A
Comprehensive Guide for Beginners to SEO Content Writing
by Ana Mendoza
Copywriting has again transcended from its usual form and practices into the new
internet era; Copywriting as utilized by the Professional SEO business is also
known as Internet Content Writing, Web Content Writing, amongst other terms.
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 because of the size.
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
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: Ana
Mendoza is a web developer working for SEOGLOBALPRO, a
Professional SEO
that specializes on link building and one of the best
SEO Philippines
has to offer.
Source
of article:
www.goarticles.com
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