Putting Keywords to Use: Copywriting

I’ve said it before: as a writer, I view the importance of a website’s copy with a little bit of bias.  The design hooks the viewer, but it’s the writing that encourages them to stay, and the writing that gets the site found in the first place.

We’ve already discussed keywords, and how they operate within the Pay-Per-Click advertising models operated by most search engines.  But what about those websites without advertising budgets?  Free content comprises an enormous chunk of the internet.  Why should those sites care about keywords?

When we turn to our search engine of choice, it’s often with only the vaguest idea of what we’re looking for.  We may not know the right terminology for the service or subject we want, or we might be trying to compare options.  What we enter into the search engine is called a “search term”.  Sometimes we might nail the proper search term, or our attempts to explain ourselves to the search engine might go awry.

To compensate, the engine checks its millions of listings for keyword density – basically, it’s looking for a certain ratio of keywords to the rest of a website’s content.  The more often a site’s written content drops key phrases, the better the density percentage and the more likely it will be indexed in a search.  The engines implement complex algorithms (most of which are trade secrets) to determine the likelihood of a keyword’s relation to your search terms.

Copywriters take keywords into consideration when drafting a site’s content.  They develop lists of likely search terms and identify relevant keywords.  Are those terms common knowledge, or industry lingo?  If the latter, how can they best translate lingo to laymen’s terms?  In answering these questions, the writer may work with an SEO specialist to determine the most popular industry search terms, the most expensive PPC keywords and the desired keyword density.  The website may not plan to advertise, but they can at least increase the density percentage in order to appear in search engine listings.

Once all that raw data has been compiled, the writer opens up their word processor of choice to whip it into appealing content with a searchable keyword density.  A talented writer can keep the readers engaged without drowning them in buzzwords.  I’m still working to master that last trick.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 20th, 2010 at 6:10 pm and is filed under Internet marketing, Marketing Tips, Search Engine Optimization. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.