Website Copywriting vs. SEO Copywriting

1 Is there a difference?
2 Keywords and phrases
3 Good prose
4 So what does work?

Is there a difference?

Is there a difference between copywriting for websites and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) copywriting? I think so. There has been a lot of rubbish written about SEO copywriting over the years. Talk about keyword density and keyword placement formulae have built up a kind of spurious mysticism around SEO, which is quite frankly twaddle, rubbish, balderdash, pick your own word... So much so that SEO copywriting is getting a bad name.

I prefer to talk about website copywriting, which is what good "SEO copywriting" has been about all along anyway. There is no formula that you can use to produce good SEO copy for your website.

Keywords and phrases

Search engines build their indices and rank sites based on keywords and, more specifically, keyphrases. People are getting more sophisticated about using search engines and have learned to be clever about the search terms they use. These days, search terms tend to be very focused and consist of phrases rather than words. So, how often these phrases and the words within them appear in relation to other words and where they are placed on a web page will have an effect - there's no denying that. So it is important to know what the right keyphrases are for the target market and to include them at the right density in the right places on the page if you want to get listed. Even more so if you want a high listing. But none of this should take precedence over the most important consideration in writing copy for a website or for any media - the reader or, in this case, the visitor.

Good prose

The most important characteristic of the copy on a webpage is it's readability. It's got to be good prose, it's got to be fluent and clear, not stilted and difficult to follow, which so much "so called" SEO copy is. Take this example from a site selling Rolex Watches:-

"We sell Rolex Watches at the best prices on the web. Our stocks of Solid Gold and Plated Rolex Watches mean that we can deliver same day. For the best deal in Rolex Watches take a look at our Rolex Watch catalogue by clicking here.

No prizes for guessing what the key phrase is! But, apart from the fact that this is all about "we" instead of about the important person in this exchange – "you" the customer, who would ever talk like that? Good copy is all about speaking directly to the target audience, grabbing their attention and leading them to some action. This is stilted and garbled - it isn't going to convince anyone. The best sentence in the example is the last because it does speaks to the visitor and gives them a good reason for doing what the site owner wants - clicking on the link. But it makes two common mistakes. It mentions Rolex Watches twice in only 20 words, which just sounds stupid. And it wastes the opportunity of putting a phrase where it can do some real good - in a link. But that's another story.

So what does work?

We have established that taking SEO to an extreme where it destroys the English language is not the way to write good website copy. But SEO is important and cannot be forgotten when writing for the web. So, here are my pointers to what you can do to make your website copy SEO copy.

Include your keyphrases in the title tag of the html header of the page.

Include keywords and keyphrases in the headers and sub headers wherever possible, preferably within html header tags (<h1> & <h2> tags), and where it does not interfere with the flow of the writing. Headings, used properly, summarise what is to follow. Sometimes they are all a visitor will read so they need to count. It is far more important that your headers fulfil this role than that they have keyphrases "shoehorned" in.

Wherever possible, include keyphrases in bulleted lists, in specially formatted text (bold or italic for example) and in hyperlinks and image titles or alt tags. But only where it looks and reads right. If it doesn't, don't do it.

Include keyphrases in the body of the text frequently enough so that the phrases are given a level of importance over other phrases that appear less often - but don't go overboard! Provided the prose flows, include keyphrases maybe once or twice in each paragraph. Don't bother counting words or use programs to check keyword density ratio - just check by eye. If it reads well and the keyphrase you are pushing is obviously important without being overpowering, you've probably got it about right.

Focus on writing naturally in the style that you think best suits the target audience and have the keyphrases in mind right from the beginning. Don't try to add keyphrases into copy you have already written - it almost never works. If the copy sounds at all stilted or forced with the keyphrases included, scrap it and start again. Read your copy out loud. If it sounds wrong to you, it will sound wrong to your visitor. Never, ever put search engines before well written text. No matter how many visitors the search engines bring you, if they click away because the copy is so terrible, you won't benefit from them. What you want at the end of all this is visitors who turn into customers and that means winning them over, not Google!

You will note that I have not mentioned the meta keywords and meta description. That's because, as far as SEO is concerned, they won't make any difference. But neither will they spoil your "visible" copy. So include your keyphrases, including common misspellings in the meta keywords tag. The meta description tag should contain a short description of what your page is all about, not because it will affect your listing but because it may be what is shown on the search results pages and can affect a searchers decision to click on your link or not.

If you follow the guidance above and you can write good interesting and marketing savvy copy, you should be able to get reasonably high rankings in the search engines - given time. The search engines will not pick up on new pages overnight and new websites can take several months to be indexed. See my article on Search Engine Ranking for more details on how your pages will get listed. If you don't know how to write good copy, look out for more articles in this series.

Submitted by Brian Kilcoyne from No.1 Copywriting.