With content playing such an important part in determining search engine rankings, we take a look at 7 ways a Copywriter can help improve your SEO.
You won’t need me to remind you of just how important content is for the success of your site. It is an informative guide, sales pitch and global marketing strategy all rolled in to one. As such, the Internet is awash with content. Good or bad, in vast or minute quantities, the written word is the universal language that every site shares.
In terms of SEO performance, it isn’t just what you write, but how you do it and where you position it. A natural tone is a must, but so too are anchor text links, keywords and a call to action. It can be a confusing process, which is why you might consider enlisting some additional help. If you need any more convincing, here are 7 areas that a copywriter can help boost your SEO:
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Websites attract a diverse audience. Your content has to be able to speak to each visitor in a manner that they can easily understand. As you might expect, this isn’t easy, but it is essential.
First of all you need to make sure that you don’t alienate anyone. This means that you should avoid using too much jargon and steer clear of complex words. If you try to be too clever, your message could get lost in translation. Keep it simple and appeal to a wider audience.
Reduce the length of your sentences too. Punchy text is easier to read and is less likely to deter visitors. Don’t go overboard, just work out which words are needed and which aren’t. Be wordy when you need to, avoid it at all other times.
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Avoid the fluff and give your visitors more of the good stuff. Plain English is the new ‘keyword optimised’ for online Copywriters, so it’s time to make it easier on yourself and your readers.
There’s no mystery to producing good copy. First of all you need an understanding of your audience. Next you need to have a reasonable vocabulary to communicate your message. Finally you need a way to instantly engage with the visiting public.
The last of these can sometimes be the most challenging though. What are they looking for? How can you write in such a way to entice them to explore your site further? More often than not the answer is to keep it simple and succinct.
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Our in-house SEO Copywriter, Steve Logan, recently made an excellent post that explored the importance of spelling and grammar, with particular reference to writing for the web (see ‘The Typos and Language Errors that Turn Visitors Away).
Another consideration content writers and search engine optimisers need to have is for the use of synonyms in their writing. For some time now, Google have been showing synonyms bolded in the search results for stemming variants, such as the plural of a word, e.g. the searcher enters ‘picture’ but ‘pictures’ is also shown in bold. More…
Very few of us can boast immaculate spelling and grammar. We are all susceptible to the odd slip; however, that shouldn’t be an excuse to allow errors to creep on to the pages of your website.
Consulting a dictionary or, easier still, running your work through a spell checker takes no time at all. Neither, for that matter, does a thorough proof read. Whilst some mistakes might slip through the cracks, some are unforgivable.
For example, what if you misspell one of your site’s keywords? Suddenly not only do you lose credibility for what is supposed to be a subject on which you are an authority, but you also jeopardise your SEO chances too. Being top of the rankings for a typo is pretty poor form in anybody’s books.
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As a Copywriter, I’m continuously surprised at how many websites still overlook the fundamental principle of business – effective communication.
There’s a lot to be said for projecting an image. That’s why salesmen in the offline world wear smart suits and have immaculate presentation. Websites are the same; an attractive design can show professionalism and intent, drawing in inquisitive visitors. But behind the aesthetically pleasing first impressions, there needs to be some depth.
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There are occasions where we look to simplify things, or make them clearer through ‘real-world’ situations. However, SEO and its incumbent offshoots, including analytics, link building and, perhaps most excessively, copywriting, appear to have been almost entirely overrun with mysterious euphemisms, metaphors and analogies.
We’re all guilty of it. You won’t have to search too far through the Impact Media blog to find a tenuous link of some sort. Unfortunately though, whilst some analogies help shed a little light (yes, another metaphor) on a subject, others just serve to confuse it further.
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A call to action is arguably the most important part of any piece of sales copy. The headline and opening paragraph may grab the reader’s attention, but it is the call to action that can turn a visitor into a customer.
Think about your copy as a joke. Okay, that’s a bad analogy to start with, but bear with me. A joke will often start with a hook, just as a product page ought to. It may then meander for a while and add a little flesh to the bones; this is the informative part of your sales pitch. But all this is leading to the crescendo that is the punch line, your sales pitch, your call to action.
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When it comes to boosting your website’s rankings it is important to remember that ‘Content is King’. Having a good deal of unique, helpful content on your website will help push you up the search engine rankings, whilst keeping your visitors happy.
Sometimes content is overlooked by marketers or executives in the mistaken belief that it’s better to have light copy and more images to attract visitors; but, barring an overkill of epic proportions or some fool-hardy black hat tomfoolery, the truth is language is the one thing that satisfies both the visitors and the search engines.
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We’ve all had situations where we just can’t find the right words. In most professions this isn’t a major stumbling block; unfortunately, copywriting isn’t one of these.
Whether you’re a professional copywriter, journalist, blogger or just creating content for your own site, the problem of a writer’s block is always the same. Sometimes you might have ideas, but have no idea how to express them, on other occasions the complete opposite may be true. The best thing to get you out of the lexical doldrums though is confidence.
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Copy is far from being a one size fits all solution. Depending on what your website is promoting or who you’re targeting the tone and wording can differ hugely.
Ecommerce is understandably one of the most competitive markets online. With so many stores offering the same or similar products and services, you have to be sure that yours stands out from the crowd. Pricing and other additional incentives can swing the balance in your favour; however, to really close the deal, copy can be your greatest marketing weapon.
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How about that for a headline?! What would a world be without Google? For the likes of Steve Ballmer and Carol Bartz it might well be a much brighter and happier place; for others the reality would be far more confusing, particularly with the transposition of Bing as the generic term for search.
Of course, the title itself is ludicrously inaccurate. There are very few companies who would decide to surrender a 90% world share of a hugely lucrative market and, needless to say, Google certainly aren’t one of them.
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Every now and then the value of the written word is called into question. With the major technology-based epochal shifts that have occurred in the past few decades, it’s hardly surprising that each new medium is seen as the beginning of the end for copywriting.
When I say copywriting of course, I mean the long-standing form of the profession. Years before the computer came into existence, a time when the web was still something that spiders made; copywriting was a way of marketing services, products, or just your own ideas. Whilst keywords, embedded links and H2 headings weren’t a requirement for this form of printed copywriting, most of the conventions have been passed on to the world of SEO and online marketing.
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Business is all about communication. The interaction between a company and their clients, providers and customers is key to building a successful and profitable infrastructure. Online the principle remains the same, however the mode of communication is markedly changed.
Rather than being able to talk to visitors face-to-face in your store or offices, websites have to rely on a whole new method of convincing passing trade that they’re the site for them. Without the opportunity to talk directly to customers, you are instead reliant on copy to do the talking for you.
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People who aren’t natural writers don’t always have the easiest time when it comes to producing persuasive sales copy. Econsultancy yesterday featured an interesting look at how e-commerce site owners often toil with the concept of creating product copy that will really sell.
The aforementioned article raises some important points, not least about how you can overcome that initial fear or even ambivalence towards copy and its role as a sales device. But it also got me wondering how we can simplify the process and remove more of the misconceptions surrounding sales copy. Here is Impact Media’s simple(ish) guide to creating perfect product copy.
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