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Search Engine Copywriting
By Liam Anthony, Tue Jan 10th
SEARCH ENGINE COPYWRITING: A COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE FOR BEGINNERSTO CONTENT WRITING FOR SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION Copywriting is an art of writing information for various formsof media. It has evolved through time from its early forms inbooks, magazines and newspapers, Copywriting has againtranscended from its usual form and practices into the newinternet era; Copywriting as utilized by the Search EngineOptimization business is also known as Internet Content Writing,Web Content Writing, amongst other terms. The various terms ofCopywriting shall be used interchangeably throughout this text. This article will try to tell you about the basics ofcopywriting and its advanced application on the SEO aspect. Thisarticle aims to provide the beginners in the Search EngineOptimization industry, an in-depth but friendly guide to seocontent writing, as well as providing the more advancedcopywriters with a guide to remind them of the several tricksthey might have forgotten about the craft.
This guide shall be divided into the three parts of thecopywriting process: the before, during, and after. This is thefirst part of the guide dealing with the things a copywritermust do BEFORE writing the copy. Succeeding parts shall beposted separately. Before Writing Before doing any writing you should first know the purpose whyyou're writing that content. Your purpose should be clear anddefinite so no equivocation of ideas will exist that mightconfound your readers. Is the writing for sports? Is it forentertainment? Is it educational? These things should be clearon your mind before you write your copy, so a natural flow willexist as you write. Another thing to consider is to know whom are you writing forand who are the people you wish to convey the message to?Knowledge of your audience will give you many benefits: peoplewith different cultures only respond to a specific approach youuse, technical terms would be very trivial when talking tobeginners while spelled out and explained details would be verytime consuming for experts. The internet is used by a vastnetwork of people and your target may only comprise a very smallminority. It is important that you address your targeteffectively if you want more conversions (making site visitorsinto customers) on your web site. About the resources Knowing the right information willcertainly give you the right results. Knowing what people wantand what they are searching for will be one of the keys to makeit big in this business. One of the things that can help youacquire this information is through case studies, surveys andpolls that can be found all over the internet. Most of thesestudies provide general demographic information about internetusers. If you're lucky enough (since it is discouraged), youmight even stumble with information regarding the searchinghabits of different demographics. Once you have decided touse particular information from the internet, make sure that itis from a reliable author or source. Incorrect and inaccuratedata proliferates all over the internet and it happens that youmay be misled by others to use them, so, see to it that thearticles or studies you are about to use are made and conductedby certified educational institutions or known private companiesso you will not have any problems about their authenticity. Another effective source of information from the internet arepages which rank high among search engines especially those thatare related to yours. Analyze and learn the effective thingsthey have done to increase their PageRank and apply them to yourwork. You could also check out the pages of your topcompetitors, you might learn a lot from them but be careful notto copy their stuff as it is since they will be constantlychecking out their competition. Copyright guidelines are finallycatching up with those who replicate content, ending blacklistedby major search engines. SEO forums are also helpful in guiding you about the latesttrends in the Search Engine Optimization business. Expertsusually crowd in these forums to discuss the tricks and trendsof the business. Moreover, new updates and trends about SearchEngine Algorithms and Technology can be found on these forums soit is highly advisable that you check out those forums. However,the forums might be a little too complicated for beginners asterms often become too technical to understand even by seasonedusers. About the words Now let us go down to business! It is time to know what are thekeywords and keyphrases you will use for your copy! The keywords and phrases would be the ones that you will use and try tointegrate throughout the whole copy. It would be the bait youplace in the hook in order to attract and hopefully catch yourpotential customers. First of all, you and your client should brainstorm together(face to face if possible) about the keywords and keyphrases youwant to use for the copy. It is important that you brainstormtogether so that you will be able to stay true to the brand andhave an effective choice for use in the search engineoptimization efforts. You could make use of different keywordtools found in the web such as Keyword Discovery, GoodKeywords,WordTracker, Overture, etc. (issues regarding their usabilityand effectiveness will be discussed separately). These tools canbe downloaded or used directly over the internet should youchoose to utilize it. In choosing keyphrases or keywords remember to start with anduse popular but "not-so-competitive" terms since it would bevery difficult to compete with more established websites if youhave just been starting. The above-mentioned tools will help youdetermine which key words or phrases you could use. One word keywords are very difficult if not impossible tocompete with as it would have a more general scope compared withkeyphrases. For example, if you are trying to write content fora company selling educational toys, choosing a keyword like"toys" would be a stupid idea since search engines would givearound one hundred million hits for that particular keyword,while changing it into keyphrase like "toys for students" or"educational toys" would only have hits of around five million.This means that the chance that a web searcher would actually goto your website would be 100,000,000:1 under the keyword "toys"while choosing the keyphrase "educational toys" means a chanceof 5,000,000:1, greatly increasing your chance of being visited.Besides, customers are more likely to refine their searchessince using or typing just one word searches would mean beingbombarded with a lot of unwanted information than they need,costing more time and effort. Your keywords should specifically target (1) the product orservice that you are offering and (2) what people actually typewhenever they use the search engines in looking for products andservices like yours. A good example would be when writingcontent for a company selling
kilns for bricks, you should notoptimize for the keyword "kiln for bricks" if most peopleactually type "oven for bricks" when they are looking for suchequipment. It is useless to optimize for the term kiln when mostpeople opt to type oven since a few if none will be looking forthe term kiln. You should also identify and discover various words and termswhich are closely related to your keyword or keyphrases. Somekey-terms and keyphrases are so intimately intertwined withothers that one group associates it with a particular fieldwhile another choose to associate it with something else. Onegood example would be Cosmetic Surgery. Cosmetic Surgery is amedical procedure, so, it can be regarded as something relatedwith medicine and surgery, while it is also correct to say thatit is related with cosmetics and beauty. Since the fields ofmedicine, surgery, cosmetics and beauty are popular fields,optimizing for both the cosmetic and the surgical aspect of thekeyphrase Cosmetic Surgery would bring more keyword hits forsearches from individuals of both parts of the spectrum. Another thing to consider is to integrate local terminologiesor equivalents of your products or services when optimizing withkey words or phrases. An "elevator" in the US would be a "lift"in the UK, a "truck" in the US would be a "lorry" in the UK, andthe list goes on. When trying to sell products or services for ahuge demographically different society, you should optimize forboth of the groups as each would tend to search for the morefamiliar local term. Better yet, you could create differentsites for different demographic groups, replacing particular keywords and phrases; enabling you to cater to both. Moreover, it would be wise to consider placing regionalinformation or regional key words or phrases. Integratingregional information along with keywords and keyphrases enablesusers who prefer more specified searches to visit your website.You would also benefit from the limited competition because ofthe more specified search. Most people looking for products andservices in the internet would certainly prefer to find whatthey need locally, so adding local regional information woulddefinitely be of great help to you and your potential client.Another benefit is that you could add another keyword, which isthe regional information to your existing key word or keyphrase. For example, instead of having just "plumbing services"add "Atlanta" before 'plumbing services'. This would give you anedge over competitors as it would profoundly decrease yourcompetition. About the content Now that you have the key words and phrases you would need itstime to plan about the general thrust of the content, on whatthe content should be like. Generally, the main idea of writing content is for it to beable to provide useful information for visitors in your site.You are primarily writing for the readers, the human visitors ofyour site, and about the products and services that you have tooffer. Secondary to that idea is to provide the search enginesinformation so they could properly and accurately index yoursite according to its proper category, so anyone who wants tolook for something in particular, through the use of searchengines, would eventually find what he needs. In other words,your content should be both customer-oriented and search enginefriendly. In order to do that, you need to plan properly on how to doyour copywriting. The whole text should be able to give themwhat they need and want to know about the products and servicesyou have. Hence, it is highly advisable that you read a lot ofinformation about the subject product or service before youwrite the actual copy. The goal is to become extremelyknowledgeable about the product, so you can explore all thepossibilities and play with its strengths and weaknesses andwrite everything that is needed. One important thing to remember is to write content that isunique. Copying content is not only plagiarism and cheating butis also a serious offense that could cause painful penaltiesunder existing Copyright laws. More and more IntellectualProperty Rights watch dogs are reporting cases of contentstealing and have gained some grounds over the years. Majorsearch engines are now penalizing sites which illegally acquirecontent from other sources. Penalties include permanentlyputting sites under a blacklist, sort of a "permanent not tocontact sites" for crawlers. Lawsuits and cases about webcontent writing are now increasing day by day, with morecountries enacting laws on Intellectual Property Rights. Therisks are just too great if you plagiarize and copy content. Somake sure that you quote or place endnotes when you choose touse parts of other's content. And lastly, your content should be written in plain, simple,and natural language so as not to destroy the natural flow ofwords as you write. Highly technical words and terms should bereserved for highly technical discussions, and should bediscouraged for everyday internet use. About the mood You might be wondering what a section about mood is doing in aseo copywriting article, well, it certainly has a LOT to doabout content writing. The mood of the reader would certainlyaffect the way he views a certain product or service. If you didnot properly take care of the emotional side of your customerwith your writing, consider him gone. Individual moods areaffected by a lot of factors; although primarily it is internal,external factors could also affect his mood significantly andluckily what that individual reads is one of them. First of all, you should be 'in the mood' for writing. Goodcopies are mostly written by writers who are either inspired orenlightened with what they are about to write. Content writersshould make sure that they are in this special mood because theconsequence of the opposite would be a very bad copy. A readeris also likely to be 'drawn' by an emphatic copy writtensuperbly which would eventually end up making the reader getwhat you are offering. One thing you could do to achieve that is to utilize emotionalappeal to the reader. Try to integrate personal articles like"you", "we", and "us" more often; try to get your visitors asinvolved as possible. Avoid being too passive as it wouldprevent you from establishing a connection or a relationshipwith your target reader. Keep your readers or customers engaged with your site. Makethem think and interact by asking questions, giving riddles ortrivia. All these create an air of friendliness for potentialcustomers, and once you've made them comfortable reading, theyare more likely to respond positively to you. As much aspossible make them do all their transactions within your site,give out all the details about what you are offering so that canknow everything they need to know. Trying to get online visitorsask questions and product or service information offline will betoo cumbersome for them so be as accessible as possible. About the author:Liam Anthony, Ghost Writer/Content Writer, seoglobalpro.com
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