Human Rights

Human Rights  » SEARCH ENGINE COPYWRITING: A COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE FOR BEGINNERS

SEARCH ENGINE COPYWRITING: A COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE FOR BEGINNERS

Article:

SEARCH 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

Today's Popular Articles

• Get Ya’ Money Right: The Truth About Publishing

• Genetic engineering - miracle or hazard

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