Web Copywriting for Search Engine Optimization
Online Copywriting Basics for SEO

Web copywriting for search engine optimization (SEO) is, believe it or not, all about words.  Search engine spiders and robots read words in html text and other text elements in a web page or within the website, like the words in PDF files.  Text in graphic files?  Cannot read.  So, if you don't have words on your web page (like Flash) or the wrong words or not enough words, you rarely if ever get good search engine rankings.

One of the online copywriting basics that you need to be aware of if you are doing online copywriting is that all your hard work will be wasted if your copy appears only in graphics and not in html text!  If the web designer you are writing for is planning on doing this, have him talk to us.  If YOU are designing the web and doing the copywriting, have YOU talk to us.

Web copywriting for search engine optimization is very different from other kinds of copywriting and is an integral part of the success of your web, not only to deliver your message to your targeted audience for your product, service or cause, but also to assure that you are maximizing your web copywriting for search engines.  Page titles and meta tags are only part of the search engine optimization copywriting puzzle.  How your page is written and the optimization of targeted keywords and keyword phrases are equally important.  It all has to work together in order for it to work well.

One Subject Per Page

Effective online copywriting basics usually require that any given web page be about one subject.  Otherwise, you deliver a confusing message to the search engine robots and spiders.  They aren't that smart.  The length of the page and how many words you need depends on a number of factors.  Read on.

Web copywriting for search engine optimization also requires that you pick the right target or targets.  What's a target?  How do you pick the right target or targets?  Read about Keyword Services.

You can have more than one target and still be successful in some cases.  We have a page in this web that has at present 3 #1 and one #2 rankings on Google for 4 different search phrases.  We also have a page in this web that has a #1 ranking on Google against 80 million plus competing web pages.  It can be done.  Doesn't mean it is easy!

Writing copy for a home page is one of the most challenging writing jobs there is.  Read my Home Page Copywriting Tips page.

Do you need a better understanding of what search engine optimization is all about?  Read about our SEO Project Process.

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but a thousand of the right words can make the complex comprehensible, evoke emotion, incite action, steel opinion or enlist involvement.  Writing well is the hardest work I know, and the most satisfying.  If you are a copywriter, you know all about this.

Regarding the thousand words, actually, current search engine algorithm research indicates that an optimum word count for web copywriting for search engine optimization is 450 to 550 words for a very competitive target.   Can you get by with fewer words?  Yes, in some cases, depending on what you are competing against for the target of choice.  Competing websites for the same target are graded on the curve.

Are more words better?  Maybe, if you have something interesting to say to your human readers or to my dog, Miss Lizard, who enjoys reading the newspaper but can occasionally be coaxed into going online.  Longer pages may or may not be fully read or indexed by search engine spiders.  Put the important stuff first, or, if you have another good target, make another page.

Here is an online copywriting basics summary:

• Words in text, not graphics or flash

• Choose the right target or targets, do keyword research

• Put the important things first

• Have enough words

And here some additional ideas that you will find helpful to improve the impact of your copywriting for the Internet:

• Write new content that serves your customer's needs FIRST, your own needs second.

• Write your copy so that it will target your visitor's exact search query and satisfy it.  Relevance is one of the most important keys to conversions to inquiries and sales.

• If your copywriting is really good, your visitors will be GLAD that they found - something of true merit that they are likely to read from beginning to end.

• Advanced search engine optimization uses content based on real "behaviorally based research" rather than guessing at keyword targets.

• Truly great content will be written for your specific visitor so that it flows smoothly and reads well to them.  Read your copy out loud before you put it online, that's what I do.

• Don't copy some else's ideas, write original content so that you feel proud to have created it and, more importantly, so that you can gauge the improvement of your writing skills.

• Don't forget to write copy that has a solid, well written "call to action."

There is more to it than this, but if you follow this advice and read about our Keyword Services, or learn to do that yourself, you will be off to a good start.

If you are a copywriter and need help, we will be pleased to work with you:  You write the copy and we will help you structure it and your web page for success with search engines.

We offer web copywriting and search engine optimization services with or without web design.  If you have an existing web that needs help or want to design your own web but need help with copywriting and optimization, can do.

Webmasters:  We also enjoy collaborating on projects.  Please contact us.

Did you read this far? If you want more good info read this report by copywriting pro Nick Usborne.

Ron Castle is SEO certified
by Search Engine Workshops.

Learn more about
Search Engine Optimization Certification

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