To the search engines, words are everything. How pages are ranked and categorized depends on the site's text, not its pictures or design.
As mentioned under On-Page SEO, text in title tags and links is particularly important. After you have optimized these key areas, the next thing to consider is your body copy.
The search engines are surprising adept at spotting copy that's been copied from other sources. And they will downgrade your site if they spot duplicated content. So for the best search engine rankings, it's vital that your site is made up of original content.
Of course, just being unique isn't enough. The copy must also be focused on your area of business so that the search engines will know how to categorize it. This is where SEO copywriting comes in. Below is a guide to creating and placing search engine optimized copy on your website. This is the process we go through with all our SEO copywriting projects.
Using Wordtracker, web logs or any available research, determine your most important key phrases: the phrases web users actually enter into search forms.
It's a good idea to mix the phrase order around. Using variations of your key phrases helps avoid endless repetition, which can reduce readability for your users and may raise a red flag to search engines. It's also great to use singulars and plurals, for example "limo" and "limos". Various word endings are useful as well, for instance words ending in –ed and –ing.
Tip: Be sure to take advantage of "2-for-1" phrases. For example, if two key phrases are "Miami limousines" and "limousine service", then "Miami Limousine Service" is doubly valuable. Make sure to use such phrases in the critical areas described below.
Next, you must weave your key phrases into your copy. The industry standard is to aim for 4 - 6% keyword density in your copy. You can go a bit higher if you like, but be careful not to overdo it. If your keyword density gets too high, you risk being penalized for "keyword stuffing". Your readability is going to suffer too. Ensure each page contains 200 – 300 (or more) words of consistently keyword-dense copy. We usually aim for 250 to 500 words per page.
Important points to remember*
To enhance both SEO and Usability, use headlines, subheads and text as shown below:
Keep in mind that web users tend to scan rather than read. For this reason, four techniques are particularly helpful:
To avoid being penalized for "duplicate content", ensure all your content is original, not just copied and pasted from other sources. Even within your own site, if you want similar copy on more than one page, re-write it for each page.
