Writing web content isn’t like writing for a newspaper or a magazine where your readers are all human. Writing for the web means you have to appeal to the search engines too.
In fact you have to do both well if you hope to achieve better ranking and more traffic.
So how do you develop web content that the search engines will appreciate and your readers will love?
Start by looking at what makes each of them tick…
The search engines look for keywords, links, uniqueness and precise relevance while your human visitors want easy to read information that isn’t compromised with overused keywords and information that doesn’t make sense or is hard to read; that’s just poor writing.
Writing effective web content needs to reach both audiences. It’s a balancing act but with a little practice you can be cranking out great content that not only ranks in your favorite search engine, it will rank well among your readers.
Understand your audience
Before you ever begin to write you need to understand your audience. Know what they are looking for, what their interests are and the questions they have in their mind. Doing that will help you know what information to include in your content.
Write Conversationally
The search engines look for uniqueness and the best way to give the search engines unique content and interest your audience is by speaking in your own voice. Write as though you were writing a letter to a friend. Mention your own personal experiences, your likes and dislikes. Your readers will better identify with you and they’ll find your content more interesting.
Make Your Content Easy to Read
People read all day long so when they are researching the web they want a web page to get to the point quickly. They want concise, direct information.
To enhance readability keep your sentences short and to the point.
Keep your paragraphs to no more than 3 or 4 sentences and keep one idea to a paragraph. Compose sentences in active, not passive voice. Active language is more concise and to the point and much easier to understand.
For example:
active: Suzi slapped Tommy (preferred)
passive: Tommy was slapped by Suzi (not preferred)
Keyword Research is where writing web content starts
Don’t guess about what keywords to use when writing web content. Keyword research tools are easy to use and they give you a wealth of information on what keywords people use to find content.
Use a good keyword research tool like Wordtracker, which has a free trial, and select a keyword phrase that has at least some search volume. Using generic one word phrases may prove to be too competitive instead use more descriptive keyword phrases.
The term ‘Shoes’ for instance, is way to difficult to rank for, just type in the word ‘shoes’ into Google and there are millions of websites competing for that single term. But ‘womens walking shoes’, on the other hand, is much more focused and it’s actually a term people type into the search engines.
The phrase may be searched on little less but it’s much more targeted because only women interested in womens walking shoes will type it in. That phrase also doesn’t have as many web pages competing against it.
Optimize your Web Pages
Search engines rank web pages, not web sites, so it’s important to optimize each page of your site carefully.
Once you know your keyword phrase you will optimize your web page using that phrase by using it in the URL, title and description of your page.
For example using the’ womens walking shoes example’ your page URL will look like this:
http://www.yourwebsite.com/womens-walking-shoes.html
Use your keyword phrase in the title and description tags of your page as well.
On the actual text of your page, use your keyword phrase in the heading or <h1> section and use it within the first paragraph of your content. I suggest using it once within the body of the content and again once in the last paragraph.
For added site benefit use your keyword phrase as anchor text on at least 3 other pages of your website.
Most successful internet marketers will tell you that writing for the web is more about offering quality, useful, unique information first, then tailoring it for the search engines second. I agree, but that’s where good Search Engine Copywriting will be your biggest and best asset for driving sales and traffic.
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