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SEARCH ENGINE COPYWRITING: A COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE FOR BEGINNERS TO CONTENT WRITING FOR SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION
from: Liam AnthonySEARCH ENGINE COPYWRITING: A COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE FOR BEGINNERS
TO CONTENT WRITING FOR SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION
Copywriting is an art of writing information for various forms
of media. It has evolved through time from its early forms in
books, magazines and newspapers, Copywriting has again
transcended from its usual form and practices into the new
internet era; Copywriting as utilized by the Search Engine
Optimization business is also known as Internet Content Writing,
Web Content Writing, amongst other terms. The various terms of
Copywriting shall be used interchangeably throughout this text.
This article will try to tell you about the basics of
copywriting and its advanced application on the SEO aspect. This
article aims to provide the beginners in the Search Engine
Optimization industry, an in-depth but friendly guide to seo
content writing, as well as providing the more advanced
copywriters with a guide to remind them of the several tricks
they might have forgotten about the craft.
This guide shall be divided into the three parts of the
copywriting process: the before, during, and after. This is the
first part of the guide dealing with the things a copywriter
must do BEFORE writing the copy. Succeeding parts shall be
posted separately.
Before Writing
Before doing any writing you should first know the purpose why
you're writing that content. Your purpose should be clear and
definite so no equivocation of ideas will exist that might
confound your readers. Is the writing for sports? Is it for
entertainment? Is it educational? These things should be clear
on your mind before you write your copy, so a natural flow will
exist as you write.
Another thing to consider is to know whom are you writing for
and who are the people you wish to convey the message to?
Knowledge of your audience will give you many benefits: people
with different cultures only respond to a specific approach you
use, technical terms would be very trivial when talking to
beginners while spelled out and explained details would be very
time consuming for experts. The internet is used by a vast
network of people and your target may only comprise a very small
minority. It is important that you address your target
effectively if you want more conversions (making site visitors
into customers) on your web site.
About the resources Knowing the right information will
certainly give you the right results. Knowing what people want
and what they are searching for will be one of the keys to make
it big in this business. One of the things that can help you
acquire this information is through case studies, surveys and
polls that can be found all over the internet. Most of these
studies provide general demographic information about internet
users. If you're lucky enough (since it is discouraged), you
might even stumble with information regarding the searching
habits of different demographics. Once you have decided to
use particular information from the internet, make sure that it
is from a reliable author or source. Incorrect and inaccurate
data proliferates all over the internet and it happens that you
may be misled by others to use them, so, see to it that the
articles or studies you are about to use are made and conducted
by certified educational institutions or known private companies
so you will not have any problems about their authenticity.
Another effective source of information from the internet are
pages which rank high among search engines especially those that
are related to yours. Analyze and learn the effective things
they have done to increase their PageRank and apply them to your
work. You could also check out the pages of your top
competitors, you might learn a lot from them but be careful not
to copy their stuff as it is since they will be constantly
checking out their competition. Copyright guidelines are finally
catching up with those who replicate content, ending blacklisted
by major search engines.
SEO forums are also helpful in guiding you about the latest
trends in the Search Engine Optimization business. Experts
usually crowd in these forums to discuss the tricks and trends
of the business. Moreover, new updates and trends about Search
Engine Algorithms and Technology can be found on these forums so
it is highly advisable that you check out those forums. However,
the forums might be a little too complicated for beginners as
terms often become too technical to understand even by seasoned
users.
About the words
Now let us go down to business! It is time to know what are the
keywords and keyphrases you will use for your copy! The key
words and phrases would be the ones that you will use and try to
integrate throughout the whole copy. It would be the bait you
place in the hook in order to attract and hopefully catch your
potential customers.
First of all, you and your client should brainstorm together
(face to face if possible) about the keywords and keyphrases you
want to use for the copy. It is important that you brainstorm
together so that you will be able to stay true to the brand and
have an effective choice for use in the search engine
optimization efforts. You could make use of different keyword
tools found in the web such as Keyword Discovery, GoodKeywords,
WordTracker, Overture, etc. (issues regarding their usability
and effectiveness will be discussed separately). These tools can
be downloaded or used directly over the internet should you
choose to utilize it.
In choosing keyphrases or keywords remember to start with and
use popular but "not-so-competitive" terms since it would be
very difficult to compete with more established websites if you
have just been starting. The above-mentioned tools will help you
determine which key words or phrases you could use.
One word keywords are very difficult if not impossible to
compete with as it would have a more general scope compared with
keyphrases. For example, if you are trying to write content for
a company selling educational toys, choosing a keyword like
"toys" would be a stupid idea since search engines would give
around 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 go
to your website would be 100,000,000:1 under the keyword "toys"
while choosing the keyphrase "educational toys" means a chance
of 5,000,000:1, greatly increasing your chance of being visited.
Besides, customers are more likely to refine their searches
since using or typing just one word searches would mean being
bombarded with a lot of unwanted information than they need,
costing more time and effort.
Your keywords should specifically target (1) the product or
service that you are offering and (2) what people actually type
whenever they use the search engines in looking for products and
services like yours. A good example would be when writing
content for a company selling kilns for bricks, you should not
optimize for the keyword "kiln for bricks" if most people
actually type "oven for bricks" when they are looking for such
equipment. It is useless to optimize for the term kiln when most
people opt to type oven since a few if none will be looking for
the term kiln.
You should also identify and discover various words and terms
which are closely related to your keyword or keyphrases. Some
key-terms and keyphrases are so intimately intertwined with
others that one group associates it with a particular field
while another choose to associate it with something else. One
good example would be Cosmetic Surgery. Cosmetic Surgery is a
medical procedure, so, it can be regarded as something related
with medicine and surgery, while it is also correct to say that
it is related with cosmetics and beauty. Since the fields of
medicine, surgery, cosmetics and beauty are popular fields,
optimizing for both the cosmetic and the surgical aspect of the
keyphrase Cosmetic Surgery would bring more keyword hits for
searches from individuals of both parts of the spectrum.
Another thing to consider is to integrate local terminologies
or equivalents of your products or services when optimizing with
key 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, and
the list goes on. When trying to sell products or services for a
huge demographically different society, you should optimize for
both of the groups as each would tend to search for the more
familiar local term. Better yet, you could create different
sites for different demographic groups, replacing particular key
words and phrases; enabling you to cater to both.
Moreover, it would be wise to consider placing regional
information or regional key words or phrases. Integrating
regional information along with keywords and keyphrases enables
users who prefer more specified searches to visit your website.
You would also benefit from the limited competition because of
the more specified search. Most people looking for products and
services in the internet would certainly prefer to find what
they need locally, so adding local regional information would
definitely be of great help to you and your potential client.
Another benefit is that you could add another keyword, which is
the regional information to your existing key word or key
phrase. For example, instead of having just "plumbing services"
add "Atlanta" before 'plumbing services'. This would give you an
edge over competitors as it would profoundly decrease your
competition.
About the content
Now that you have the key words and phrases you would need its
time to plan about the general thrust of the content, on what
the content should be like.
Generally, the main idea of writing content is for it to be
able to provide useful information for visitors in your site.
You are primarily writing for the readers, the human visitors of
your site, and about the products and services that you have to
offer. Secondary to that idea is to provide the search engines
information so they could properly and accurately index your
site according to its proper category, so anyone who wants to
look for something in particular, through the use of search
engines, would eventually find what he needs. In other words,
your content should be both customer-oriented and search engine
friendly.
In order to do that, you need to plan properly on how to do
your copywriting. The whole text should be able to give them
what they need and want to know about the products and services
you have. Hence, it is highly advisable that you read a lot of
information about the subject product or service before you
write the actual copy. The goal is to become extremely
knowledgeable about the product, so you can explore all the
possibilities and play with its strengths and weaknesses and
write everything that is needed.
One important thing to remember is to write content that is
unique. Copying content is not only plagiarism and cheating but
is also a serious offense that could cause painful penalties
under existing Copyright laws. More and more Intellectual
Property Rights watch dogs are reporting cases of content
stealing and have gained some grounds over the years. Major
search engines are now penalizing sites which illegally acquire
content from other sources. Penalties include permanently
putting sites under a blacklist, sort of a "permanent not to
contact sites" for crawlers. Lawsuits and cases about web
content writing are now increasing day by day, with more
countries enacting laws on Intellectual Property Rights. The
risks are just too great if you plagiarize and copy content. So
make sure that you quote or place endnotes when you choose to
use 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 of
words as you write. Highly technical words and terms should be
reserved for highly technical discussions, and should be
discouraged for everyday internet use.
About the mood
You might be wondering what a section about mood is doing in a
seo copywriting article, well, it certainly has a LOT to do
about content writing. The mood of the reader would certainly
affect the way he views a certain product or service. If you did
not properly take care of the emotional side of your customer
with your writing, consider him gone. Individual moods are
affected by a lot of factors; although primarily it is internal,
external factors could also affect his mood significantly and
luckily what that individual reads is one of them.
First of all, you should be 'in the mood' for writing. Good
copies are mostly written by writers who are either inspired or
enlightened with what they are about to write. Content writers
should make sure that they are in this special mood because the
consequence of the opposite would be a very bad copy. A reader
is also likely to be 'drawn' by an emphatic copy written
superbly which would eventually end up making the reader get
what you are offering.
One thing you could do to achieve that is to utilize emotional
appeal to the reader. Try to integrate personal articles like
"you", "we", and "us" more often; try to get your visitors as
involved as possible. Avoid being too passive as it would
prevent you from establishing a connection or a relationship
with your target reader.
Keep your readers or customers engaged with your site. Make
them think and interact by asking questions, giving riddles or
trivia. All these create an air of friendliness for potential
customers, and once you've made them comfortable reading, they
are more likely to respond positively to you. As much as
possible make them do all their transactions within your site,
give out all the details about what you are offering so that can
know everything they need to know. Trying to get online visitors
ask questions and product or service information offline will be
too cumbersome for them so be as accessible as possible.
About the author:
Liam Anthony, Ghost Writer/Content Writer, seoglobalpro.com
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