Search Engine Optimization

10 Things to Expect from Your SEO Copywriter

From the perspective of a business owner, webmaster,

or marketing manager, the change exhibited by the Internet

is profoundly exciting, yet profoundly disturbing. The

information (and misinformation and disinformation)

it offers, the business benefits it promises, and the

rules it is governed by change at such a rapid rate

that it's almost impossible to keep up.

These changes have led to a growing appreciation of

the value of quality web copy. This appreciation has,

in turn, led to an influx of opportunistic 'copywriters'

promoting themselves as website copywriters or SEO copywriters.

Don't get me wrong, there are quite a few excellent

SEO copywriters out there, and you should definitely

shop around. The purpose of this article isn't

to scare you; it's to help you find the SEO copywriter

who'll deliver honest service and excellent results.

So with that in mind, take a look at the following

ten tips. These are the things you have a right to expect

from anyone wearing a name badge that reads "website

copywriter", "SEO copywriter", "internet

copywriter", or "web copywriter"?

(See also www.divinewrite.com/websitecopywriter.htm and

www.divinewrite.com/makethemost.htm.)

1) An understanding of SEO

Obviously, your SEO copywriter must have a solid understanding

of the essentials of Search Engine Optimization. They

must know that ranking is essentially the result of

a website's relevance (i.e. keywords) and importance

(i.e. inbound links). There are a whole lot of other

factors involved, but if your SEO copywriter doesn't

understand these two basics, you should look elsewhere.

If you'd like to ensure your SEO copywriter knows

a little more than just the basics, take a look at www.divinewrite.com/SEOCEO.htm, www.divinewrite.com/seocopy.htm, www.divinewrite.com/seotradesecrets.htm, www.divinewrite.com/webcopyenough.htm, and www.divinewrite.com/seoarticles.htm for some clues

as to what you might like to ask in order to assess

their knowledge.

2) Proven experience

The proof is, as they say, in the pudding. It's

not enough that your SEO copywriter can talk the talk;

they must also be able to walk the walk. Ask to see

some examples of websites for which they've obtained

some good rankings. Note that it may be very difficult

to find an SEO copywriter who has actually worked on

both keywords and link generation, so if you find one

who has, and they write well, snap 'em up! They'll

have a very broad and useful working knowledge of search

engines.

3) An understanding of how many keywords to use

You don't want to fill every page up with every

keyword you're targeting. This simply dilutes your

site's relevance and reduces readability. Ask your

SEO copywriter how many keywords they would recommend

targeting on each page. Hopefully they'll suggest

no more than 3, preferably 2. By targeting 2 keyword

phrases per page, you can use them a lot without impacting

readability.

4) Clear agreement on who will provide keywords

Someone needs to perform a keyword analysis in order

to figure out what words you should be trying to rank

highly for. Your SEO copywriter should be able to do

this for you, but it's quite often more cost-effective

if someone a little closer to the business does it.

Either way, make sure your agreement with your SEO copywriter

makes it very clear who is performing this task. Don't

assume the SEO copywriter is going to do it, because

they may assume you're going to do it, and then

you'll blow your budget.

5) Keywords or keyword phrases

Expect your SEO copywriter to offer some advice regarding

how specific you should be with your keywords. In most

industries, the competition for keywords is so fierce

that you'll be forced to target very specific keywords

in order to rank - at least at the outset. For

instance, if you're in IT, you probably wouldn't

start out by targeting the keyword "IT". The

competition is immense (at the time of writing, there

were approx 3,240,000,000 results for this search in

Google.com) and the IT giants already dominate the search

engines for this keyword. Instead, try using a more

specific keyword phrase like "IT infrastructure

consulting new york" (at the time of writing, there

were only around 4,000,000 results for this search in

Google.com). The other benefit to targeting more specific

keyword phrases is that you'll generate more relevant

leads.

6) Agree on word count per page

Always make sure your SEO copywriter gives you an indication

of the number of words they expect to write per web

page. While it's necessary to have a decent body

of words on most of your web pages, you certainly shouldn't

have too many. What "too many" is all depends

on your industry, the objective of the page, and the

needs of your audience. It's always a delicate

balance, but it's certainly possible to rank highly

with only 100-200 words per page. So don't be fooled

into paying for copy you don't need!

7) Density targets & measure

SEO of a web page is NOT guess-work. A good SEO copywriter

will talk about density measures. This is a measure

of the number of time the keyword phrase appears on

the page. It's expressed as a percentage of the

total word count of the page. So if your page has 200

words, and your keyword phrase appears 10 times, its

density is 5%. As a rule of thumb, your SEO copywriter

should be aiming for a density of approximately 5% for

your primary keyword phrase and 3-5% for your secondary

keyword phrase. If your density measures are much higher

than this, readability will be reduced, and you'll

risk being perceived as spam by the search engines.

Make sure your SEO copywriter understands keyword density,

is prepared to state the target density for each keyword

phrase, and is also happy to be measured by that standard

(should you decide to measure).

8) Where to place keywords

The question of keyword placement has been the subject

of much debate amongst SEO copywriters. While it is

still unclear how much impact placement has, there is

a general consensus that it has SOME impact. Be sure

that your copywriter is aware of this impact. Popular

opinion has it that keywords are more effective if they

appear in headings, bolded text, links, and generally

toward the beginning of the page.

9) Some comment on structure & links

Websites are generally better indexed by search engines

if their spiders can traverse the entire site using

text links. This means your SEO copywriter should be

linking each page to every other page using text links.

If your site is complex, this may be impractical, so

your SEO copywriter will need to create a hierarchical

structure for your site. First, they should break your

subject material down into categories. Then for each

category, they should write a summary page. These summary

pages should be accessible from higher level pages via

text links. They should also be accessible from each

other. Each summary page should link - using text

links - to a number of pages discussing the finer

details of the category. And each detail page in a particular

category should link to every other detail page in that

category (once again, using text links). This way the

spiders are able to travel from the top of your hierarchy

to the bottom, and from left to right across any level.

10) Don't believe grand promises

SEO copywriters can play a significant role in increasing

your search engine ranking. But they can't do it

overnight. By optimizing your site for your target keyword

phrases, an SEO copywriter is simply declaring the relevance

of your site. If you engage an SEO copywriter to write

helpful articles containing a byline with a link back

to your site, you can then submit these articles for

publication on the Internet, and this will steadily

increase your ranking. But if an SEO copywriter tells

you they can dramatically increase your ranking in a

matter of hours or days, be wary. NOTE: Your SEO copywriter

should be able to submit your articles to various submit

sites on the Internet. These sites are closely watched

by hundreds of thousands of publishers of e-newsletters

and article pages from all around the world. High quality

articles are quickly snapped up and published prolifically.

And each time your article is published, you've

got another link back to your site, thus increasing

the importance of your site (to the search engines).

If you'd like to submit your own articles, your

SEO copywriter should be able to sell you a list of

50 or more submit sites for as little as USD$99.

Conclusion

An SEO copywriter is a valuable addition to your marketing

function. But you need to make sure you choose wisely.

When you know what questions to ask, the battle is half

won.

Happy hunting!

* Glenn Murray is an advertising copywriter and SEO copywriter and heads copywriting studio Divine Write. He can be contacted on Sydney +612 4334 6222 or at glenn@divinewrite.com. Visit http://www.divinewrite.com for further details or more FREE articles.