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SEO Copywriting and Content Tips and Secrets for Google
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Content is king, so say Google, Yahoo, and Bing. Easily said, not so easily done. What makes good SEO content? What are good tips for effective SEO copywriting? How do keywords and tags intersect with good, no great, SEO content? Here are some guidelines for writing great SEO copy for Google and other search engines.
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By Jason McDonald
Senior SEO Instructor - JM Internet Group.
Posted: April 25, 2010
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Contents:
Content is King
As most people know, content is king in terms of search engine optimization. Well, at least everyone is familiar with the stock phrase. "Content is king." What does this mean? Well, you have to think like Google thinks. First and foremost, Google really can only read text. To Google, Yahoo, and Bing it is still the textual web. So if you want to be No. 1 for Online Insurance Quotes, you will need to write a lot of copy that contents those keywords (not necessarily in that order).
The implications of content is king work both on an individual page, and on an entire website. On an individual page, you need beefy text. Not shallow, sparse FLASH pages - just an image with a little text. But pages that are beefy. LOTS of content. Compare two websites that discuss flowers in San Francisco -
Do a View Source for each. Notice how Spartan poor Mandy Scott flowers is. VERY VERY little text. Beautiful pictures. Amazing flowers for weddings, but to Google very little to index. Just a very few words. Compare that to Fillmore Flowers. LOTS of text, especially below the fold. So Google can grab onto this home page, and index a lot of text. (I have a small screen shot to the right, with the keyphrase 'San Francisco' highlight in pink).
Then browse some of the pages on each website. You will see that, throughout, Mandy Scott is very spartan when it comes to words. Fillmore Flowers, in contrast, beefs up even its subordinate pages with robust, keyword heavy descriptions of flowers. It could do better, but at least it has good keyword descriptions. Another good page to check out is Geico. Like Fillmore Flowers, Geico has lots of keyword heavy content.
Keywords: Write SEO Friendly Keyword Heavy Copy
OK, so rule No 1 is big, beefy pages. Obviously they need to have a lot of your target keywords. It's a no brainer that if you want to be No. 1 for 'San Francisco Flower Delivery' that that phrase and those words need to appear frequently on your page. Google can't read minds, and it can't even read images. It can only read text. So you need to weave your keywords into your prose.
Go back to the Fillmore Florist home page. Read some of their text. Read it aloud. Think about what they are optimizing for: San Francisco Florist, San Francisco Flower Delivery. Here's an excerpt with the words flower and florist and San Francisco bolded:
Fresh flowers in San Francisco are just a call or click away! View our assortment of gifts and floral arrangements online then place your order through our website at any time. You can also call us directly. Fillmore Florist has a wide variety of items to choose from, and if you don’t find what you’re looking for, our florists in San Francisco can create a unique arrangement just for you. Fillmore Florist delivers beautiful flower in San Francisco and nearby communities as well as nationwide.
It goes on and on and on. Read it aloud and it is rather clunky prose. But to Google it is loud and clear: this website is about San Francisco, Flowers, and Florists!
So rule No 2, use your target keywords and keyword variations frequently in your Google-friendly SEO content. Copywriting is an art and in the art of SEO copywriting you need to be a bit repetitive and clunky. Don't overdo it. You can't just repeat the word, ad nauseam.
Tags and Tag Weaving
That brings us to the next big rule of SEO-friendly copywriting. Tags. As I teach in the class on Page Tags, they are powerful signals to Google about what is the priority of your page. Put simply, bold or italicize your keywords. Even this simple nesting is a signal to Google that your page is about the bolded or italicized keywords. So for this page, we are targeting SEO Copywriting and SEO Content, for example. Be sure to include variations, as in SEO-Friendly Copywriting.
And remember that not all tags are created equally! The most powerful tag on the page is of course the TITLE tag. So your TITLE tag needs to have your most important keywords in it, bar none. Return to Mandy Scott's website. Browse it visually. I highly recommend her as a San Francisco Wedding Florist, but look at her home page title tag. As of today it is -
<title>San Francisco Flower Delivery Florist</title>
In other words a powerful (mis)communication to Google that her page (and website) is about Flower Delivery and not Wedding Florist / Flowers in San Francisco. Good content, gone bad.
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