How Do I Write Site Content For Both Users & Search Engines?

The text on your website showcases your company’s reputation and lets the user know exactly what you offer and where. But if you’re looking into carrying out SEO on your site, you’ll also need to make sure that the copy on each of your pages is structured and tailored towards your broader search campaign – this is part of the process we call ‘onsite optimisation’ and can make or break your site’s success.

There are different factors the search engine spiders take into account when deciding how to index your site. Most importantly, they’ll need to work which search queries they’ll display your site for, and they do this by taking a look at the keywords scattered throughout your pages (and within your meta data and header tags).

Once you’ve carried out keyword research at the start of your SEO, you’ll need to take a good look at all the text on your site and make sure it includes these search terms often enough to signal to the search engine crawlers that your site deserves to rank highly for them.

A lot of amateur SEOs think this means repeatedly cramming these keywords into every nook and cranny of their site. This used to work several years ago – unfortunately, though, Google’s algorithms have become a lot more sophisticated, especially in the wake of a few transformational updates, and any site found to use these kinds of ‘keyword stuffing’ techniques to try and cheat the system will now be penalised (meaning the domain will drop off the rankings and you’ll find it very hard to recover your positions).

The science of onsite SEO now lies in finding the balance between ‘spammy’ and ‘relevant’. SEOs and online marketers are always debating the ideal keyword density for any given page (ie the amount of times your keywords are repeated in comparison to the rest of the copy), but generally you should never aim to exceed a keyword density of 3%. When calculating your keyword density, make sure you don’t count header tags and other HTML components that won’t actually be displayed in the text itself when the page is set live.  More information about working out your keyword density can be found here.

The most important thing to remember when it comes to writing copy for your website is that, regardless of your intentions as far as SEO is concerned, real people will be reading your work. They’ll expect your copy to give them all the information they need to decide whether to purchase from you or not, and if they’re confronted with badly-written jargon that’s been developed for a computer programme, they’re likely to go elsewhere to find the answers they need. Presenting them with obvious calls to actions and contact details is still crucial, as if they’re interested in your company they’ll need to know which number to call or who to email, so mention these in your copy where possible and ensure this info is displayed clearly on your site (perhaps in the header banner or next to your logo).

You’ll also need to consider other criteria within your content, such as anchor text links, but we’ll publish more information on these in our next post!

Freelance SEO Essex can provide you with optimised copy, regardless of your industry sector. We can work with you to produce content that not only sells, but sets your SEO campaign up for the best chance of success. Our copywriters have worked with some of the country’s biggest brands and know exactly what it takes to create engaging site content, blog posts, articles, press releases, editorials and more. Just give us a call to learn more!