| ||
| ||
|
Search Engine Optimization | |
| Domain Names | E Books | Email Marketing | Ezine Marketing | |||
| Internet Marketing | Marketing | PPC Advertising | SEO | |||
| Traffic Building | Web Design | Web Development | Web Hosting | |||
| ||||||
|
| ||||
|
10 Things to Expect from Your SEO Copywriter
From the perspective of a business owner, webmaster, or marketing manager, the change exhibited by the Internet is profoundly exciting, yet profoundly disturbing. The information (and misinformation and disinformation) it offers, the business benefits it promises, and the rules it is governed by change at such a rapid rate that it's almost impossible to keep up. These changes have led to a growing appreciation of the value of quality web copy. This appreciation has, in turn, led to an influx of opportunistic 'copywriters' promoting themselves as website copywriters or SEO copywriters. Don't get me wrong, there are quite a few excellent SEO copywriters out there, and you should definitely shop around. The purpose of this article isn't to scare you; it's to help you find the SEO copywriter who'll deliver honest service and excellent results. So with that in mind, take a look at the following ten tips. These are the things you have a right to expect from anyone wearing a name badge that reads "website copywriter", "SEO copywriter", "internet copywriter", or "web copywriter"? (See also www.divinewrite.com/websitecopywriter.htm and www.divinewrite.com/makethemost.htm.) 1) An understanding of SEO Obviously, your SEO copywriter must have a solid understanding of the essentials of Search Engine Optimization. They must know that ranking is essentially the result of a website's relevance (i.e. keywords) and importance (i.e. inbound links). There are a whole lot of other factors involved, but if your SEO copywriter doesn't understand these two basics, you should look elsewhere. If you'd like to ensure your SEO copywriter knows a little more than just the basics, take a look at www.divinewrite.com/SEOCEO.htm, www.divinewrite.com/seocopy.htm, www.divinewrite.com/seotradesecrets.htm, www.divinewrite.com/webcopyenough.htm, and www.divinewrite.com/seoarticles.htm for some clues as to what you might like to ask in order to assess their knowledge. 2) Proven experience The proof is, as they say, in the pudding. It's not enough that your SEO copywriter can talk the talk; they must also be able to walk the walk. Ask to see some examples of websites for which they've obtained some good rankings. Note that it may be very difficult to find an SEO copywriter who has actually worked on both keywords and link generation, so if you find one who has, and they write well, snap 'em up! They'll have a very broad and useful working knowledge of search engines. 3) An understanding of how many keywords to use You don't want to fill every page up with every keyword you're targeting. This simply dilutes your site's relevance and reduces readability. Ask your SEO copywriter how many keywords they would recommend targeting on each page. Hopefully they'll suggest no more than 3, preferably 2. By targeting 2 keyword phrases per page, you can use them a lot without impacting readability. 4) Clear agreement on who will provide keywords Someone needs to perform a keyword analysis in order to figure out what words you should be trying to rank highly for. Your SEO copywriter should be able to do this for you, but it's quite often more cost-effective if someone a little closer to the business does it. Either way, make sure your agreement with your SEO copywriter makes it very clear who is performing this task. Don't assume the SEO copywriter is going to do it, because they may assume you're going to do it, and then you'll blow your budget. 5) Keywords or keyword phrases Expect your SEO copywriter to offer some advice regarding how specific you should be with your keywords. In most industries, the competition for keywords is so fierce that you'll be forced to target very specific keywords in order to rank - at least at the outset. For instance, if you're in IT, you probably wouldn't start out by targeting the keyword "IT". The competition is immense (at the time of writing, there were approx 3,240,000,000 results for this search in Google.com) and the IT giants already dominate the search engines for this keyword. Instead, try using a more specific keyword phrase like "IT infrastructure consulting new york" (at the time of writing, there were only around 4,000,000 results for this search in Google.com). The other benefit to targeting more specific keyword phrases is that you'll generate more relevant leads. 6) Agree on word count per page Always make sure your SEO copywriter gives you an indication of the number of words they expect to write per web page. While it's necessary to have a decent body of words on most of your web pages, you certainly shouldn't have too many. What "too many" is all depends on your industry, the objective of the page, and the needs of your audience. It's always a delicate balance, but it's certainly possible to rank highly with only 100-200 words per page. So don't be fooled into paying for copy you don't need! 7) Density targets & measure SEO of a web page is NOT guess-work. A good SEO copywriter will talk about density measures. This is a measure of the number of time the keyword phrase appears on the page. It's expressed as a percentage of the total word count of the page. So if your page has 200 words, and your keyword phrase appears 10 times, its density is 5%. As a rule of thumb, your SEO copywriter should be aiming for a density of approximately 5% for your primary keyword phrase and 3-5% for your secondary keyword phrase. If your density measures are much higher than this, readability will be reduced, and you'll risk being perceived as spam by the search engines. Make sure your SEO copywriter understands keyword density, is prepared to state the target density for each keyword phrase, and is also happy to be measured by that standard (should you decide to measure). 8) Where to place keywords The question of keyword placement has been the subject of much debate amongst SEO copywriters. While it is still unclear how much impact placement has, there is a general consensus that it has SOME impact. Be sure that your copywriter is aware of this impact. Popular opinion has it that keywords are more effective if they appear in headings, bolded text, links, and generally toward the beginning of the page. 9) Some comment on structure & links Websites are generally better indexed by search engines if their spiders can traverse the entire site using text links. This means your SEO copywriter should be linking each page to every other page using text links. If your site is complex, this may be impractical, so your SEO copywriter will need to create a hierarchical structure for your site. First, they should break your subject material down into categories. Then for each category, they should write a summary page. These summary pages should be accessible from higher level pages via text links. They should also be accessible from each other. Each summary page should link - using text links - to a number of pages discussing the finer details of the category. And each detail page in a particular category should link to every other detail page in that category (once again, using text links). This way the spiders are able to travel from the top of your hierarchy to the bottom, and from left to right across any level. 10) Don't believe grand promises SEO copywriters can play a significant role in increasing your search engine ranking. But they can't do it overnight. By optimizing your site for your target keyword phrases, an SEO copywriter is simply declaring the relevance of your site. If you engage an SEO copywriter to write helpful articles containing a byline with a link back to your site, you can then submit these articles for publication on the Internet, and this will steadily increase your ranking. But if an SEO copywriter tells you they can dramatically increase your ranking in a matter of hours or days, be wary. NOTE: Your SEO copywriter should be able to submit your articles to various submit sites on the Internet. These sites are closely watched by hundreds of thousands of publishers of e-newsletters and article pages from all around the world. High quality articles are quickly snapped up and published prolifically. And each time your article is published, you've got another link back to your site, thus increasing the importance of your site (to the search engines). If you'd like to submit your own articles, your SEO copywriter should be able to sell you a list of 50 or more submit sites for as little as USD$99. Conclusion An SEO copywriter is a valuable addition to your marketing function. But you need to make sure you choose wisely. When you know what questions to ask, the battle is half won. Happy hunting! * Glenn Murray is an advertising copywriter and SEO copywriter and heads copywriting studio Divine Write. He can be contacted on Sydney +612 4334 6222 or at glenn@divinewrite.com. Visit http://www.divinewrite.com for further details or more FREE articles.
MORE RESOURCES:
Search-Engine-Optimization - Google News |
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
How Search Engines Work Before anyone can start optimizing a web site, you must understand how search engines work.Search engine optimization is the hardest thing to do for a webmaster because there are so many rules to it and you have to stay up to date with all the new search engine optimization techniques. Website Promotion: 10 Search Engine Optimization Blunders to Avoid If you want to develop a successful search engine optimization (SEO) strategy, go out of your way to avoid blunders that limit rankings.Here are 10 to keep in mind:1. "Google Friendly" Solutions to Graphic-Intense Sites We all know that the search engines can't "see" or "read" the graphics on our pages. We also know that we need to provide text on a page, so the spiders will have something to crawl and index. How to Get One Way Backlinks Don't be fooled into believing that all backlinks are created equal because their not! Why, you may ask? It's no secret that many webmasters trade links left, and right, for the benefit of a higher ranking in the search results, but search engines have caught on to this technique, and are very aware that this is major threat to the relevance of the search results.Search engines such as Google have took steps in an effort to prevent this from becoming major problem by placing more importance on one way backlinks. Keyword Research Made Simple! Keyword Research is the first task in optimizing your web site and pay-per-click campaign. Here you need to know what keywords your target group is using. Building Link Popularity As Easy As 123 The most difficult area of SEO is building link popularity. You may be thinking why? Because there are no easy ways to build link popularity. See How The New Kicked Up Google Sitemap Can Get You Indexed Faster and Ranked Higher! Does Creating a Google Site Map and Telling Google About it get your Work at Home Business Web Page Indexed Faster? Google Visited My Home Based Business Web Page the Same Day I Uploaded my Site Map. It stands to reason anything you can do make it easier for Google to Index your Work at Home Business Online Business get a Google Ranking. Googles New SEO Rules Google has recently made some pretty significant changes in its ranking algorithm. The latest update, dubbed by Google forum users as "Allegra", has left some web sites in the dust and catapulted others to top positions. An Easy Way Not to Get Banned by Google Strategic search engine optimization involves far more than keyword research, META tags and content.If you want to mange an SEO program, you need to be aware of any issue that can affect your success. Dont Focus Too Much on Your Internet Business Website Ranking No doubt, having a high search engine ranking is very important to a home business owner as it will increase their business revenue. Much money have been spend on search engine optimization software, books, ebook and SEO services in order to obtain a high ranking website. Are You Getting Nuked By Google Lately? Since the last Google update, there have been many instances and examples of the Google Nuke Bot! This is what I call it anyway. Have you visited a favorite website lately only to realize they've been nuked by Google?More and more we are seeing internet marketing / SEO companies getting nuked, by Google completely removing them from their data banks. One Way Link Building Secures Long Term Ranking Results One-way link building is a great way to improve your link popularity and ranking in the search engines. One-way links are more difficult to obtain than traditional reciprocal links, but pay off in securing solid long-term search engine ranking results. Google, BackRub, Backlinking, and the Link Hunting Obsession that Takes Its Toll Google is currently one of the dominant entities on the net period. The question is - is it really that omnipotent, is it really that advantageous. How to Make More Money with Your Mambo 4.5.1 Site For those of you who are not familiar with Mambo - it is an easy to use content management system that can be freely downloaded from http://www.mamboserver. Googles PR System Explained The complexities of Google's PR (Page Ranking) System have grown more difficult to understand since the Hilltop Algorithm was introduced. This beginner's guide to the PR system explains the basics of what PR is, what it does, and how it affects your site's rankings. Search Engine FAQ Why shouldn't I use a submission service that submits my site to 5000+ search engines?Some Company's claim that they submit your website to 5000+ search engines. The majority of these 5000+ so called search engines are free links for all pages, very special interest web pages or, even worse, websites masquerading as search engines. Search Engine Traffic Domination - How to Turn the Search Engines into Your 24/7 Salesmen Getting your website returned by the search engines as a high result is a significant goal by most webmasters because higher search results means higher traffic and revenues. However, there are some tips you can utilize to help your website gain better rankings by the search engines and ways to turn the search engines into your 24/7 salesmen. How to Make Better Use of Web Site Page Titles and META Data We got down to the basics with web site page titles and META data as part of a new study on how manufacturers use natural search engine optimization (SEO). Businesses of all types could benefit from the following case studies that show how poor titles and META data can be improved from an SEO perspective. Content Management Systems Eyeball SEOs Content Management Systems and search engine optimization (SEO) used to be mutually exclusive terms. But the SEO community has been driving the developers of Content Management Systems to integrate more SEO-friendly methodology within their systems. Offpage Optimization: Does Article Marketing Cut the Mustard? For those who haven't heard: article marketing is the new offpage optimization strategy that works like magic and won't cost you a dime. What's the strategy? You create an arsenal of short, well-written keyword articles aimed at your target customer and include your URL at the bottom.
|
| Domain Names | E Books | Email Marketing | Ezine Marketing | |
| Internet Marketing | Marketing | PPC Advertising | SEO | |
| Traffic Building | Web Design | Web Development | Web Hosting |
|
Home | Site Map | 1000 Free
Places for Ads! | Free
Classified Ads | Free-For-All
Ads | Reciprocal
Links | Search
Engines | |
| Copyright © 2006-2007. The Highland Marketing Group. All Rights Reserved. |
|
| ||
|
