SEO Copywriting - Write at Your Own Risk
Posted by Steve Lazuka on Sun, Feb 15, 2009
Just like anything in life, sometimes when we watch a professional perform a difficult task with great ease, we make the mistake of thinking "hey, i can do that!" It may be a professional sports player, a politician, or perhaps a master chef. Whatever the difficulty level of the task may be, when we watch from a distance, it's our human nature to think that if they can do it, than so can we.
When it comes to great seo copywriting, it's no different. Many online business owners our there see a great article ranking at the top of the search engines for their competitive keywords... and they think, "hey, i can do that!" It's understandable why site owners would think this. After all, it's just an article - some words on a page. It's not rocket science. You just sit down and write an article. Oh yeah, you put some keywords in the article too. (They usually understand that keywords are important somehow.) It's not rocket science - right?
SEO Copywriting - More Than Meets the Eye
Just like watching that professional sports player perform a task with seeming ease, we don't see all the months and years of constant physical training and practice that led up to that moment. What site owners who think seo content writing is easy usually don't see at first glance, is all the knowledge and skill that goes into a truly successful content creation effort that not only results in traffic, but will actually get people to take action on their site.
Great seo copywriting is not just about creating great content that people will actually want to read. It's also about developing it in a way that is PROPERLY optimized for search engines. Proper research must be done to find the best keywords to target that are not searched too little so as to be worthless, or so much that they're too competitive. Both scenarios result in wasted effort.
Title Tag
The title of the article is absolutely critical to the success of the article - not only for people but for search engines as well. However, usually the title is just an after-thought. Working the keyword into the title in a way that is still appropriate for humans, but that the search engines will also appreciate is way harder than it looks at first glance.
Research
Thoughtful research about the topic needs to be done before ever putting pen to paper to ensure your content is accurate and conveys trust and professionalism to your readers.
Keywords
Incorporating the keywords into the body of the content also needs to be done carefully so as not to sound awkward to humans... and perhaps results in an over-optimization penalty from Google.
Landing Page Design
And let's not forget about proper landing page design to ensure that once people land on your new content, it's easy for them to take action on your site. After all - that is the end goal.
I've seen this exact scenario play out over the past 8 years in numerous cases. In most cases, people either try writing their own content, or hire a freelance writer that has little to no training in the art and science of seo writing. Usually they spend a lot of time and effort developing low-grade content that not only doesn't help them, but actually may hurt them. After seeing no increase in their search engine traffic several months later, they realize they aren't getting anywhere and either give up, or start looking for a more professional team to take over the task.
As we talk about seo related issues each day with a wide variety of business owners, our primary goal is always to try and educate them about all that goes into our professional seo copywriting service. The good news is, as time goes on, we are starting to see that more and more site owners are realizing just how crucial their content is to their overall strategy for success online... and are beginning to understand that sometimes, difficult tasks are best left to the professionals.
Do it Yourself
Of course, if you are good at writing, and understand all the nuances involved with proper search engine optimization, than go for it! Hiring an outside team for your seo copywriting needs is not always the answer in every case... but just be sure to do a reality check and you're not making the common mistake of thinking "hey - that looks easy enough"... be ready and willing to spend the time and effort required to develop high quality content that ranks high in the search engines.