Tips on Writing Web Page Copy for SEO

The copy or text you write in a web page is vitally important for good search engine results. You need to include a good range of keywords. The keywords will be the ones you have calculated people will use when searching for the services you offer on Google, MSN or Yahoo. There are a number of strategies you can use to choose keywords and to write your web pages to emphasis or highlight the keywords to search engines.

There is no penalty for having too much text on a page and if you have written less than 300 words it is unlikely you will have included a good range of keywords for SEO. When writing the text on the page, always write for a human reader but also bear in mind SEO. Include more text and also include long tail keywords. Long tails are keywords that are searched for less often but if you include more long tails you are likely to get just as many, if not more, hits from the long-tails as your main keywords.

A good way to look for keywords is to analyse competitor sites. A set of keyword analysis tools can be found at www.googlerankings.com. Use the tools to find what 1, 2 and 3 word phrases appear on your competitor's web pages. Include the same phrases, where appropriate, on your own pages.

Here are my tips for writing text on a web page:

1. Include alternative ways of saying the same thing, e.g. an invoice software/ invoicing software/ software to create invoices.

2. Include the words in different orders, e.g. a man’s hat/ a hat for a man.

3. One method of adding keywords is to include a column listing benefits or features.

Good ways to ways of including alternative ways of saying the same thing are:-

a. alt text on images

b. title text on a hyperlink.

4. title tag

Use the title tag to hold as many as 3 keyword/ phrases separated by or -. For example:

invoice software billing software

The page title is probably the most important on-page SEO elements and ensure your most important keywords are at the beginning of the title.

5. h1 tag

This the most important header tag. Place a h1 tag near the top of each of your pages and make sure the keywords agree with the page title, e.g.

title = Invoice Software Billing Software
h1 = Invoice Software

6. h2, 3, 4, 5, 6 tags

Structure your pages by separating the text into topics. Use a h2 title for each topic. h3, 4, 5 and h6 can also be used to emphasise keywords.

7. Place important text near the top of the page, e.g. the first paragraph after the h1 tag should contain your main keywords.

8. Use bold or strong to emphasise keywords - Google picks up this as well as a human reader.