Hatton Marketing

When you’re writing the words for your website there is so much to think about. What shall I write? Is it too much? Does it make sense? Have I got the message right…? And oh yeah… will it be good for Google?

At the end of the day you’ll only be needing to worry about your content if someone is going to read it, and to get people to read it the copy has to be attractive to the search engines too. It is important therefore that you make it as easy as possible for search engines to find you and rank you highly on relevant, converting terms.

So why are the words you write important to getting you up in the search engines’ rankings? The keywords in the content of your site are searched for by relevance. They are then ranked against the thousands or millions of other sites all competing with you on ranking for the same keywords.

Search engines use ‘spiders’ which use extremely clever, mathematical algorithms to assess your website content. So you need to make your site easy for the spiders to understand. They can only read text – not pictures – so it’s important you steer clear of those fancy websites with lots of animation, which are built using Flash. These websites admittedly look great, but to a spider, they are just an empty website.

Here are our top tips on creating visitor and Google-friendly copy.

Plan:

• What will you write on each page? What are you trying to achieve? You must understand what you want people to do once they are on that page whether it be to buy a product, see you as the expert, enquire about your services…
• Know what your keywords are. This is a project in itself but it’s vital to get this right to make sure you come up for the right terms that people are actually searching for. Consider the possibilities of what Joe Bloggs would search for when looking for your product/service.
• How can you help your clients? If you don’t fully understand your clients’ needs or they can’t clearly see how you can help then you’re not getting the message across to them. Get to the root of their problems and talk about how you can help them solve them.

Writing top tips:

• Keep it natural – if you wouldn’t say it face to face, don’t write it on your website.
• Relevance – make sure you are talking about the same subject on each page. Stick to one topic and keyword per page to make it clear for the spiders (and humans).
• Captivate your audience from the beginning. The first line of your copy is the most powerful and is the one that sells.
• Offer solutions to problems – Don’t talk about the features of the business but the benefits you offer your customers. People are lazy online and want to know about how you will help them, and instantly. Always ask yourself, ‘how will this benefit my customers?’ And be realistic about the answer.
• Keep it interesting – Don’t fill it full of jargon… unless your customers will understand that.
• Give your copy the energy and passion you have about your business.
• Ask for a response – is it clear what you want people to do?
• Put yourself in the shoes of someone who has never visited your site before. Are your messages clear?
• Reassure your customer by showing you know what you are talking about, worth their money and offer money back guarantees, testimonials. People buy from companies they trust, especially in the current market.
• Keep it readable – paragraphs, bullet points and key anchor points to make it easier for the eye.
• Bold, italic and underlining and are classic ways of formatting but serve their purpose of highlighting the important thoughts and points.

Important:

• Don’t forget your human visitor. Whilst it is important your copy is friendly to search engines, once your customers get there it is important they understand what you do and they are attracted to your product/service.
• Take a break, all copy should be reviewed, revised and rewritten. No one gets it right first time around. Ty6pos, speling mistakes or putting in the wrong contact details looks unprofessional and mean you may miss out on potential sales. :)

Keywords:

• Having found out what your keywords are, integrate them discreetly into your text. Do not shoehorn as many keywords as possible as that will undoubtedly mean the overall copy doesn’t make sense – use them in a natural, balanced manner throughout the page. Adding too many will not only confuse your customers but search engine spiders don’t like it either.
• Human visitors tend to only read the heading before deciding if they want to read on or not. Spend plenty of time getting your header right, include your main keyword and your company name where possible.

Amount of content

• Make sure there are at least 400 – 600 words on each page (don’t go below 200) not only to make sure you allow yourself enough space to get your message across but also to include keywords.
• Don’t waffle, it will just make your site look irrelevant and won’t captivate your readers.
• Keep your copy informative, to the point and engaging for your reader
• If it’s worth saying, say it.