SEO Copywriting

SEO copywriting is a relatively new concept, but it mostly means simply remembering to use target keywords in the content you are writing. Original content is key when driving traffic to your website, and is critical to getting other sites to link to yours. Factoring in search engine optimization techniques is essential when copywriting for the web to make sure that people and search engines can actually find your content.

SEO Copywriting vs. Spam

In the past, many sites depended on “spammy” or over-optimized content to attract search engines. This led to tremendous frustration amongst readers who were continually brought to pages that were so keyword heavy that they were nearly impossible to read.  As search engines have incorporated other signals into their algorithms, naturally written, interesting content is featured in top results much more frequently – though these pages are also well optimized. With all of these changes, copywriters have had to shift their focus to the dynamic balance between search engine requirements and user readability preferences. The following are several key considerations when optimizing your copy for search engines.

Optimizing Copy with Keywords

As with all SEO activities, optimized website copy is driven by keywords, allowing readers and search engines to easily find relevant content. While “keyword density” used to be an essential term for all copywriters to know, its use has all but disappeared in today’s SEO environment.

Keyword density relates to the number of keywords present in a given amount of text. So a 500 word article with 2% density would show 10 keywords. This mathematical approach to search engine optimization copywriting was once very effective. However, as previously indicated, search engines are becoming increasingly concerned with the end user experience.

LSI or Latent Semantic Indexing is thought to be used by Google and other search engines. What this does is it recognizes keywords used within a given area of text, even if they are spaced out with several words in between. This lets copywriters truly write for their audience, and not the search engines, while still optimizing for high ranking.

SEO Copywriting: Length of Content

Web copy optimized for search engines generally has a minimum requirement of 250 words, excluding headers, footers, and other areas outside the content itself.  This minimum allows search engine spiders to crawl the page and determine its relevancy for keywords used by visitors.

Of course, this is only a minimum. Blogs and other sites focused on providing content can have 1,000 words and more. The trick lies in being concise while still discussing all key points. Finding the balance between clarity and brevity is essential.

Use Header Tags for SEO Copywriting

Web copywriters likely have a concise point to make when they are writing content. Integrating these points into header tags offers a distinct search engine optimization benefit. Search engines give more weight to text found within header tags, thus key points placed within the header tags enable search engines to understand what the page is about. Utilizing keywords within the header tags, as well, can heighten association between those keywords and the page.

Proper header structure, however, is required. <h2> tags should always follow <h1>, <h3> should follow <h2>, and so on. In the case of web copy, the main article title should appear in an <h1> tag. Sub headings can appear in <h2> tags, while other significant, yet less important headings can appear in <h3> through <h6> tags.

Meta Titles & Descriptions

Though holding less significance today than before, meta tags still have a place in copywriting. The Title tag, in particular, is important to identify the main idea behind the copy. In addition, it is this title that is viewed by search engine visitors when they search for terms relevant to your copy. The Meta Description is also used in this way, to provide a unique description of the content on the page, viewable by search engine users.

Other search engine optimization techniques including tag optimization, domain name optimization and external linking are  important in increasing targeted web traffic, but you still need to convince site visitors to convert.  This is why copywriting should always be about the content. Providing unique, high quality content is the key to success in any online marketing campaign.