SEO 101: Copywriting basics - knowing your audience is key

Power of the People

Although content is very important for the search engines, when writing web copy you are really writing for the human reader.

Write for Your Audience. First and foremost, always write for your audience and make it interesting. Once the target audience is determined, give them a persona and write to that persona as if writing to one person. To give your subject life, use passion and words that will evoke emotion in the reader and incite them to action.

Write to Achieve a Goal. Decide why you are writing and write to achieve that goal. People generally read to learn about something, so give them what they came for. At the same time, make sure the search engines understand what you are writing about as well. Remember that the search engines are not going to buy products or services – people are.

• Focus on the benefits the reader will get from what you are writing about and the conversions will follow.
• Write as if you were you were talking to a friend.

Specially for SEO

When Words Become More Than Just Words. Like most things in life, content on a web page also needs a foundation to build on.

Theme. The theme or subject of the page is part of the equation. The words that describe that theme are the other part and, more importantly, they should be keyword phrases that human visitors are actually using in the search engines when they search.

Phrases. No matter how well written a page is or how many words it has on it, if the words are not being used in search queries, that page will not be served up in the search engine result pages (SERPs). Since people today search for more than one word at a time – typically two- and three-word phrases – pages should also be targeting keyword phrases rather than just single keywords.

Incorporating Keywords.

• Choose one primary keyword phrase for each page and develop the content around it.
• Use that particular phrase a few times throughout the copy beginning with the first paragraph, but also break it up and use the words in the phrase separately.
• Use the keywords in the headline of the content. There is a whole section in this training on optimizing pages that will explain the importance of that. In the Advanced SEO course, there is another lesson expanding on the “how to” of optimization.  
• Keep remembering that in writing for the Web (search engines and people), you need to constantly balance between creative copy and use of keywords. 

Keyword Density. Keyword density is also one of those topics of many discussions. What it really boils down to is being better than the competition and keeping in mind that keyword density on pages is just one of many factors taken into consideration where ranking is concerned.

• Write so that it is easy to read and try not worry too much about using the phrase multiple times; you want it to appear throughout the content.
• You can also break up the phrase into its word components and use them separately.
• Try not to go overboard though by repeating them to the point that they distract your readers.

Ultimately, you are writing for your human audience; just don't forget to use your keywords and keyword phrases throughout your copy. To find out what words are on a page and easily see what the density is, try looking at The Analyzer or Ranks.NL's Keyword Density and Prominence. Both tools will give you a fair idea of the density of the keywords on a page.

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When Words Become More Than Just Words. Like most things in life, content on a web page also needs a foundation to build on