Reprint Instructions: Article must be reproduced unedited and in its entirety. Resource box/bio and copyright date must be included. Live links must be given to any URLs within the article and/or resource box. Do not list your own site as the original publisher of this article. Do not direct visitors to link to your site in place of the author’s site. Please email us notification of where the article will be used and a copy of your newsletter if you are publishing the article in an ezine. Thank you! From the early days of search engine optimization, keywords and content have always been vital to achieving your goals. Starting back in the days when we used to shove every slightly relevant keyword into our META tags, it has been obvious that search engines love text. The more complex and sophisticated the engines have gotten over the years, the more complex and sophisticated many writers have gotten with their search engine copywriting. Supposed formulas, saturation levels, and other mysterious concoctions have been developed to help us outsmart the engines. What we should have been doing all along was writing for the visitor first and the engines second. Why? Because creating a site that's loved by visitors has become a prime factor in linking, ranking, and marketing as a whole. And now, it has become vital to search engine copywriting—especially since the engines are making great strides with more personalized and efficient searches (such as semantic search). Rather than just reading the copy on your site, engines are heading in the direction of being able to determine and "understand" what a page is about. Working semantic *intranets* have been in place at various types of organizations for years, and research continues to implement this type of search capability for the Internet overall. The ironic thing is, as the search engines get more complex, the "formula" for SEO copywriting is getting simpler and simpler. Write Naturally Rather than working yourself into a tizzy about how many keyphrases go where, and what percentage of your net words are keyphrases, and so on… just relax. As SEO gets more advanced, your copy plan needs to get more elementary. In the future, search engines will be looking for Web pages that reflect a natural tone with the copy. Is it obvious that keyphrases are being shoved in wherever possible? Does every headline/sub-head, image tag, and comment tag have a keyphrase included? Does the copy sound fake, unnatural, and stiff? Then spiders and bots will recognize it, and (in theory) flag it as something to be wary of. Want an example? Take a look at this lovely piece of copy I found while surfing just the other day. (I've replaced the keyphrases used in the original copy with the word "wherever" so as not to embarrass the site owner. Wherever Holiday Rentals
Let's suppose someone walked into your brick-and-mortar travel agency and asked for help. You would most likely ask the person what he was seeking. He would reply, "Holiday rentals in Wherever. What can you show me?" Would you honestly take off on the spiel above? Can you see yourself talking to a real client face-to-face and saying, "We offer Wherever holiday rentals in Wherever and can find you many apartments, villas, and houses in Wherever"? I don't think so. Who Cares? Writing using natural language has always been important to your visitors. If your site sounds silly due to overuse of keyphrases, you lower yourself in the view of your prospective clients. You want to make sure your visitors are smiling and not rolling their eyes after they read your copy. Otherwise you greatly reduce the chance of making sales. Now that the engines are becoming more and more sensitive to natural language when dealing with copywriting, this element is going to become very important for another reason… rankings. Tips for Writing In Natural Language 1) Vary your keywords/phrases. For example, if a keyphrase you particularly want to target is "14k gold jewelry" also consider researching keyphrases like "14k gold watches" or "gold wedding bands" or others along those lines. This will give you a variety of phrases within your copy. 2) Read it out loud. When you read your copy out loud, you'll get a better sense of whether it sounds unnatural. If you wouldn't say, "We make 14k gold jewelry and have made 14k gold jewelry for 10 years. If you need 14k gold jewelry, just view our catalog" out loud then don't put it in your copy, either. 3) Break up keyphrases. As searchers get more knowledgeable about finding what they want in the engines, they use longer and longer search queries—some of which just don't make any sense. For instance, I recently had to use the phrase "real estate Pittsburg downtown." Since this search string was not easily worked in as that exact phrase, I broke it up. One sentence I used it in read, "When looking for commercial real estate in Pittsburg, check the downtown listings first for exceptional locations and prices." The words are still in the same order with minor breaks in between. When you can't use a phrase "as is," this is a very viable alternative. Keep in mind the direction search engine optimization is taking. The closer you can get to writing in natural language, the better off you'll be. It only makes sense to create a site now that will last through the long haul, especially when that site will have a better chance of favorably appealing to the engines and your visitors. Karon Thackston is author of “How To Increase Keyword Saturation (Without Destroying the Flow of Your Copy).” Discover the secrets to creating SEO copy with a perfect balance between keywords and natural language. http://www.copywritingcourse.com/keyword [Back to Copywriting Articles Menu]
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