The article below discusses the following:
-Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
-Keyword Research
-Keyword Placement
-SEO Copywriters
-Spamming
-How Search Engines View Your Website
-Quality
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
SEO is now the livelihood of every website. SEO copywriting is also a necessity if you want your website to be successful. Creating an effective SEO site requires a lot of preparation and can be time consuming, but the results will be a higher ranking in the search engines. Businesses need a higher ranking. When an Internet user scans search results you want your business to be as close to the top as possible. Users do not like to search very long; they like quick results with quality content.
Keyword Research
The first step is finding the right keywords or phrases for your website. You can use keywords relating to your services, your location, your business name, and/or anything your site represents. It is a good idea to brainstorm and come up with a list. Once you have a list you can use the Keyword Selector Tool (we have it listed on the right side of the page). This tool will give you a list of all the search phrases that relate to your keywords or phrases. You will also be able to see the number of times Internet users searched for each phrase in the last month. You may find that you like some other keywords or phrases more than your own and you may notice that the keywords you were planning to use were not searched for that often.
Keyword Placement
You should only focus on 2-3 keywords per page (however, some say 4-5) and your Keyword Density needs to be between 2.5 and 10%. If you have multiple keywords that need to be addressed you can group them in to sets of 2 or 3 and create a different page for each set. The different pages can focus heavily on each set of keywords and with only a few keywords the page will gain a better ranking. Your home page can mention all of your keywords (such as services offered), but they shouldn’t be overly focused on. You can also use your keywords as links to other pages within your site. You do not want too many keywords on each page, because the search engines won't know which words to focus on. The search engines will index each web page on your site (if you use SEO strategies correctly). Therefore, users will find the information/keywords you are providing even if it is not on your home page.
There are other important places to place your keyword phrases:
• Title-Tag or Page Title
• Body or Content of Website
• Headlines
• Links
• Anchor Text
• Alt-Tags
• Meta-Tags
• File Names
• Keyword List in HTML
• Website Description
SEO Copywriters
SEO Copywriters need to fully understand the different factors I have already discussed. Good SEO Copywriters don’t just focus on the text anymore; they have to interact with clients and help them find the right keyword phrases. Copywriters then need to go over all the bulleted items listed above with website owners. It is vital that these areas correlate with the content of the site! The Title-Tag is the most important area of a website and it cannot be ignored. The Title-Tag is the highest point of a website, above the File, Edit, & View buttons. If you look at mine you will see it says “SEO Copywriting”.
When the search engines review my site they will see that this specific page is about SEO copywriting. This webpage will be indexed, within the search engines, by this title. Search engines could also use the title when describing the page and if Internet users bookmark the page it will be saved as “SEO Copywriting”. The spiders (programs used by search engines) will then review my source page for keywords, headlines, meta-tags, alt-tags, content, links, and more. They can determine if the information I provide on my site is relevant to the title of my site. They can do this with a relatively new program called Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI). SEO expert Michael Marshall explains LSI very well; click HERE to view his article.
SEO Copywriters need to ensure that an entire website is fully optimized. Simply writing web content is not enough. It is enough for a “copywriter”, but an SEO Copywriter needs to know more. They need to take the time and spend the money to keep up with changing trends and webmaster rules. If the copywriters don’t know the rules they could cause significant damage to a company’s website. Google provides a great amount of information and rules for webmasters and copywriters need to educate themselves to provide effective services. Google’s Information for Webmasters Page updates every few months so check back often.
Spamming
Search engines are penalizing websites for various unethical practices or for breaking webmaster rules. Spamming the text or tags is unethical. Spamming means trying to repeat the keywords as many times as you can; this is sometimes called keyword stuffing. The search engines will notice this and can either ignore your site or ban your site. Plus, content that is written with too many keywords usually doesn’t make sense. Websites need quality writing to attract and keep costumers. Repeating keywords in your Title-Tag or any tag will set off a red flag to spiders also.
The Keyword Density should be at a minimum 2.5 % and at the max 10%. The keywords should also have supporting text- or text that relates to the keywords. For example, on my home page I offer “SEO Web Content Copywriting Services” in a headline. The text underneath supports those keywords and the LSI algorithm has noticed this. If I had just listed those words over and over and then said “I will do a good job!” my site would probably be banned.
How Search Engines View Your Website
Search Engines use spiders (programs) to scan your site for keywords, supporting text, links, and unethical practices. They do this by viewing your HTML source page; they do not look at the pretty pages you and I look at. To view the source page you can go up to view and scroll down to “Source” and the source page will pop up. The spiders play close attention to the “<title>”- Title-Tag, the "<meta name = "Description"- which you create, the "<meta name = "keywords" -which is a list you will create after the content is written, and any headlines you have created. The spiders will review your content, file names, your links- incoming & outgoing, the anchor text (which is the description of a link), and your Alt-Tags. All of these are important when ranking your site.
Quality
Website owners need to remember that quality is what really matters. I will not pay attention to a site, meaning I will click back & out of a site, if I see typos, poorly written text, or big headlines all over the place. Sites with these features scream “Un-Professional” and “Don’t Trust Me”. I really give a site about 5 seconds to show me something or I am gone. This is how most users function. Websites have only a few seconds to show a customer that it is worth staying. Keeping visitors on your site means you have probably gained a customer and I believe that is the point of a website, right? Websites now have to please the search engines for high rankings and have quality content to please their potential customers. This can be a difficult task and this is why SEO copywriters are suddenly swamped with work. When choosing the right copywriter for your company you need to make sure they can cover all the bases for you. They need to be able to work with you to establish keywords, research those keywords, and then integrate them into your Content, Title-Tags, File Names, Meta-Tags, Alt-Tags, Headline, and Anchor Text. But don’t forget the webmaster rules established by the search engines. These rules most be followed. Once you are banned it is almost impossible to get un-banned. BMW Germany was banned by Google on 2-7-06; you can read the article BMW's head-on collision with Google. Google let them back in, but that is BMW. Most of us don’t have the reputation or pull to get off the blacklist, so please be careful when choosing an SEO Copywriter. If they promise too much too soon you might need to wonder about their methods.
more coming soon...
© Panaca Writing & Design- 2-18-06