Writing good SEO copy can be a challenge for the most talented of optimisers. All too often as we trawl the Internet, we see websites that are a little reminiscent of parrot speak; repeating the same phrase over and over again in the most monotonous fashion. Yes you want your key phrase to be recognised by Google, but as we at Lead Generators demonstrate time and time again on our clients' websites, there is no reason why well-optimised and key-phrase enriched copy cannot read just as well to a human as it does to a search engine. In this article, we discuss the three most important things to remember when writing SEO copy. Consider Your Audience
It is true that when we write SEO copy, we do so with the search engine spider in mind. However, a factor that can sometimes fall by the wayside is that this same copy must attract conversions and sales on your site as well. Your copy must be effective in terms of both search engines and humans.
In order to work your way up the search engine rankings, your copy should be enriched with the particular key phrase that is important to your page. This might mean using it 3, 4 or even more times on the page itself. However, whilst this may impress a search engine (making it very clear what your page is about), it can easily appear clumsy to a potential customer. As such, it is important to strike a balance between using the relevant key phrase frequently enough to please a search engine, and prosaically enough not to put off the customer. The most important thing to remember when writing SEO copy is that you are writing for two masters.
Don't Become a Parrot
We are all familiar with the expression "too many cooks spoil the broth." Writing SEO copy is no exception to this rule, and keyword stuffing (i.e. over-use of the key phrase within the copy) is something that should be avoided at all costs. Neither of your masters (search engines or potential customers) will be impressed by keyword stuffing; not only will it read badly to the human eye, but you also run the risk of making your page look like spam to a search engine, which may have a negative effect on your ranking.
To use the phrase 'SEO copy' as an example, keyword stuffed copy might read similarly to this:
"Our SEO copy is concise, enriched and effective SEO copy. SEO copy from Lead Generators will help your site rank highly on search engine results pages. Contact us on…" Use of the key phrase need only be proportional to the amount of text on the page. A better example of this copy might be as follows:
"Lead Generators' SEO copy can help your site rank highly on search engine results pages. For concise, enriched and effective SEO copy please contact us on..." Using the key phrase too repetitively within the text can be very detrimental to your copy. But what people often forget, is the key phrase can be slipped into other places on your page, such as meta tags, headings, subheadings, and calls to action. Good SEO copy does not aim to include the key phrase as many times as possible, but as effectively as possible.
Same Words, Different Phrase
Finally, one of the easiest things to forget when writing SEO copy is that there is room for manoeuvre where a key phrase is concerned. As yet, there has been no evidence to suggest that search engines pay any attention to punctuation, or line breaks. There is therefore, no reason why you cannot break up your key phrase into more than one sentence. For example, if you need to use the phrase SEO Copy, you can spread it over two sentences in the following manner:
"Lead Generators are experts in online marketing and SEO. Copy written by our writing team is key phrase enriched, original and highly effective at achieving great rankings for our clients."
Variation of the key phrase, however slight it may be, will stop the copy from appearing repetitive, without affecting it from a search engine's perspective. It will also ensure that it reads a whole lot better to the human eye, which in turn may lead to more of those all important conversions.
So next time you sit down to write some SEO copy, try to envisage your two equally important masters in front of you. That way the copy that appears on your site will not only do well with the search engines, but will sell at the same time.
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