SEO copywriting: what is it?

Before giving the definition of search engine copywriting (SEO copywriting) we should speak about SEO in general. Search engine optimization (SEO ) is a set of activities aimed at internal and external optimization of a website for its further promotion in the search engines.

SEO includes increasing the number of backlinks referring to your site, optimization of the internal structure of the site, and what is the most important – work with the keywords. And it is SEO copywriting that is responsible for the optimization of the keywords content on the website pages..

SEO copywriting is a type of copywriting devoted to creation of texts optimized for the Web. The goal of SEO copywriting is to get unique content that is understandable for the readers and at the same time contains all necessary keywords in the specified proportions.

The need in search engine optimization copywriting is stipulated by one of the most important tasks of website evolvement – its promotion in the search engines. According to the operating principle of the search engines the TOP of the search engine results is comprised of the sites that are the most relevant to the user's query. SEO copywriting improves the relevance of the site page to a particular search query, therefore it increases the position of the site in the search engine results by this query.

Why are TOP positions in the search results so important for websites? When an Internet user uses a search engine to search for the information he is interested in, he very rarely looks through the search results that are situated on the third, fourth, fifth page etc. Usually users pay their attention to the first ten websites that are situated on the first page of the search engine results. These ten sites are called TOP 10 of the search engine results.

The overwhelming majority of the visitors of most sites consists of the users who have found the site by a certain search query. If the site is in the TOP by this query, the number of such visitors increases, the popularity of the site grows.

Peculiarities of SEO copywriting

Search engine optimization copywriting has its own specific requirements that should be met by all texts. Firstly, the text must be unique. If the text is not unique, its value for the search engine tends to zero. Recommended amount of text is about 300-500 words.

It is highly advisable to divide the text into short paragraphs for the convenience of the readers. Bulleted and numbered lists also make perception of the text easier.

Keywords density in the text should equal approximately 5-7%. Search engines may interpret higher density as spam, and lower density will not give effective result.

It is better to use two-word phrases as keywords because the queries entered by Internet users most often consist of two words.

Keywords in the text should be set off with the help of special tags: <strong>, <b>, <em> etc. You must use the keywords in the meta-tags of the page: keywords, description.

It is also advisable to use keywords in the tags of the headings <h1>-<h6> as well as in the title of the page (<title> meta-tag). The search engine consider the words that are set off this way more significant and important.

The number of characters in the title and description of the page is strictly determined according to SEO copywriting requirements. For instance the length of the title should be no more than 70-80 characters, it is not recommended to use punctuation marks and various decorative symbols there.

The page description must consist of no more than 170-260 symbols; it should explain the content of the page to the visitors in a laconic form.

Such elements of the page content as images are also very important from the point of view of search engine optimization copywriting. The “alt” attribute of the images is taken into account by the search engines during the search in the images and general ranking of pages, therefore it is recommended to fill this attribute with the keywords.

The most important factors that influence on the links on a web page are the text of the link (anchor text) and its surrounding. It is not recommended to “stuff” the anchor text of the link with a lot of keywords; the surrounding of the link must me thematic.

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seo copywriting, search engine optimization copywriting, keywords, copywriting, seo copywriting requirements