What’s SEO Friendly Web Copy?

3 elements of SEO friendly web copy include:

• keyword research
• benefit focused copy that shows your visitors how you help them solve a problem
• call to action (asking them to do something like call you or download an ebook).

Here’s the thing.

The majority of businesses have no idea what a keyword term is.

For example, in a recent conversation with a startup selling women’s purses and tote bags, they were using the word “bag” as an Adwords term.

A Little Perspective

Google “Bag” and you’ll get 944,000,000 results starting with ebags.com and zappos.com — when I searched. Think about what a broad category this is. There are hundreds of styles of women’s purses. But what about a turquoise, structured leather tote big enough for a computer? Or a tiny black clutch? They’re all “bags”.

That’s where SEO friendly copy comes in.

What type of bags are you selling? Narrow it down. Describe them, be specific. “Black clutch with rhinestones” may or may not have enough search results but a tool like Wordtracker will help you decide (note: there’s no hard and fast rules–it’a balance of art & science– but aiming for terms with at least 1000 searches a month is a good starting point).

Once you’ve decided on a keyword term that makes sense for that page — based on what your customers are searching for–then you can incorporate that term into the tag, the copy and the meta description at strategic points.

Another startup thought they should rank highly for the term “shoes” and “boots” because they sold boots for dogs. That immediately pits them against Zappos.com, DSW.com and dozens of other high profile brands that don’t sell dog boots at all. Even if they outspent these brands and reached the top of Google, they wouldn’t be attracting the right customers.

Other small businesses think a viable keyword might be “paint” because they’re a painter or “paper” because they sell office supplies. But using generic, broad terms like these will mean you’re lost deep in the search engine results –like #136 or #1036.

These real life examples show these businesses don’t understand the complexities of search engine optimization. Which is fine. That’s not their job. I don’t do my own taxes or my own dental work. There’s a reason there are specialists in the world.

“Good” Keyword Terms + Benefits

The other thing businesses forget is that it’s not all about them. It’s about your customer.

How many times have you looked at a website and not known what the company did? Or, if you do have an inkling of what they do, you’re not sure why they’re the best choice?

You want your copy to illustrate the problems you solve. You also want it to show how you do it differently from others.

For example, I’m passionate about ensuring my client’s content works within other marketing they’re doing. If I’m writing a blog post, how does it relate to other pages on the website or is it within a special promotion window? If I’m writing an ebook, where does it sit within the sales funnel? Is it a lead generation piece or does it fall further into the sales cycle? These are important considerations in order to choose the right angle and final call to action in the piece.

Answer These Questions in Your Copy

What problems do you solve for your clients? Answer the questions they’re asking.

Show them how you’re different from your competition–preferably with a story or an example. Go beyond empty boasts such as, “We’re the best.” Instead, show your prospects what you do and how you do it. Why did you start your business? Or why do you work where you do?

Connect the dots for your prospects. Sharing that you have 15 years experience as an IT professional is great but if you can show “In my 15 years as an IT professional, I’ve troubled shooted hundreds of tech troubles both large and small. In one instance, we were migrating hundreds of thousands of documents to a new server and were able to make it go seamlessly with less than a minute of downtime.”

Do you see how that example shows your experience and illustrates it with a relevant example?

Which do you think your prospect is more likely to point out to another, “This guy has 15 years’ experience or this guy managed a difficult project, maybe he could help us”?

Don’t make your prospective client work too hard. Take them by the hand and lead them to where you want them to go. SEO friendly web copy does that by showing how you solve your prospect’s problems using the same language as your prospects which solves the problem of getting found to begin with.