SEO copywriting is a relatively new, almost universally poorly done enterprise. Not due to lack of talent, but rather a distinct lack of anything resembling experience in writing for search engines. Writing for a machine has a different feel to it than writing for a human audience. This requires those of us writing for SEO to adapt. Here are the top three things I have done to help me with my own SEO Copywriting.
SWIPE FILE
A swipe file is exactly what it sounds like and more is the single most important thing you can do to improve not only your SEO copywriting, but your writing as a whole. A ‘swipe file’ is a file of materials that you ’swipe’ from other people. From headlines, articles, keywords, layouts, basically anything that you see that catches your eye. If it catches your eye, chances are it’ll catch someone else’s too (or in this, bump us up on the results page). A swipe file can be electronic, hard copy, or a combination of the two. It doesn’t really matter what form it’s in, as long as it serves its purpose.
And what purpose would that be, you ask? Why, to help you brainstorm. The whole purpose of a swipe file is like standing on the shoulders of giants. You develop ideas, creative concepts, forms, layouts that you normally wouldn’t have even dreamed of because you used someone else for inspiration—simple but profound concept. The biggest thing for you to remember to avoid the IP police is to never, ever use anything in your swipe file directly. It should only be used as an inspirational material to help you generate ideas. You risk violating more laws than I can count on 2 hands if you use direct material. “Plagiarizer” is a term no one wants to be labeled with.
DO YOUR RESEARCH
Pick a series of keywords–between 15-20. It doesn’t really matter what the keywords are–topic is irrelevant. Then look at the top unsponsored results for each of those keywords as well as a result in the middle, and a result at the bottom. Look over each page for specific wording and verbiage–how many times is the keyword or phrase used on that page? How many words are on that page? What is the general layout of the page? Then, you want to look for common thread between those sites at the top. Because SEO and SEO copywriting is far from an exact science, I could do this exercise and wind up with vastly different results from everyone else. As such, it is very important to try to keep up with what changes and try to figure out why. You should use the same keywords each time so that you can better track those changes.
Then, take those examples that you think are the best–because of layout, keyword placement, keyword count, or just word count in general—and add them to your swipe file. It’s amazing how convenient that is. Since you should have a pool of up to three hundred pages to pull from–an initial file of about 15-20 would be a good start.
You also want to be checking out what’s not working as well, i.e. - someone lower on the search results. Try to highlight the differences between the page which is higher on the list versus lower on the list. This has a very empirical feel to it because it is very empirical. These results could change as much as daily, and so the more you run comparisons and add to your swipe file, the more comprehensive your understanding of SEO copywriting will be.
A GOOD PLACE TO START
So, a good place to start is getting accustomed to writing keyword articles. For those of you who have limited experience in web content, a keyword article is typically a short article, five hundred or less words, about a given topic designed to generate hits on that topic. They do this through “key words,” a word or phrase that repeats itself again and again throughout the article. Keyword articles are a bit challenging at first because they typically require that keyword itself make a specific number of appearances in the article. A standard for when I wrote keyword articles was that the keyword or phrase had to be used at least seven times in the article, be mentioned in the title, and the article at least five hundred words long.
It’s important to realize that keyword articles do not translate into an effective SEO copywriting technique. It has a similar idea, but SEO is vastly more complex than just how many times the keywords appear on a page. Want to have some fun? Count how many times I mention SEO copywriting in this post. Then, consider my motivations for adding that last sentence.
Three tips for getting your feet wet with SEO copywriting. More to come as it becomes available.