in the second person (so you actually address your reader directly) will make it easier to read for everyone.

At the end of the day, natural copy will always do better than obvious SEO stuffing. Use simple language, plenty of sub headings and talk directly to your reader if you want to create content that ranks and is accessible to your reader.

Getting great rankings isn’t just about the structure of your website and its copy. Obviously they both have a major influence but there is also a third element that must be present.

Frequently businesses will fork out for a great website and hire a professional SEO copywriter to ensure their copy is SEO friendly, engaging and customer focused. But once their site is live they just sit back and wait.

That’s when the web designer or copywriter gets a phone call asking why their website isn’t on the front page of Google.

First it takes time for that to happen (it’s not going to be an overnight occurrence), secondly your SEO strategy does not end once your site has gone live. That’s just the beginning.

Make Google love you

Probably the most important aspect of SEO is link building.

They are important because they show Google the relevancy and authority of your website. So the more you have the better.

But that doesn’t mean any old link will do.

The link building process has to be done over time and consistently. But don’t be tempted into taking shortcuts by using link farms or paid link networks. The links coming into your site must be genuine and relevant to your site. Google does check the quality of your links so if they’re not genuine and relevant you could end up with a hefty Google penalty.

Here’s what Google’s Webmaster Tools has to say on the matter:

Source: Google Webmaster Central

Back link analysis

Your Google rankings will constantly go up and down as your competitors vie for the top spot. Constant link building will help you in the rankings battle, so making use of a back link analysis tool (such as SEO Books free tool) will allow you to check out not only where your links are coming from but also who is linking to your competitors.

Links through content

Another way to grow your links is through content. Writing relevant articles which link back to your website should be part of your SEO strategy.

Plus look for guest blogging opportunities and again link back to your site within your blog post.

Generating links should be seen as part of your marketing strategy. Take the ‘one thing a week’ approach and alternate between creating directory listings, writing and submitting articles and generating blog posts.

Breaking down your link building into manageable chunks in this way will ensure the process is continuous.

What strategies do you have for link building? Why not leave a comment and share your experiences.

Are you the type of person who breaks out into a cold sweat whenever you hear the term search engine optimisation?

To many it seems to be one of those mythical beasts that you can only tame if you’re armed to the teeth with an array of magical implements.

Well fear not for your knight(ess) in shining armour is here to save the day.

There are 5 very simple SEO checks you can make right now. Open up another browser window and pull up your website.

Ready?

OK, first things first. Let’s take a look at your website structure:

1. Looks aren’t everything

That’s something my mum was constantly telling me when I was growing up.

Take a look at your website – this one is especially pertinent for all owners of custom built websites. For many business owners the ‘look’ of their website is at the top of their list. It’s the part of the process that takes the biggest budget because they want theirs to be prettier than anyone else’s.

The problem with custom builds is that, sometimes, looks are at the expense of SEO, especially if you’ve been seduced by flash. Yes, it looks lovely but unless you’ve got some magic going on in the background coding it’s not going to help your search engine optimisation one jot.

Template websites – love them or loathe them – tend to be more SEO friendly from the start. If there are any web designers out there who want to disagree or comment further please do so, I’d love to hear your take on the design vs SEO debate.

Next we move on to how to get found in the first place, yup, the dreaded keyword research bit.

2. Keywords

Remember this post is all about simple SEO checks so I’m not going to delve into the realms of thorough keyword research.

Take a minute to jot down the top 3 words that you would use as a Google search to find your website.

For example I would choose copywriter, freelance copywriter and possibly Suffolk copywriter to get a geographical tag in there. Next ask a friend or colleague to do the same, in fact ask as many people as you like to do the same and eventually you’ll have a list of keywords.

You may not think that’s very scientific but it will give you keywords that real people would search under for you.

Next you do the hard bit and work out how competitive they are and which ones are the best to tackle (you’ll need to use something like Google’s free keyword research tool for this). The chart below should help you work that bit out.

It’s also a good idea, before you make any changes to your site, to search under the terms you decide on and write down your current ranking so you can watch in awe as your site rises ever higher.

That’s your keywords done, so what’s next? Well it’s back to your website.

3. All present?

If you want your site to rank for your identified keywords they need to be in your copy. That doesn’t mean cramming them into every sentence on the page. But rather weave them into the text in a couple of places.

Your headings and sub headings are always a good place to put them and in your title tags.

OK, so now you’ve got your words in your website copy, what’s next?

4. Power content

The next thing to do is write a page or blog post centred on your keywords (one for each keyword). Again that doesn’t mean stuffing, but using your keywords wisely (e.g. in a post of about 200-300 words, use your keyword 2 or 3 times).

Try and use it in your headings to give it more prominence. Once you’ve published these on your website you can then use them on your social media sites too (e.g. your Facebook page) and link back to your site using the keywords as your anchor text links.

With me so far? For the next bit you’ll need a bit of help.

5. Get votes

Every link that comes into your website acts like a vote of confidence in Google’s eyes. The more you have, the more authoritative you are.

So ask friends and colleagues to link to you (like a link exchange) using contextual anchor text links.

OK, so these 5 tips aren’t the most comprehensive SEO techniques but they can and will make a difference. So what have you go to lose? Give them a try and the come back and let me know how you get on.