SEO Flatline? 3 Easy Steps to Reviving SEO Copywriting
What you really want to know is if SEO copywriting is actually dead.
Morte. Tot. Muerto. 6 feet under.
The Educational Testing Service thinks SEO copywriting is alive and kicking. SEO is now grading college freshman essays.
Google’s Matt Cutts seems to advocate writing for humans. We’re told over and over again to write for people, not the search robots. “Writing for humans” is the in thing nowadays.
For granted, the writing for people style is more engaging because people aren’t algorithms.
But should you turn loose of writing for search bots? After all, the machines need to see you so that your article, blog, or advertisement can get read by the eager masses.
Houston copywriters have been following the debate for a while. We’ve spent hours stalking SEO forums and other writers’ blogs.
You can’t understand what the gurus are talking about most of the time.
You don’t have to be a webmaster nor SEO guru. Writing for both humans and bots only involves your title, headers, and body of your article.
- SEO Copywriting title tags are for both the bots and humans
What you title your article or blog is the most important thing in SEO. Titles are bot-candy.
You must put your keyword or key phrase into the title. If you don’t use the keyword in your title, the article won’t get the attention it deserves.
It you don’t get love from the bots, you won’t be included on the “A” list, i.e. the first two search results pages.
The problem is that if your keyword rich title doesn’t entice the reader, you won’t get found either. You must write a magnetic, tempting title to get clicks.
Solving the problem takes a little thought and a little effort. Write your title with a hook for the reader and the keywords or key phrase for the mechanical bots. Don’t worry about title length. Although only 60 characters or so appear in the SERPS, the bots see the whole thing.
- SEO Copywriting header tags to put humans first, Bots second
Your headings (h tags) are your chocolate. (They’re for humans because bots don’t eat chocolate).
The important thing to remember is that people are creatures of habit. If you’ve enticed them to click the link to your article, they will then scan to see if you’re giving them the info they need. If they don’t immediately see it, they give you the “adios muchacho”.
Structure your headings like you would a page outline. The first heading (the h1 tag) is what you’re writing about; it is your subject (or title) or something very similar to the title.
Then proceed down to the subheadings. Your main points are your h2 tags. In other words, the h2 tags are your outline’s A’s, B’s, and C’s.
The h3 tags are your main point’s points, or sub-points. These are the 1’s, 2’s and 3’s of your main points.
Since you’ve been porking out on all that Godiva in front of the bots, they’re looking at you with puppy eyes. Who can resist a dog that is patiently waiting for his share of the goodies? Be sure you throw the bots keyword treats in each of your heading tags.
- SEO Copywriting body tag is for humans, but SEO is needed
Your wonderful unique content is contained between the body tags. You should write your content for humans. No one will spend time on content that reads like this
Kitty Litter. Ya-da kitty litter. Yada-yada kitty litter. Yada-yada-yada-yada-yada kitty litter. New paragraph. Kitty Litter 2. Repeat.
Writing for humans doesn’t include cramming keywords and key phrases. The bots need keywords, so SEO copywriting includes keywords at no more than 3-4% of your total word count. This means in a 250 word article, keywords should appear no more than 7 to 10 times.
Winning the SEO copywriting war is really this simple. You’re already an expert in your craft. You don’t need to be a SEO guru and know every minute trick of the trade. Try writing for humans, and watch your ranking climb.
And if you still need a little refinement, give one of Directory One’s whiz kids in Houston a call. They even have a toll free number.
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