SEO Copywriting: Write SEO Copy For Humans, Not For Search Engines

posted by ADMIN // August 14, 2009 // Market Your Website

There are many different viewpoints about what makes for good SEO copy. Some people believe that SEO copy should be solely written to appeal to search engines. If a human reader likes the copy or finds it useful then that’s just an added bonus. Others believe just the opposite, and some waver down a middle line. One thing that is very clear right now is that stuffing a lot of keywords into a few hundred words of text is not a winning solution -- whether you want to catch the eye of a search engine or a human visitor to your site! So, what is the best route to take?

We all know that the days of keyword stuffing to move up search engine rankings are over. Search engines are wise to this game now and you’re more likely to be penalized for ‘spamdexing’ here than to be rewarded with a nice comfortable spot at the top of the rankings. Nowadays, whilst keywords do have a part to play in the success of your website in terms of both rankings and revenues, there are other elements in play here. Now, you also need to thinking about links and actual, old-fashioned human interest.

Search engines nowadays have replaced their thirst for keywords with a thirst for ‘value’. Major engines such as Google will use their programs such as PageRank to assess the links that come into your site and where they come from to see how much value they add. Have the right number of links from the right kind of sites and you’ll do well. Give your site to a link farm to add as many links as you can manage from any site at all and, once again, you’ll more than likely fail in ranking terms.

But, one thing that needs to be addressed here, no matter how perfect your links are and how judiciously and carefully you use your keywords is your average site visitor. Think about what you want your average visitor to do. For example, do you want them to keep returning to your site and to trust it enough to click on the ads you run there? Do you want them to tell other people about your site and give you nice organic traffic growth? Of course you do.

But, what a lot of website owners get is a visitor who links into their site, takes a look round and then leaves, never to return. Why don’t they come back? Generally, simply because the website hasn’t given them anything useful. They might have visited the site looking for information, but didn’t get it. They may have visited it because they are interested in your subject or specialism, but didn’t find anything to keep them there. Or, as is most often the case, they will just have been turned off by clunky and awkward copy that is stuffed full of keywords and contains nothing else of value whatsoever.

The simple fact is that you need to offer something to a site visitor to keep them on site, to make them want to return and to make them talk about your site in a positive way. If you write copy for your visitors -- and not for search engines -- then this is more likely to happen. Informative, interesting and naturally flowing copy will do this and can also contain enough keywords to appeal to search engines. So, this should be your primary aim here.

The obvious thing to do is to have something to say and you can do this in a lot of different ways. Blog writers, for example, can construct blogs around obscure hobbies and interests and still keep people coming in and coming back by producing interesting and entertaining entries. Websites designed to offer help and advice can do the same job by being rich in information and content that visitors want to read because it will help them out. So, find something to say and make it worth reading.

If you can do this you will simply find it a lot easier to keep traffic flowing into your site and to make it do what you want it to do. If your site gives some form of value to a visitor then they are more likely to trust it and to stay on it. They are far more likely to do stuff like click on links and ads and this could see significant boosts in your revenue.

You’ll also see a knock-on effect when it comes to link building here and your overall search engine ranking. Search functions like PageRank don't just look at how many links come into your site when they assess it -- the fact is that too many of the wrong links can do you more harm than good. They are also concerned with the quality of links that you have. So, if you can get links from highly ranked and reputable sources then the value of your links themselves could soar.

Fact is, if you are producing web content that gives value to your visitors then highly rated websites are far more likely to link to you than if you produce copy that is so keyword stuffed that it barely makes sense. The major players here don’t link to just anybody but will concentrate on building links to sites that their own visitors will find useful. Show them that you can add value to their visitors and they will simply add value to your site.

So, taking the simple step of producing informative and interesting copy could give you a win, win situation. You could boost your own traffic numbers and manipulate visitor actions far more effectively. And, you could build links that really will work for you in ranking terms.

Author
Carol Finch

Article Source: Constant Content

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