You might already be a good copywriter and know that there is a difference between writing for the web and well, just writing.
If you don’t, then you definitely should read my post “A few Simple Rules for Writing Effective Web Content”
https://icraftgifts.com/forum/507/a-few-simple-rules-for-writing-effective-web-content/ If those rules were not enough, I am going to add a few more. That’s because writing good web copy doesn’t always mean that its going to be good for search engines as well.
What do I mean by that?
Well, in my post “Writing for the web” I am referring to
writing for humans. SEO copywriting is referring to
writing for machines.
You’d think that writing for machines should be easier than for humans, as there has to be some kind of easy to follow formula. Well, yes and no.
As it turns out not all machines (aka robots) are the same. They all use different algorithms. That’s why a search for one word will return very deferent results from different search engines.
The good news is machines can be somewhat predictable. And search engines are technically "text machines", so they all love clean, structured copy with good keywords.
As with humans, you need to understand human behaviour, in order to write effective copy for them. You also need to understand a little bit how machines behave, in order to be able to optimize your copy for them. However, the rule of thumb is “Write for people, not robots”. What you are writing has to be humanly readable first.
Anyway, so what happens when search engine first encounters new page?
It grabs it and puts it in its index database for further analyses. Over time, it will apply different algorithms to it to determine page ranking. For example, Google doesn't do that in less than 24 hours, so don’t expect to find your new products listed in Google search results page before that.
What search engine is going to do next?
Well, it will scan all page copy, including page links, titles and tags, then calculate the balance of words on the page (depending on the page length), check for keyword stuffing and apply many other complicated rules ... eventually the page will rise or fall as its compared to other pages for the same keywords etc.
OK, I am not going to bore you with too much theory... I think trying things in practice is the best way to learn. So here are few tips for you to start optimizing your product pages:
1. Choose 2 to 4 Key Words/Phrases that best describe your product and enter them in the Tags field, starting with your strongest Key phrase. These will ensure your Key Phrases are used as hyperlinks. Choose relevant keywords.
Don’t use keywords that don’t have anything to do with your product.
Because products can be very specific, you can use more specific Key Phrases to describe them.
Don’t use generic terms like “Jewelry”, as those are broad terms that better suited for “Jewelry” category page, not to mention that millions of others optimize for this Key Phrase.
Some argue that you should optimize page for one Key Phrase only. More on that later.
I’ll also write a separate post on how to choose Key phrases properly.
2. Now review your product title and try to incorporate your strongest Key Phrase into it.
Don’t force it! Place it with precision. Title still has to be very descriptive and sound like it’s written for a human.
3. Repeat your strongest Key Phrase and, if possible, tree others in your product description.
Position them near the top of the page or placed them as the first words of the product description.
Just don’t overload copy with Key Phrases! Repeat them once or twice, depending how much copy you have under product description. Usually it’s quite short, so you might not need to repeat those Key Phrases at all..
4. There is no hard rule, but try to keep your Keyword Density about 5/100, meaning 5 Key Words/Phrases per 100 words.
5. Search engines ignore punctuation, so you can split a Key Phrase with punctuation. Example: if your chosen Key Phrase is “Silver Earrings”, you can have two sentences splitting one Key Phrase like this “I work with silver. Earring that you see on the photo...”
OK, this is a good start, but we are not done yet.
Actually, this is just the beginning. So stay tuned! More to come...
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