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Web content writing or Web Page Copywriting is writing Search Engine optimized content, and is indeed a very challenging task. You want your website readers read your web pages, get the information they desire and hopefully get them to do things you set up your site for. At the same time, you need make sure that the search engines understand what your web page is all about and index it accordingly for the page to be found for the right keyphrases. If your web content is not written well, they will not be indexed for the right things and no one will find them (at least not for the right keywords). Hence, there is a delicate balance between writing a web page copy that go well with the human reader and the search engine spider.
Web content writing or Copywriting is the key element when it comes to achieving good search engine ranking. It's not just about sprinkling your well researched keywords across the web content -- it's about writing content that would be very simple to understand and effectively communicate what you want to convey to your web site reader. It's more about readability for the human visitor. An experienced web copywriter will agree that ultimately writing a web copy for the human reader should be the primary objective, keeping the search engines happy the next. More often than not, when you have researched your topic well and have done your homework with the keyphrases, you can certainly write a copy that would strike the right balance between readability for the human reader and spiderability for search engines.
Here are a few guidelines our web content writers follow all the time. While these are not exhaustive, these points should you give you idea on what it takes to write a search engine friendly web page copy.
Copywriting Tip 1: Do your homework on the keyphrases
Knowing the keyphrases is the one mandatory step before you can even begin writing a web copy. If you are editing an existing web copy, you may end up stuffing keyphrases for the sake of search engines and the resulting web content may look stiff and forced -- and clumsy to read. More often than not, it's easier to write a fresh web page copy (with the knowledge of the keyphrases to be used) than editing an existing copy. With a new web page copy you can always plan the content of the page, and word it naturally with the keyphrases included.
Copywriting Tip 2: Know your website reader
You need to know who you are writing for. This way, you can specifically target to write your web copy for the needs of your customer or prospective customer (or reader). This is a must if you want your messages to be absorbed for the right things by the reader.
Once the visitors are known, you can tune the website copy based on your offerings catering to their needs.
Once the web content is more or less decided, phrase your keywords around them. In short, once you know your target audience and your keywords combine the two and create a very user friendly compelling and search-engine-friendly web content.
Copywriting Tip 3: Use Keyphrases in Header tags
Just like in newspapers and magazine, headings are used to attract attention and invite people to read more. Hence, the words contained in the heading are the most important words in an article. It's almost true all the time that if your heading does not evoke interest, the rest of the article is not read by the user. Similarly, for search engines header tags (<h1> tag and more) play an important role. Hence, if you have researched your topic and keyphrases well, your keyphrase must appear in the header tags. Search engines go give weightage to the content in the header tags. The same holds true for the sub-headers <h2> tags etc.
Copywriting Tip 4: Write the web content with Keyphrases included
Include keyphrases when you write your copy. Do not overdo the number of instances of the keyphrases as the content will end up looking "forced" and "stuffed" and would not make a good impression on the human reader.
Do not try to include more than 2 keywords per page. If you have more keyphrases that you want to include, create more pages and plan the content accordingly.
Try and write as naturally as possible without being overly conscious about including the keywords. Describe your services and products in your own words with the keyphrases at the back of your mind. Try and use variations of your keywords, all the keyphrases need not be the same all the places. For example, if your keyphrase is "leather shoe manufacturer" you can also use "footwear manufacturer" at certain points in your content.
Typically your keyphrases should constitute about 3-4% of your content on that page. I.e. if your page content is, say 300 words, then about your keyphrases can occur between 9-12 times in the page. This is just a rough guideline, there is no written rule as such. All need to ensure is your content has the keyphrases while not overdoing it and making the copy a strange and stuffed one to read.
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