Do’s and Don’ts of SEO Copywriting

In some ways, copywriting advertisements for the web is different than creating them for printed materials or email, including the fact that the way they are written impacts whether or not they will appear in search results and if people are likely to click these results. What techniques or practices should be considered do’s or don’ts in SEO (Search Engine Optimization) based copywriting?

Do’s

1. If it is your responsibility, make sure the web page where the copywriting will appear has an appealing description tag which will make people want to click on the link in their search results. Use a related word for the page’s file name (name.htm) as well.

2. Try to use a particular word or short phrase related to your product, service, or other offering in each paragraph of an article. It should be a word people regularly enter in search engines.

3. Do pay attention to choosing a title which is attractive to click on in search results. Remember that people won’t read the rest of your text if they aren’t attracted by the title.

4. Aim to use some SEO keywords that competitors have not utilized in their copywriting. This may allow you to gain a high-ranking position in search results without having to surpass them.

Don’ts

1. When copywriting, don’t write a promotional article that is many pages long, as some web sites have done. This makes it more difficult to attain a good SEO keyword density, and will overwhelm readers who have limited time.

2. Don’t put an SEO keyword in every sentence, or so much that it is obnoxiously repetitive or obviously manipulated. Search engines dislike excessively high keyword density, and so do readers.

3. Don’t place the copywriting text inside an image or animation; this is harmful for SEO because search engine spiders/robots cannot read this type of text and will have little indication of the page’s content.

4. Do not sacrifice the quality of your SEO copywriting for keyword density by insisting upon a specific percentage. It’s better to have easily readable copy and a three percent density than awkward-sounding, redundant text at four percent.

Basically, SEO copywriting should use META tags, file names, and popular search keywords to its advantage, but not at the expense of readability or sufficient detail. Otherwise, SEO copywriting ought to apply the same techniques which make good print or email copywriting effective.