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It seems to be a single-sided debate.  When you mention keyword use, all thoughts normally go to the search engines.  Copywriting, however, is more about your human visitors than it is the engines. In fact, even the mainstay of SEO copywriting (keywords) is based on a need to spur visitors along as they work through the information on your site.  If you want truly effective SEO copy, you'll take time to learn that keyword use goes beyond the search engines.

Let's go offline for a moment.  Go get your telephone book.  If you were going to conduct a search for, say, an office desk, how would you go about it?  You'd look in the Yellow Pages™ under office furniture.  Next you'd drill through the ads in search of ads that specifically mentioned "desks" or perhaps the particular kind of desk you want.

<B>SEO for Newspapers?</B>

When looking through the inserts that come with your Sunday newspaper, your eye would be especially drawn to office supply flyers that featured the word "desks" or a picture of desks.  Why?  Because you've got desks on the brain right now.  You're going to be especially sensitive to that word because that's the current need you're trying to fill.

The same, exact thing applies when someone searches online.  Keywords started out because human Internet searchers typed them into the search engines, not because the search engines selected the terms.  The same holds true today.  You don't just make up keywords.  You use services and programs that allow you to research the exact phrases human beings are typing to Google, Yahoo! and other engines. When you incorporate those words and phrases into your website copy, you're doing way more than attempting to boost your rankings; you're also helping to navigate the site visitor from the search engine to the right page of your site.

If you're the owner of the office supply store we've been talking about and you want to create a newspaper ad to sell a new line of desks you carry, what do you think might appear in the headline?  The word "desk" or perhaps the phrase "office desks."  Why would you do that?  There are no search engines to optimize for in the newspaper industry.  You'll include those keywords because it makes sense to do so.  You'll include them because they are descriptive of what you're selling.  You'll include them because it will attract the readers’ attention and draw them to your store.  That's not search engine optimization; it's just good marketing.

<B>Lead, Don't Shove</B>

The same applies when writing copy for your site.  There's more than one reason to include keywords in your copy.  The primary one is not the engines…it's your site visitors.  Strategic keyword placement helps guide your visitors to the information, products or services they are looking for.  Don't shove keywords in everywhere you think you can possibly fit them.  Instead, use keywords to lead your visitors in the right direction.

Even if there were no such thing as search engine optimization, your copy would almost certainly still contain keywords.  It only makes sense to have keywords in the headline, so visitors will know what the page is about.  Sub-heads?  Sure thing!  People scan more than they read, so having keywords in sub-heads is a great idea.  And in the body copy?  You bet!  After all, it's pretty hard to sell desks without actually using the word "desk."  Since there are school desks and computer desks and many other desks, you'll want to make it clear that your sale is for "office desks."  That, too, only makes sense.

As you can see, keyword inclusion has been going on far longer than the Internet has existed. It's been an important part of copywriting since marketing was invented.  When you create a copywriting plan for your site pages, think through which keywords you should use and where the most effective places to position those keywords would be. Then develop your SEO copy with a goal of directing your visitors to the right information.  When you do, you'll naturally optimize for the search engines at the same time.

Website Copywriting

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Comparison shoppers are the mortal enemy of pay-per-click (PPC) advertisers.  When you're paying each time someone clicks your AdWords (or other PPC) ad, the last thing you want is a person determined to visit every site to find the best price, the closest location or the most secure guarantee.  But, with many categories of products or services, it's bound to happen.  There is a way to eliminate many of the lookers, however.  

When you qualify your AdWords leads, you can reduce the click-through rate (CTR) of browsers and help direct only those most interested in your offer to your site.  How is it done?  By inserting text that will purposely eliminate arbitrary visitors.

Qualifying Your PPC Leads

Purposely eliminating visitors sounds like an awful thing to do, doesn't it?  Perhaps, until you consider the fact that - once these visitors got to your site and found out the details of your offer - they'd most likely leave anyway.

Why not save yourself a click (and the money associated with that click!) and prevent the visitor from running up your monthly AdWords bill?  This is exactly what Steve Jackson of Conversion Chronicles and I discussed awhile back.  Since that discussion, I've come up with a process that will allow you to easily write pre-qualifying ads when you use these simple steps.

Step One

Outline the specifications of your offer.  Be precise.  List all the details of the offer, the price, length of time, physical location, size, etc.  For example, say you have luxury cruise packages available.  You'd want to list the details such as: packages depart from New York City and go to several destinations in Mexico including Cozumel, Puerto Vallarta and Mazatlán from December 5-15 for a cost of $2500 per person.  

Step Two

Go back and highlight anything that would be a deal breaker.  This is a luxury cruise, so the cost of $2500 per person might be too much for most people.  Quite often, cruisers are looking for the best deal possible.  

Also, the cruise only leaves from New York City.  The additional airfare cost might not be something your site visitors want to add to the cost of their trip.  Or, it may be inconvenient to depart from New York City.  

What about the dates?  These cruises are only available on the dates of December 5-15.  Your site visitors may not be able to take a holiday during that time.

Does the visitor want to sail to the locations on the itinerary?  Maybe they've already been to Cozumel, Puerto Vallarta and Mazatlán and are looking for a cruise to Cabo San Lucas.

Are there other factors that might force shoppers to decline the offer and move to another site?  If so, list them here.

Step Three

Now, decide which bits of information you want to include in your AdWords ads.  You'll want to test and track to see which combination of details bring the lowest click-through rates along with the highest conversions.  For example, your ad might read:

Luxury Mexico Cruise 12/5
Tour tropical Cozumel, Puerto
Vallarta & more. Leave NYC. $2500pp
www.whatever.com

That would give a lot of information that would keep unqualified visitors from clicking through to your site (and running up your AdWords bill).  At the same time, the use of words like "luxury" and "tropical" help the searcher visualize their wonderful vacation.

Another example could be a special shipment of microwave ovens.  Let's go through the steps once again.

Step One

The specifications include: convection/microwave combination, built-in with light and vent features, 1200 watts, white, $900, available on the Internet only.

Step Two

Any of these could be used to weed out visitors.  Someone may not want the convection feature.  They want a countertop microwave rather than a built-in model.  Twelve-hundred watts may be more powerful (and larger) than the visitor needs.  Their kitchen may have stainless steel or black appliances, not white.  Lastly, $900 could be more than they have budgeted for a microwave.

Step Three

Again, you'll want to test and track to see which tidbits of information work best to bring qualified leads, reduce CTR and costs, and improve conversions.

Your ad might look like this:

Powerful Convec/Microwave
Special purchase. Attractive range
built-in with 1200w. Only $900.
www.whatever.com

Rather than using generic terms to describe high cost or frequently compared PPC items, get as specific as you can with "disqualifying" copy.  By weeding out those who would likely take one look and leave, you can save yourself a lot of money in AdWords expenses while increasing conversions.

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Okay, you’re ready to write the ad of a lifetime.  The one that will pull like crazy and leave them begging for your product like Somalians for food.  So, do you whet their appetite with a short and sweet ad?  Or write a long-copy ad that’s stuffed with information?  

The 80-20 rule says 80% of the people only read the headline (and maybe a caption, if you have one).  But the fact is, readers will read a long-copy ad.  One McGraw-Hill study looked at 3,597 ads in 26 business magazines. What they discovered was that ads with 300 or more words were more effective that shorter ads in creating product awareness, inducing action and reinforcing the decision to buy.  Another ad for Merrill Lynch crammed 6, 450 words into a single New York Times page.  It pulled over 10,000 responses—even without a coupon!  The truth is, the reason people read ads has nothing to do with copy length.


“Nobody reads long ads…” and other urban ad legends

People shun too many of today’s ads—long or short—because several misleading myths have stubbornly remained with us. Things like “negative headlines are a downer since people want to feel good when reading your ad.” Or “show the product or they’ll never know what you’re selling.”  Then there’s the stuffy axiom, “there’s no place for humor in business advertising. “ Or the ubiquitous saw,  “all your ads should look the same, blend in or be swallowed up.” The list goes on and on.  Presented with unabashed hubris by the high priests of advertising.  The basic fact is, ads really fail for three reasons.


Your ads are all about you

You’re telling customers what you want to hear, not what they want to know.  Impressive sounding features are fine to motivate your sales force, but your customer is only interested in one thing: “What’s in it for me?” This offense is particularly egregious in business-to-business advertising, which is infamous for its addiction to phrases like “the XP90 does it all” or “now with Duo-Pentium Processor”—without a hint of what these features do.  Also contaminating many of today’s ads are such chest-pounding headlines as “Taking the lead,” “The promise of tomorrow, today,” or “A tradition of quality.” They sound good but say nothing.  


Your ads are boring

You’ve got to break the boredom barrier—big time.  Many ad gurus say blend in, be one of the pack and survive.  No wonder so many ads look alike, proudly showing big pictures of their products, or worse yet, featuring a giant photo of the company’s CEO—usually with a caption that’s been scrubbed clean of originality or compelling information.  If you want people to stop and read your ad, you have to make the ad more interesting than the editorials in the publication you’re in.  Give them real news, a fresh new way to look at what you’re offering them.  Stand out from the crowd.   Start trends, don’t follow them.  One of the most interesting car ads I ever saw showed the car only sparingly; instead, it featured an animation of a human heart beating furiously to the soundtrack of an accelerating engine.  Breakthrough stuff.


Your ads don’t make human contact

They’re not reaching readers on an emotional level.  We all want to be liked, appreciated and loved.  We want to feel secure in our lives and our jobs.  So be a mensch.  Create ads that touch the soul. Use an emotional appeal in your visual, headline and copy. Don’t just show a car on the road; show the guy captivating his sweetheart with the car.  If your buyers were on the moon, would they care about your car’s styling?  No.  They’d get an ugly, crawly vehicle that got them from crater to crater.  Selling computers to business? Show the guy getting a raise or promotion for selecting your latest model.  You’re selling the emotional end result, the human need-based bottom line, not a box, or vehicle with four wheels and an engine.

So if you’re struggling with the notion of whether to write a long- or short-copy ad, you can do both and still get results.  The key is not length or lack of it, but information, interest and involvement in your customer’s needs.  These are the ingredients to creating a successful ad.

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It’s arguably the most important word in the copywriter's arsenal. It ranks right at the top with words like "free," "new" and "savings."I’m talking about "you.""You" is the word that gets your prospect’s attention and keeps them involved. As Herschell Gordon Lewis says in The Art of Writing Copy, "Unless the reader regards himself as the target of your message, benefit can’t exist. Benefit demands a ‘We/You’ relationship."While the "We" in the "We/You" relationship is important, it’s better implied than communicated literally. If your goal is to put prospects first, then it’s best to have the "you’s" far exceed the "we’s."It’s the "you’s" that matter to prospects. They’re your workhorse for communicating your message and include all derivatives such as "your," "yours," "yourself," "you’re," and "you’ll."

Powerful ‘You

’What makes "you" so powerful? For one thing, it addresses your readers directly. In effect, it says "Hey you," which is much harder to ignore than "Hey somebody."Say "Hey you" in a crowded room and a lot of heads will turn. Say "Hey somebody" and a few heads might turn.While your copy won’t actually say "Hey you," it can clearly identify to whom you’re talking. Once you have your audience's attention, use "you" to help keep it.Personal ‘You’Why does "you" get and hold attention? For one thing, it’s personal. It’s used in personal conversation every day. What do you think? How was your weekend? You’ll be glad to know …When people say these things to you, they’re bound to get your attention and involvement. After all, they’re interested in your opinion. They’re interested in the things you do. They have something to tell you that will make you happy.That’s the goal of you-oriented copy. Address your audience directly, personally and in terms of their interests. Be conversational and "you" will pop up in the copy naturally

Counting ‘You’

It was mentioned earlier that "you" is a workhorse. A classic example is contained in "The Do-It-Yourself Direct Mail Handbook" by Murray Raphel and Ken Erdman. They highlight a "Newsweek" magazine subscription letter used for nearly two decades.The subscription letter was written by direct mail expert Ed McLean, who used "you" nearly 30 times on the first page alone. More than 100 million copies of the letter were mailed, a testament to its effectiveness.Try counting the "you’s" (and "you" derivatives) in your copy. Compare them with the number of "we’s" and first-person derivatives. If the "you’s" don’t outnumber the "we’s," consider reworking your copy.

Excessive ‘You’?

Can you overdo "you"? Yes.If you load your copy with "you’s" but forget the benefits, your message will have a phony ring."You" can’t save you if there’s nothing meaningful to offer your audience. Likewise, it will help put you over the top if there is.(c) 2005 Neil Sagebiel

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No matter how well you write, or even if you have a professional writer create your web site copy, you're going to have errors. Misspelled words, awkward sentences, phrases that don't make sense, and words that are used incorrectly run rampant through many sites. And it's no wonder. Writing well is hard work. Even a good writer will be too close to the copy and won't see ALL their mistakes, even when re-reading the copy carefully.

Mistakes in your copy can sink your web site. The online audience who accounts for most of your customers are a rather literate group of people. Studies show a large percentage have a good knowledge of spelling and punctuation. If they find your copy has several errors in it, prospects will figure you do sloppy work.

The solution is simple. Get a proof reader to carefully check your copy. You can enlist the help of a friend who has a sharp eye for spelling and punctuation. Better yet, get a professional proof reader to read your copy. Proof reading is almost always affordable and the investment will pay off big time in avoided embarrassment and missed sales.

Don't get too comfortable with spell checkers. Many have limited numbers of words they recognize, and will skip past some misspelled words. One of the most common problems is that a spell checker can't help you if you use the WRONG word.

Don't feel like I'm picking on you. I worked in the TV and movie industries for many years. I can tell you from personal experience that even Hollywood's writers struggle with typos and other errors in their copy. None would dream of turning in a script without first having a capable proof reader go through their drafts and revisions.

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Web site copywriting is special method that allows the companies to advertise and promote themselves. In today’s highly competitive and ever-changing online environment it is not enough to rely on the texts alone. One should combine the knowledge of offline copywriting with online realities.

Professionally written web site copywriting is one of the most significant and important elements of your web site. It is widely regarded as one of the most effective ways to communicate with your potential customers, retain old ones and attract new clients. In the developing of your web site you should understand that web site copywriting is one of the most significant elements of your marketing strategy. It is used by many companies to promote their businesses and services. It is widely regarded as one of the most efficient tools in the developing of online copywriting process.

How do people get on your web site? How do they find the site of your company? Certainly some of them already know your company and some of them might visit your web site because they have read advertisement about your company. However, most of the visitors visit your site by the results of search engines after they put search terms they are interested in into the search engine boxes. Once the visitor has come to your web site you should try to grab his attention immediately. One should remember that most of the visitors do not have much time to read the whole text of your web site, the bulk of them just skip your text through. That is why one should develop trustworthy and reliable connection with the visitor right from the start. This is a prerequisite of transforming him into your potential client. If the visitor is not interested or not impressed with your text he will be impressed with the text of your competitor.

Try to be precise, coherent and communicate with only one customer at a time. One should be engaged in direct dialogue with your customer. Individuality is what matters. By emphasizing that you speak directly to a person you might make your message more custom-oriented. The most successful web site copywriting copy is the one written based on the marketing research of your targeted audience. That is why the services of marketers who can evaluate the competitors of your market, as well wishes and expectations of your potential customers must used in conjunction with the development of well-written copywriting copy.

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"Can you give me some feedback on my website?" a life coach named "Kevin" asked his e-zine subscribers. "I just revised my site - -finally!"

Naturally, I couldn't resist clicking over to see what Kevin had done. I knew Kevin was a thoughtful coach with a reputation for high integrity.

Kevin's new site cried out for a re-makeover. He had paid a designer to get drop-down menus and a bit of flash. As a result, Kevin admitted, "I have no budget to pay a copywriter."

Ouch.

After skimming a few pages of the site, I emailed Kevin. "Who is your target market? What do you offer? How are you unique?"

Kevin replied, "I asked for feedback. I don't have time to answer a lot of questions. And everyone tells me the site looks professional."

Okay. I can take a hint.

Sure, the site looks professional. But Kevin admits he's in trouble. So far, he's gotten nothing but compliments -- no orders and no calls.

What can we learn from Kevin?

(1) Copywriters can save you money.

Often I (and other experienced copywriters) can save clients money on web design. Kevin didn't need all those bells and whistles. In fact, some Internet marketing gurus claim they do more harm than good.

And Kevin didn't understand HTML, let alone CSS. A copywriter might serve as go-between, translating Kevin's requirements into web design language. Your web designer saves time - which translates into saving money.

(2) Copywriters help you earn money.

Reading between the lines, I discovered Kevin could be a stand-out. He has developed an innovative 5-step process to help clients overcome obstacles and take charge of their lives.

But Kevin doesn't realize why he's unique, so his website reads like five thousand other life coaching sites: vague promises of "take your life to the next level," "discover what's important to you" and "enjoy the work you love."

Naturally I'm disguising the details of "Kevin's" story, but I really don't have to. Hundreds (maybe thousands) of sites sound just like Kevin's.

(3) Copywriting is collaborative.

Like Kevin, my clients often think they can show me a few pages of a website and say, "Make it sell!" Copywriting requires energy and planning, whether you're a do-it-yourselfer or a firm believer in outsourcing to a specialist.

My clients often invest many hours answering my questionnaire. As they write, they often realize there's a hole in their business strategy. Or they're sitting on buried treasure.

Until I know what Kevin wants to do with his website and his business, I can't make realistic recommendations - even as a casual ezine reader. I need to evaluate Kevin's copy in the context of Kevin's own goals, target market and unique selling proposition.

Kevin could do this himself. But, like most busy business owners, he didn't want to invest the time. And he wasn't sure what questions to ask.

When clients hire me, we have the luxury (and fun!) of creating a marketing message that hits the target market squarely in the center of the bull's-eye.

Bottom Line: Websites deliver messages. Without a message, a website is a calling card - nice when you have more business than you can handle.

Most of the time, revising copy brings traffic and sales. Websites typically earn back the copy investment with just a few new clients, not to mention saving energy and funds by avoiding a makeover to recover the makeover.

And one day you realize you're not getting compliments... but you *are* getting sales.

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It's no good having a creative, individual website with brilliant, informative copy if customers can't find you on the internet. On the other hand, it's also detrimental if you have a website that can be easily found (has a high ranking) but people become bored and alienated reading it.

Producing effective online copywriting is a creative process blending art and science in a balanced technique combining many different elements. This integration of disciplines is required to satisfy both the technical and the aesthetic objectives of a website.

Optimised online copywriting should ensure that your website is:

•    highly readable to your viewers
•    highly visible to the search engines, and thereby
•    commercially successful for you.

Many people and businesses don't have the time to actually write web copy themselves. A professional freelance copywriter can furnish you with keyword-rich, highly original web content to enhance and improve the quality of your website, with the aim of transforming more of your visitors into customers.

Rarely will you get a second chance to engage your customer's attention, so your first shot must be formatted for maximum sales potential, catching the eye of the search engine robots as well. But not too much… If your copy goes overboard in favour of the search engines it can earn a penalty from Google that will negatively effect your rankings. Your website must always have the reader as priority. This makes more business sense anyway.

Search engines provide a way for potential customers to find you on the internet. People type a keyphrase or keyword into a search engine, such as Google, Yahoo or MSN (or one of the many other popular engines) and this returns a page of listings - web page suggestions for that particular phrase or word. Obviously, you want your website to feature highly in this list.

Optimised online copywriting specifically targets the words and phrases people are using when searching for a product on the internet (Search Engine Marketing (SEM), keyword research). You want to make sure your website stays at the top of the listings so people go to your website before others. With targeted copy in place, search engines are more likely to index your web site on page one, than if it does not include keyword-rich copy. This is an ever more important issue when dealing with Google, the leading search-engine today.

To rank highly in the search engines the words on your web pages should never be an afterthought, but should be included right at the beginning in the original design of your website. Content development is the most valuable asset web developers can utilise in the bid for productive, successful search engine optimisation and Search Engine Marketing (SEM).

Hiring a professional copywriter is a wise investment in your business future. Even if you don’t want to optimise your site you should make sure that the words on your site are reasonable, enticing, spelled correctly and artfully arranged to engage attention. Just because you can type letters or write some emails doesn't mean you can write the copy for your website. The writing on your homepage is often the way people determine whether the website is a scam or the genuine article, good quality or a shabby affair. Your website’s credibility takes a nose-dive if the spelling is wrong, the grammar incorrect, or it just reads like bad, clumsy English. People will be disinclined to trust your content.

Within the search engines new technologies and algorithms are being developed all the time to make search methodologies smarter, more astute. It's never a coincidence when someone types in a search phrase and your website is indexed highly on the page. Keyword rich online copywriting is a significant and critical component in gaining high rankings on the search engines.

Recently, Google has been pioneering a new trend of intelligent search engines which are not attracted by mere repetition of words throughout the text, but which look for meaning, attempting to make grammatical sense of the information, trying to understand what the web page is actually saying. This is forcing webmasters to improve the content on their web pages or suffer the consequences. The old saying has never been more relevant: "content is king."

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We all know that the lion’s share of web traffic comes through the search engines. We also know that keywords and links to your site are the two things that affect your ranking in the search engines. Your keywords tell the search engines what you do, and the inbound links tell them how important you are. This combination is what determines your relevance. And relevance is what the search engines are after.

There’s a lot of information around about how to incorporate keyword phrases into your HTML meta tags. But that’s only half the battle. You need to think of these tags as street-signs. That’s how the search engines view them. They look at your tags and then at your copy. If the keywords you use in your tags aren’t used in your copy, your site won’t be indexed for those keywords.

But the search engines don’t stop there. They also consider how often the keyword phrase is used on the page.

To put it simply, if you don’t pepper your site with your primary keywords, you won’t appear in the search results when a potential customer searches for those keywords.

But how do you write keyword-rich copy without compromising readability?

Readability is all-important to visitors. And after all, it’s the visitors that buy your product or service, not search engines.

By following these 8 simple guidelines, you’ll be able to overhaul the copy on your website ensuring it’s agreeable to both search engines and visitors.

1) Categorise your pages
Before writing, think about the structure of your site. If you haven’t built your site yet, try to create your pages around key offerings or benefits. For example, divide your Second Hand Computers site into separate pages for Macs, and PCs, and then segment again into Notebooks, Desktops, etc. This way, you’ll be able to incorporate very specific keyword phrases into your copy, thereby capturing a very targeted market. If you’re working on an existing site, print out each page and label it with its key point, offering, or benefit.

2) Find out what keywords your customers are searching for
Go to www.wordtracker.com and subscribe for a day (this will only cost you about AUD$10). Type in the key points, offerings, and benefits you identified for each page, and spend some time analysing what words customers use when they’re searching for these things. These are the words you’ll want to use to describe your product or service. (Make sure you read WordTracker’s explanation of their results.)

3) Use phrases, not single words
Although this advice isn’t specific to the web copy, it’s so important that it’s worth repeating here. Why? Well firstly, there’s too much competition for single keywords. If you’re in computer sales, don’t choose “computers” as your primary keyword. Go to Google and search for “computers” and you’ll see why… Secondly, research shows that customers are becoming more search-savvy – they’re searching for more and more specific strings. They’re learning that by being more specific, they find what they’re looking for much faster. Ask yourself what’s unique about your business? Perhaps you sell cheap second hand computers? Then why not use “cheap second hand computers” as your primary keyword phrase. This way, you’ll not only stand a chance in the rankings, you’ll also display in much more targeted searches. In other words, a higher percentage of your site’s visitors will be people after cheap second hand computers. (WordTracker’s results will help you choose the most appropriate phrases.)

4) Pick the important keyword phrases
Don’t include every keyword phrase on every page. Focus on one or two keyword phrases on each page. For your Macs page, focus on “cheap second hand macs”. For the PCs page, focus on “cheap second hand pcs”, etc.

5) Be specific
Don’t just say “our computers”. Wherever you would normally say “our computers”, ask yourself if you can get away with saying “our cheap second hand Macs” or “our cheap second hand PCs”. If this doesn’t affect your readability too badly, it’s worth doing. It’s a fine balance though. Remember, your site reflects the quality of your service. If your site is hard to read, people will infer a lot about your service…

6) Use keyword phrases in links
Although you shouldn’t focus on every keyword phrase on every page, it’s a good idea to link your pages together with text links. This way, when the search engines look at your site, they’ll see that the pages are related. Once again, the more text links the better, especially if the link text is a keyword phrase. So on your “Cheap Second Hand Macs” page, include a text link at the bottom to “Cheap Second Hand PCs”. If you can manage it without affecting readability, also include one within the copy of the page. For example, “As well as providing cheap second hand Macs, we sell high quality cheap second hand PCs”. TIP: If you don’t want your links to be underlined and blue, include the following in your CSS file:

<style type="text/css">
<!--
a {text-decoration: none;}
-->
</style>

Then format the HTML of each link as follows:

As well as providing cheap second hand Macs, we sell high quality <a href="pcs.htm" style="text-decoration:none"><font color="#000000">cheap second hand pcs</font></a>.

7) Use keyword phrases in headings
Just as customers rely on headings to scan your site, so to do search engines. This means headings play a big part in how the search engines will categorise your site. Try to include your primary keyword phrases in your headings. In fact, think about inserting extra headings just for this purpose. Generally this will also help the readability of the site because it will help customers scan read.

8) Test keyword phrase density
Once you’ve made a first pass at the copy, run it through a density checker to get some metrics. Visit http://www.gorank.com/analyze.php and type in the domain and keyword phrase you want to analyse. It’ll give you a percentage for all the important parts of your page, including copy, title, meta keywords, meta description, etc. The higher the density the better. Generally speaking, a density measurement of at least 3-5% is what you’re looking for. Any less, and you’ll probably need to take another pass.

Follow these guidelines, and you’ll be well on your way to effective SEO copy.

Just remember, don’t overdo it. It’s not easy to find the balance between copy written for search engines and copy written for customers. In many cases, this balance will be too difficult to achieve without professional help. Don’t worry, though. If you’ve already performed your keyword analysis, a professional website copywriter should be able to work your primary keyword phrases into your copy at no extra charge.

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by Karon Thackston © 2006

The FAQ page… a standard addition to almost any site.  It usually lists questions customers ask on a regular basis, and the answers to those questions.  But what befuddles me is that hardly any sites I’ve visited use this page as a sales tool.

Did you think of that?  If not, you’re losing out on the use of some valuable real estate!  FAQ pages are generally well-trafficked areas of your site.  With just a few adjustments, your FAQ page could become one of your leading sources for sales conversions.

Let me give you a before and after version of one site I visited.  I’ve changed some of the information so as not to promote (or embarrass) the site owner.

BEFORE

What is the source of the minerals used in your supplements?

We use all-natural minerals from sources such as limestone and dolomite.  Nothing artificial.

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What is the source of Vitamin C?

Ascorbic acid, which was originally gained by isolation from fruits and plants, is produced today by an industrial process. The basis for the industrial ascorbic acid synthesis is D-Glucose (grape sugar or corn sugar), one of the most common organic compounds in nature.

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Informative?  Yes.  Does it answer the question?  Yes.  Does it contribute to making the sale?  Not really.

Now, let’s change these two answers just a bit, add a link or two, and see how much more powerful they can become.

AFTER

What is the source of the minerals used in your supplements?

We use all-natural minerals from sources such as limestone and dolomite.  These 100% natural minerals are then carefully processed under low heat to remove impurities and preserve quality.  Many minerals are processed under high heat, which literally kills the beneficial elements of the mineral.  Because of our devotion to producing quality vitamins and minerals, we take additional precautions that other manufacturers skip.  To ensure you receive the most potent supplements possible, choose XYZ Vitamins.  

[shop for minerals]
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What is the source of Vitamin C?

Ascorbic acid, which was originally gained by isolation from fruits and plants, is produced today by an industrial process. The basis for the industrial ascorbic acid synthesis is D-Glucose (grape sugar or corn sugar), one of the most common organic compounds in nature.

XYZ Vitamins uses only organically-grown grapes and corn, and we extract our own D-Glucose to ensure the process remains 100% natural.  No other manufacturer in the world has developed its own facility specifically to produce the highest quality of Vitamin C.  We go the extra mile to ensure the vitamins and minerals you buy from XYZ Vitamins are the most beneficial for you and your family.

[shop for vitamins]
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See the difference?  The “before” versions JUST answer the questions.  The “after” versions boost consumer confidence, promote unique qualities of the products, and offer easy-to-follow links to buy the products in question.

By using some imagination and salesmanship, you can turn your FAQ page into a highly productive tool that not only gives visitors the information they need, but also encourages more sales!

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