How to Write SEO Web Copy That Appeals to Customers and Crawlers

• Tweet

In the analytics-driven, strategically charged world of search, it can sometimes be a little too easy to start feeling like a robot. After all, that’s who reads your text, right? Well…sort of.

Alternatively, it can also be a little too easy to forget about robots and just write for your human visitors, throwing keyword research and SEO strategy out the window. After all, you’re being genuine! And writing from the heart! And people really like that (this is true).

But…writing from the heart doesn’t always boost those elusive organic search engine rankings. And writing for robots isn’t exactly a huge draw for your living, breathing, emotionally-driven customers that don’t have a predictably higher chance of buying designer handbags from you the more (discount designer handbags) times you (best designer handbags) throw a long-tail keyword (designer handbag prices)at them. If only it were that easy!

So how do you write for both people and search engine crawlers?

• Write with your target audience in mind. If you really get into the minds of your target audience, you’ll likely find that your content will naturally flow toward the things they’ll be searching for (and finding in your content), and having content with keywords that relate to one another will show search engines that your content is relevant to your niche.

• But having a hunch about your customer isn’t enough. You still have to do your research – keyword research, that is. Once you’ve really envisioned everything about your target customer, who they are, what they like and don’t like, the way they speak, any detail you can possibly think of, you want to make sure you further reinforce your SEO relevance by including long-tail keywords in your content.

Notice we use the word including, rather than stuffing.

An unfortunately common misconception about SEO is that the more keywords you can cram into your text, the better. But remember how awkward and, frankly, awful that ‘designer handbag’ sentence was? Site crawlers don’t like that sort of thing either. Not only are you likely to scare away your visitors, but you’re sending the message to search engines that you’re all about the spam, and that’s a quick ticket to sending your site to the bottom of the barrel, authority-wise.

If you can keep a clear picture of your target customer in mind while simultaneously remembering to include relevant, specific keywords throughout your content, you’ll be off to a great start. Focusing on just a few specific terms per page or post will help improve your rankings for those terms, rather than trying to include everything you can think of in every sentence.

By regularly updating your site’s content with a focus on both a particular angle of your content and the needs of your customer, you’ll be able to provide valuable content that:

• taps into your customer’s emotions (which also develops trust, a sense of relationship with you and a higher likelihood for purchase and continued visitor loyalty), and
• simultaneously shows search engine crawlers that they should pay attention to you.

Hopefully you’ve found these SEO copywriting tips useful and feel better prepared to confidently walk the line between content for your visitors, and keywords for search engines. Now get writing!

Lesley DeSantis is an Internet Marketing Associate at Measured SEM, a Search Engine Marketing company focused on providing measurable results to businesses through PPC services, blogging and SEO audit services.

• Bio
• Latest Posts

DST Contributor

Latest posts by DST Contributor (see all)

• Survival Guide to Multilingual SEO - May 14, 2013
• Five Killer Link Bait Tips That Can Provide You With ‘Passive Marketing’ - May 11, 2013
• 5 US SEO Events to Visit to Spend a One Month Vacation with Purpose - May 9, 2013