One of my biggest struggles as a writer is keeping my copy concise and to the point. I am the queen of long winded copy, because it allows me to let loose my thoughts, opinions and knowledge. But I realize that just because I find my “flow of consciousness” style interesting, doesn’t mean my audience does.

So the last time I wrote copy for a website I made it a point to be as concise and to the point as possible. And you know what? That stuff STILL came out longer than I wanted! So I’ve come to the conclusion that I suck at concise copy, and it’s something I need to work on.

The Web Copy Light at the End of the Tunnel

Then I came across a guest post on Graywolf’s SEO blog about how much you should be willing to pay for good copy. The post is a great read (nice job Malcolm!) and it opened my eyes to things that have been in the back of my mind, but I never wound up giving voice to.

People love to preach about “short” copy on the web, because people only read 18 words out of a 100 and you only have so many words to catch their interest, blah, blah blah…but the bottom-line is that if your writing is compelling and your tone engaging, then there’s a good chance you’ll keep the reader’s interest and get them to read exactly what you want.  In other words – your web copy can be as long as it needs to be!

The Littlest Tweak Can Make a Huge Difference

In reading that post, which was full of linky goodness, I clicked through to read Dustin Curtis’s “You Should Follow Me on Twitter.” It’s basically a case study on how just a few tweaks to a very short sentence increased his clickthrough rate by over 170%.

Literally, by changing the call to action at the end of his posts from “I’m on Twitter” to “You should follow me on twitter here.” he saw a 173% increase in clickthroughs to his account.

It’s amazing to me the power a few words can have…. He took a rather static, dull statement, added some persuasive force and voila! A veritable flood of clicks!

Writing Web Copy that Achieves Your Goals

There’s no right or wrong answer to writing copy on the web (IMO)…it’s all about who you’re writing for and what your overall goal is – what do you want those people to do. That’s what should determine how you write your copy.

For example, when I think of the 3 main types of web writing I do, I realize I have a different tone/style for each.

SEO Copy – this is typically for ranking purposes – I’m trying to optimize the copy to rank for as many long tail keywords as possible. My writing tends to be more professional, but can get a bit long because of my method of optimizing content. Of course, I’m ALSO trying to write copy that will help conversions, so there’s a fine balance to writing good SEO copy and making sure it’s persuasive to the reader.

Landing Page Copy - this is usually for PPC campaigns, and so my biggest focus is writing copy that will convert (or sell) visitors – or at least draw a clear and persuasive picture of the path and actions we want them to take on the site. I don’t have to worry about rankings, so this copy tends to be a bit shorter in some cases.

Blogs – there’s pretty much an infinite number of purposes or reasons for blogging. Your style should change depending on your purpose. For example, I tend to write blogs jut to share my opinion – so I kick back and write in my own voice, the same one I used to breeze through my Creative Writing courses in College. Does it work for a blog? I don’t know…but I sure have fun writing it!

I’ll Say It Till I’m Blue In The Face…

Web copy is IMPORTANT! Muy, muy importante! And yet so many people don’t think they should pay top dollar for quality writing. After all…everyone can write, right? Um yeah… I guess that’s why an experienced freelance writer can make over $50 and hour….

As promised, here’s Part 2 of my SEO Content Writing series…check out part one here: SEO Content Writing Part 1.

SEO Content Is Under Appreciated…

Typically, most clients don’t understand just how much SEO content can help their rankings. It’s really all about the terms you want to rank for. SEO’d content helps you rank for more long tail terms. And typically, long tail keywords send more relevant traffic to your website. By relevant I mean people who need what you offer and are more likely to convert to leads, sales, etc.

We’ve seen time and time again how many long tail keywords a site can rank well for just by having the right keywords sprinkled throughout their content.

Of course, I’m in NO way saying that SEO’d content is all you need to rank. There are tons of other factors that go into getting your site ranked for various keywords…SEO content writing is just one aspect of it, but an important one when it comes to long tail rankings.

A Few More Tips For SEO Content

I did promise a few additional tips, didn’t I? To get the first few, go back and read my other post (it’s fairly quick and painless, I promise.)

A few other things to keep in mind when writing content for SEO:

• Use your main keywords in your <h1>, <h2> and <h3> tags…and even <h4> if you got ‘em. Google sees this as a headings, and will usually see them first – they hold a bit more emphasis then body text.
• Bold the use of your keywords once or twice through out your copy.
• Include keywords in the file names and alt tags of any images.
• ABOVE ALL: make sure your content is genuinely useful and relevant information – that’s really what Google is looking for!

Cool SEO Content Tools & Resources

When I first started writing optimized content for clients, I used a very cool tool from SEOmoz called Term Target, that would basically give you a letter grade on how well you optimized your content for a chosen keyword. You basically put in the url of your content, enter the keyword you were targeting, and hit the button to run.

Within seconds you get a “grade” and suggestions on how to improve your grade. Once you’ve run this enough times, you basically memorize what your pages should include to get a good grade, but it’s an awesome tool if your still learning the ropes.

As a newbie in the world of web copy (for both SEO and sales/marketing stuff) I lived and breathed CopyBlogger.com. They’ve got a couple great posts about SEO copywriting that really helped me grasp the concept to begin with. While there are other blogs that may have more comprehensive info on the subject, CopyBlogger will always be near and dear to my heart!

Many people don’t realize how important optimizing your content can be for your SEO. While link building with relevant anchor text is one of the major factors, proper on page optimization, including SEO content, is crucial to your organic rankings.

The first question any business owner/CEO/SEO/marketer should ask themselves when entering the wide world of search engine optimization is “what are the best terms my site should rank for and why should I rank?”

In our experience, most people would reply “I want #1 rankings for the keywords that get the most searches because I want tons of site traffic!”

And as an SEO content writer, I would have to humbly disagree. All the traffic in the world isn’t going to help your site if it doesn’t lead to more business.

You see, the key word missing from their reply is “relevant.” What you want are rankings for RELEVANT keywords that send RELEVANT traffic. From there you can actually write RELEVANT SEO content! After all, if you sell Christmas decorations, you’re not going to see much in the way of relevant traffic if you rank #1 for just Christmas or just decorations. People searching those terms individually could be looking for just about anything!

Relevance in SEO Content Writing

Once you understand the importance of relevance, it’s time to gather a list of the MOST relevant keyword searches with the MOST amount of traffic. You should only focus on one keyword silo per page – so for instance, one page would focus on the silo “Christmas decorations” while another could focus on “holiday decorations”.

By keeping these silos on different pages, you can more easily tell the search engines what you think each page should rank for, and plan your content and SEO accordingly.

So using various keyword research tools (I love the Google Adwords Keyword Tool myself, but the Search-Based Tool and Wordtracker tools are good too), you want to collect a list of all keyword terms containing both words “Christmas” and “decorations” and sort by search volume.

Take your top 5-10 most searched terms and voila! You’ve got a list of keywords you want to use in your SEO content.

More to SEO Content Writing Than Meets the Eye

Of course, there’s more to optimizing SEO content then just throwing keywords all over the content. For one, keyword stuffing is definitely a no-no in Google’s eyes, and secondly, it makes content REALLY rough to read. So there’s a balance.

Write enough content (400-600 words is typically ideal) so that you can comfortably use combinations of your top 5 keywords without it looking unnatural or stilted.

There’s certainly some more goodies I can share about writing SEO content, but I think I’ll stop there for now. As you can see, this is only Part 1! Stay tuned for Part 2 in the next couple weeks, and in the meantime, feel free to ask questions and I’ll do my best to answer them in my next post!

SEO Content Writing Recap

1. Conduct keyword research to find relevant keywords to rank for (think about what prospective customers would search for).
2. Pick one keyword silo per page of content (or 2 REALLY closely related ones).
3. Incorporate the top 5 or so most searched for terms in different combinations within your content.
4. Do NOT keyword stuff – 400-600 words should make it easy to naturally tie in 5+ keyword combinations.
5. Come back sometime in January to see my follow up post and learn more about optimizing your SEO content.

If there’s one thing that most designers will tell you is important when designing a page, it’s that all of the important content should be “above the fold.”  It’s a common practice that dates back to when humans read something called “newspapers.”

These archaic gray monstrosities were often printed on thin paper and folded right in the middle.  Therefore, it was standard practice to put the most important content “above the fold.”

The difficult thing about designing above the fold on the internet is… well, we never know exactly where the fold is!  Nevermind the fact that most people use a variety of screen resolutions, ranging from the dreadful 800 x 600 up to the glorious 2560 x 1600. On top of that, people also can have an unknown variable of toolbars.  Currently, I have 3 toolbars on my 1680 x 1050 monitor, cutting out about 85 pixels from the top of my browser.

So what can a designer do?  Typically, the thought is to design a page for the least common denominator, assuming that your average viewer will be looking at your page on their grandmother’s 13in. CRT display.  This means putting all the stuff you deem as important up at the top and all the rest slapped down at the bottom.  The obvious problem to this is that it will look weird on regular monitors.

So what can you do?

First, you can take a look at your site statistics and figure out what percentage of users are looking at your page with various resolutions. If no one is looking at your site at 800 x 600, don’t worry about designing for them!

Second, you can determine which parts you absolutely want above the fold, like a call-to-action form, and place that higher up on the page. Then you don’t have to worry about whether or not you have an H1 and an H2 above the fold.

Third, and most importantly, you can ignore the problem altogether and read this interesting article about whether or not “designing above the fold” is worth the effort. The article comes with heatmaps and actual user testing.

Read this article…it’s worth your time.

I highly suggest reading this article and making your own opinion.  The most important thing that I took away from it is that your site should have enough important, relevant content on the page that makes me actually want to scroll down the page.

Imagine that?  People will scroll down the page if there’s interesting content!

It sounds so simple, but I think it’s a concept that most people forget.  If you have interesting and relevant content on your page – information that people are actually looking for – it won’t be a chore for them to read it.

Then, your content will be digested by more people and visitors to your site will stay longer, improving your bounce rate. That will help the overall ranking of your site.

So as a designer, this is an exciting revelation. Great content makes or breaks a page, not the designer!  Well, I’m off to forward this article to our copywriter.  The burden is all on you from now on, Ashley!  Guess I’m off to lunch now.

It’s pretty pathetic when the “content manager” of an internet marketing company has very few posts on said company’s blog. So, I’m trying to rectify the situation. It’s time to step up, put my blogging hat on, and get to work. I’ve been told by many different people that I’m a good writer…but I personally don’t feel as though I’ve actually proven it. Sure, I’ve written some articles, posts, website copy and even ebooks, but a lot of the stuff I write that I really like never winds up seeing the light of day.

So I’m making 2009 my “year of blogging.” Get ready to start seeing me crank out more content, both on this site and hopefully as a guest poster for several other sites.

Of course, we can’t all be rockstars and write rockstar posts like David Brown. Mainly because if all of us were as confident (read:cocky) as Brown here in the office, our heads wouldn’t actually fit through our doors. (Sorry Brown, you know I love you!). Besides, when you’ve reached a certain level of success and made connections the way he has, you deserve to be a bit cocky.

That being said, I wanted to set out and make my first post of 2009 an awesome one. So I sat down to think about what I wanted to write about. And I sat. And I sat. And then I ate something. And then I sat some more.

Ahh, Writer’s Block 2009

And, just my luck, I got smacked in the face with a big bag of writer’s block. As a writer, especially in the SEO world, it often feels like everything has been said before. And it has, with the exception of when you’re lucky enough to be the first on top of a breaking news story.

For instance – there are THOUSANDS of articles on writing and writer’s block, but here I am, writing the 54,873rd post on it. Because when it comes down to it, it’s not so much about what you’re saying, but how you’re saying it. It’s about engaging your readers and keeping them interested.

It’s about your writing voice – does yours flow? Is it fun to read? Or are you a big bore? I don’t have a magic answer that will instantly make your writing more interesting. However, I do have one big suggestion, one that not only got me over my writer’s block but has helped me to develop my own voice and style as I grew up.

And the 10 Steps Are…

But before I give you my suggestion, I would take a peek at Brian Clark’s “10 Steps to Becoming A Better Writer,” a short post he did on Copyblogger back in 2007. I agree with his post, but I think he could add 10 more steps:

1. Read.
2. Read more.
3. Read even more.
4. Read even more than that.
5. Read when you don’t want to.
6. Read when you do.
7. Read when you have something to learn.
8. Read when you don’t.
9. Read every day.
10. Keep reading.

I read. A lot. Blogs, articles, magazines, the occasional newspaper, you name it, I’ve read it. But I believe it is my love for fiction, both quality AND trashy fiction, that has really given me my writing skills. I probably read at least 1-2 novels a week, sometimes short, sometimes long. Shoot, I’ve banged out 4 this week alone (I don’t get much sleep). Literary novels. Romance novels. Fantasy and Sci-Fi. Christian Fic. Mysteries and horror. You name it, I read it.

I gained a large vocabulary from reading (nevermind that I can’t pronounce half of it). I gained an instinctive feel for grammar and spelling (not that I am anywhere near perfect, grammatically speaking). Most importantly, I’ve developed a style all my own by voraciously consuming other authors’ styles.

Keep It Short, Sweet and To The Point

So how did I overcome my writer’s block? I read. Mostly blogs this time around. And suddenly, I felt the urge to write. Granted this blog post is unnecessarily long but hey…it’s the first of 2009. Cut me some slack.

Perhaps next time I’ll write on the importance of keeping blog posts short and sweet. That is definitely something I need to work on. New Year’s resolution: Keep blog posts under 500 words, unless it’s really, really important.

So, I will easily admit I am a MySpace, Facebook, and “About” page stalker. I use the first 2 to keep up with friends and former acquaintances and acquaintances of acquaintances that I don’t actually talk to on a regular basis.

Yes, I want to know if you broke up with your girlfriend or boyfriend. And yes, I want to see if the girl I knew in high school is now fat. I know, I know, it’s such a female thing to do and it’s so wrong, but I still can’t shake that satisfied feeling seeing girls I may have been just a bit jealous of in high school or college get fat and ugly. I’m not proud of it, really I’m not, and given my values and morals, it’s SO wrong…but bad habits die hard.

It also makes me feel better about being the ugly duckling. I got finer with time baby, and most of them didn’t!

So anyway, my 2nd favorite form of stalking happens to be checking out people’s About pages on their website. If I’m gonna read your blog and/or site, I want to know more about you. Keyword there is YOU. I want to know more about YOU as a person. Yes, you can write about your credentials, but when it comes down to it, if I’m going to admire you and look up to your expertise and perhaps buy your product or service, I wanna know the real you.

I want to know how old you are, your relationship status, if you have kids. I want to know if you have skeletons in your closet, if you overcame some crazy obstacles to get where you are today. And you know what? If your spiritual life is important to you, be it Christian, Buddhist or Jewish, I wanna know about that too. I respect that kind of stuff, b/c it makes you seem more personal and accessible.

An About page that reads like an awards page, or a resume is…well, it’s boring. And yeah, I understand if you’re going for a very professional image, you don’t want to include that stuff. That’s fine, it’s your choice, but you just lost some points in my eyes.

I suppose I’m writing this with the Internet/Search Marketing and SEO world in mind. Anyone whose blog or site I come across, be sure that I’ll read your About page. And to those whose pages I leave feeling as though I know a little bit about you as a person, THANK YOU!

I thought I’d include my list of favorite and least favorite About pages in the world of Search.

The Least Interesting About Page Awards Go To:

#3: ShoeMoney’s Bio – To be honest, the main reason ShoeMoney made the list is cuz his writing style is pretty damn entertaining, but his bio seems a bit lacking. However, I will give him props for having some personal posts up.

#2: Graywolf AKA Michael Gray – Graywolf cracks me up, especially when he rips into Google, so I know his About page could be a bit juicier.

And the award for the #1 least interesting About page (to me at least) goes to…

Mr. Andy Beal (& Marketing Pilgrim) – Cool accent & great writing aside, Mr. Beal’s About pages read a bit too much like a resume.

But don’t sweat it guys, I still love (and read) your sites!

Now let’s move on to the best!

The Most Interesting About Page Awards Go To:

#3 Rae Hoffman AKA Sugarrae – Her About page has some cool personal info, but what really makes her #3 on the list was sharing her very personal story of how/why she got into internet marketing in the first place. It’s impossible not to respect her for her strength and fortitude after reading that!

#2 Jonathan Volk – Okay, so I just love that he mentions his girl. I’m a chick, so sue me. Also, I may be biased, since I’m very openly Christian as well and love when people aren’t ashamed to admit it in public!

And the award for the #1 most interesting About page goes to…

Mr. Aaron Wall! – A bit on the longish side, but it keeps you hooked. Aaron has definitely led a hard knock life at times, and I gotta say it’s refreshing to see that even successful people have made some stupid decisions or mistakes in their lives.

There you have it…the best and the worst About pages in the SEO world. These also happen to be some of my favorite sites, but hey, that’s just a coincidence, I promise….

I know I missed some good ones though…any About pages you all can think of that are either great or suck?

One of the things I love most about my role as content copywriter here at PMX is writing for the web. Why? Simple: it is (99% of the time) SO MUCH MORE LAID BACK THAN PRINT!

Take my title for instance – on a blog, article, whitepaper, etc it can easily just be called “Writing for the Web”. But if I were writing a technical document, or research paper or whatever that would wind up in a study or book somewhere, it would wind up with the latter half of the title. Screw that!

Give me shortened, concise wording. Give me slang, and bullet points and headers and subheaders. Give me paragraphs that are only 2-3 sentences long and a medium where my personality can really come through. GIVE ME WRITING FOR THE WEB!

Ok, ok, don’t get it twisted – I’m a nerd through and through. I LOVE reading (trashy fic is my fav) and I was the girl in college that LOVED her lit classes and righting (or maybe writing?) 15-20 page literary analysis papers. I can write “technically” with the best of them. But if I had to do it every day, I’d probably shoot myself.

Lucky for me, the Web opens wordsmiths like myself up to a whole new style of writing. A style where it’s okay to use slang, and okay to write casually, even for a business website! A style where one day you feel like writing something long, technical and professional and that’s okay! But it’s even better when the next day you write a humorous piece about why doing SEO is like dating the fat chick in high school. (No, I haven’t written that piece yet, but I surely am tempted to).

But for real, writing on the web is always an experience and your style of writing should always depend on your audience. THAT’S the important thing to keep in mind as a copywriter for websites. It’s all about your AUDIENCE. What moves and motivates them? What interests them? What bores them or pisses them off?

And most importantly – what’s going to catch their attention and keep ‘em reading? Sometimes you hit it dead on…and sometimes you miss…then again, that’s what makes it all the more interesting.

I came across a study on reading and writing on the web – it’s pretty old, but it’s still got some oldie but goodie points. Check it out if you want a quick refresher on how to write for web stuff. I may not agree with every single bit of it, but it’s definitely got some good stuff.

So c’mon, copywriters, can I get an Amen or what?