Web Copywriting, SEO and the Web at Large

A satisfied spider can spin you a healthy bottom line.

Search Engines send these programs, also known as robots, to ‘crawl’ and ‘index’ web sites to help determine their relevancy and ranking.

If your copywriting is not spider friendly, you’re missing out on one of the most powerful, cost-effective ways to achieve online presence: search engine optimization (SEO).

Consider these facts:

• More than 500 million web searches are made daily (source: Google)
• Search engines account for more than 85% of all new visitors to a website (source: GvU)
• Studies indicate only seven per cent of Internet users surf beyond the first 20 listings of a search engine
• The Internet is home to more than 100 million registered domains (source: Netcraft)

How to achieve SEO

While online marketing strategies such as inbound links score points, many industry experts are of the same opinion: content is king! This is reinforced by the search engines themselves. For instance, Google advises webmasters one of the keys to a high ranking is to “create a useful, information-rich site.”

Essential ingredients to effective SEO copywriting:

1. Determine the best keywords for your business and target market
Choosing and using the right keywords within your SEO copywriting can make the difference between a top 10 and top 500 search engine ranking. To maximize targeted traffic to your web site, you need to establish:

• What your potential customers are likely to enter into a search engine
• How often that search term is used
• How many web sites and pages you are competing against
• What keywords your direct competitors are using, and with what success

Depending on the nature of your business, your SEO copywriting might need to be ‘regionalized’ to reach your target market. For instance, a bicycle repair shop in Seattle, Washington might use the keywords: “Bill’s Bikes bicycle repairs Seattle” as web traffic from another city would have little or no benefit.

2. Assign one to three keywords per page
Increase your chances of appearing on search engine results by using one to three keywords or keyphrases per page. For instance, a Toronto-based web developer might have the following keywords on his home page: web design Toronto, web development Toronto, websites Toronto.

3. Create keyword-rich copy
Once your keywords are established, you need to incorporate them into content-rich SEO copywriting. Search engine spiders look for pages that are relative to a search phrase, so they like to see phrases repeated. As a result, your SEO copywriting should comprise a keyword density ratio of 3% to 7%. This is calculated by dividing the keywords by the total number of words on the page.

If your keyword density is too low, search engines may overlook your web site. Meanwhile, overly aggressive SEO copywriting can get you flagged as a “spammer” and result in ranking penalties.

Put your SEO copywriting to the test

To determine your keyword density, you can use a free Webcopyplus keyword density tool.