High-quality, keyword-rich written content is the single most fundamental element of effective search engine optimization. Good copy is important to a website’s users, too. Always bear in mind that search engines aren’t actually using your website. People are. Websites must, therefore, be designed primarily with users in mind, but with heed paid to SEO tenets.
The same applies to website copy. Search engines don’t read what’s on a website—rather, they index the text. So although website copy should be written with users in mind first and search engines second, there are plenty of tips, tricks, and techniques that make persuasive, informative copy serve double duty and serve search engine optimization goals as well.
Always bear in mind that getting users to click that mouse to come to a website is only half the battle. Once there, they must be persuaded that they’ve come to the right place, as well as induced to take desired actions. Great copy pleases not only the search engines, but also a much more important constituency: the site’s end users.
When writing copy for your site, use the following pointers to help you create copy that both speaks to your intended audience, as well as pays homage to the search engines:
• Make copy keyword-rich—Before picking up a pen (or firing up a computer), make sure you’ve thoroughly researched the keywords and phrases (discussed in Truth 12, “Keywords are key”) that serves the website’s goals, and that those key words match what its target audience is typing into search query boxes when they seek the information, products, or services that site offers.
• Use keywords and phrases high on the page—Search engine crawlers might spider a page all the way down to the very last word. Or they might not. So don’t hold those keywords back. When crawlers visit a page, they pay attention to, as well as assign more value to, the words and phrases that “lead” the copy on a given page. Make an effort to kick off with the essentials. This isn’t only good SEO advice; it will likely be helpful to visitors as well.
• Use variations of keyword phrases—Do not rely on the search engines’ capability to stem words for you. Add your own plurals, tenses, and gerunds (words ending in “ing”). The difference between “hamster” and “hamsters” is subtle, but irregular plurals, such as “mouse” and “mice” or “goose” and “geese” differ radically as potential keywords. If a keyword has multiple potential spellings (for example, “web cam” and “webcam”), use both variations—just don’t put both variations on the same page, because that appears sloppy and unprofessional to end users.
• Use semantically related phrases—Search engines use something called latent semantic indexing (LSI), which helps determine a web page’s rank by looking for related words in its content, or words in similar positions in other related documents. For example, if you have a page about a computer, semantically related words include computing, PC, computers, hardware, laptop, PC, PCs, computers, computings, hard drive, monitor, mouse, keypad, screen, Ethernet, USB, cable, disk, CD, CD_ROM, CD-ROM, and so on. LSI might lower the value of pages that match one specific term, but don’t back it up with related terms.
• Be descriptive—Don’t refer to “our team” when you can say “XYZ Corporation’s search engine marketing experts”. Why write “we” when you could use “Acme Bank of Akron, Ohio?” Now that you’ve done all that keyword research, use those terms wherever possible!
• Use phrases instead of single keywords when possible—Searchers often don’t type single-word queries into search boxes, so use phrases whenever appropriate. “Small business loans” is more relevant to a searcher than “loans.”
• Never present text as a graphic—It can’t be repeated often enough: Search engines read text, not images. If the only instances of a company name appearing on a website is an image file of the corporate logo, as far as the search engines are concerned, that name isn’t on the site at all. When using graphics, never, ever neglect properly naming and tagging the file (see Truth 19, “Tag images, audio, video, and other media”).
• Include a physical location—“XYZ Corporation’s San Francisco headquarters” works a lot better than “our office,” particularly when you’re trying to attract a local business clientele. You might also consider a footer containing a physical address, postal code, and phone number with area code.
• Check your spelling—When a search query is misspelled or mistyped, a “did you mean...?” message appears atop the search results page to help searchers refine their queries. Site owners, meanwhile, are on their own. Don’t count on someone finding you via your mutual ability to misspell the same word in the same way. Get spelling and grammar right on the site.
• Mind the snippets—After the page title, a search engine snippet is your best shot at getting a searcher to click. A snippet is that short bit of descriptive text found in nearly every search engine result. One of the best ways to control your search engine snippet is with a unique description meta tag for every page.
• Meta, title, and description tags—Attention should be paid to crafting copy for meta, title, and description tags for each page. This will be discussed in depth in Truth 17, “What’s in a title? Everything...,” and Truth 18, “The relative importance of meta tags.”