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You write great copy.
You are in no doubt that readers will be spellbound by your magic.
They will have no choice but to read from the title, all the way down to your call to action and click the big button.
But your page doesn’t see as many visitors as it deserves. Why does that happen?
Probably because, like many others, you also believe that search traffic just “happens”.
Yes, search traffic happens but only if you produce top-quality, unique and user oriented content and don’t make it impossible to find.
Every website and blog gets most of its traffic from the search engines. Search engines like unique and quality content, which you have already written it.
Now, with these little tweaks, we will make it search engine friendly (i.e. SEO Copywriting).
1. Add keywords in the title
Learn the art of writing magnetic headlines – it’s your first and last chance of getting a click.
The first thing search engines come across is also your headline. Without the keywords in the title, you are driving without a license plate.
There are countless keyword tools that can give you an idea of what people are keying in. But Google’s Keyword Tool, is free and very powerful.
Most people would suggest choosing long tail keywords with relatively high volume of search and relatively low competition – a good ploy. But make sure the keyword you are choosing is ‘productive’.
Suppose you are a sales letter expert, and are writing a landing page for your services. The keyword ‘how to write a sales letter’ is useless for your page, no matter it gets a lot of hits and has little competition. Alternatively, the keyword ‘sales letter writer’ is ideal, even if it has a lot of competition.
2. Bring the keyword to the beginning of the title
Search engines give more value to the first two or three words in the Page Title. Luckily, your headline and page title don’t have to be the same.
So you can make use of this flexibility and bring the keyword to the start of the title for a better rank.
Keep your title length up to 72 characters. If it’s longer, only the first 72 characters will be displayed – reducing the chances of click-through.
3. Include keywords in meta description
Meta description appears in the snippet of your page that search engines display in the organic search results:
Writers Blog
It should be intriguing and promising the reader to satisfy his thirst for knowledge about the search query. Don’t forget to include your keywords.
Recommended length of meta description is under 166 characters.
4. Consider keyword frequency
Keyword frequency simply means the number of times your keyword appears in the copy.
Another interchangeable term for keyword frequency is keyword density. Keyword density means the ratio of keyword frequency to the total word-count.
In the past, high frequency usually guaranteed a higher ranking but now the search engines consider it spamming and may penalize, or even ban the page.
Though there is no golden rule for keyword frequency, it is wise to let them appear naturally a few times.
5. Keep visitors on the page for longer
Long gone are the days when some con artists abused the search engines by stuffing keywords in the title that were absolutely irrelevant to the content of the page.
If the users click away from your page quickly after finding it in the organic search, it can harm your ranking big-time.
Measure your Average Time on Page through Google Analytics and try to increase it.
6. Keep it media rich
People like media rich pages. Google understands this fact and, especially after the Panda Update, it offers more value to the pages that have images, videos and other graphics.
Among all the options available, images still remain to be the most popular one. If you are using them, don’t forget to add keyword in the “Alt” tag. It will increase the likelihood of your images appearing in the image search.
7. Add internal links
Adding links to other pages allows the so-called ‘Link Juice’ to flow freely within the pages.
Only link to the relevant pages and try to use appropriate keywords as the anchor text, but never compromise on the natural flow.
Adding an internal link after every 100-150 words is generally accepted as a good practice. But links appearing early in the copy have more weightage.
8. Add outbound links
Don’t be afraid of linking to relevant, high-quality external resources.
Always link to pages that have good reputation i.e. a high PageRank. If you are scared of losing your link juice, you can use ‘nofollow’ tag with the outbound links – though I don’t recommend it.
Another smart approach is to add a few internal links before an outbound link appears.
9. Make readers browse more pages
Nowadays, search engines use countless factors to evaluate a page. And user behavior is believed to be a major element.
Encourage readers to browse other, relevant pages once they are done with the current one.
Use Google Analytics to measure your Bounce Rate. Identify your Top Exit Pages and fix or get rid of them.
10. Post regularly
The importance of new content has increased dramatically after Google’s Freshness Update. Now, the freshly posted content will get a higher ranking in the organic search.
11. Increase social proof
Pages with a higher social proof are in the cards of outranking their opponents.
Google has been striving to make its search more ‘personalized’. Now, they have taken it to the next level as revealed in the recent post “Search, plus Your World” on their official blog.
Add all sort of social buttons to your pages, but Google Plus One button should be on the top of the list. It has already started affecting search results a great deal and these effects will only increase in the future.
Next two posts are about social media and writers. So don’t forget to come back and learn how to make the changing trends work in your favor.
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Ali
Hi! I am Ali – a freelance writer & blogging enthusiast. If you're new here, you'll totally love my FREE report: The Secret Ingredients to Writing Magnetic Headlines That Always Get Noticed. You should also add me Ali Abbas+ for priceless resources and loads of fun!
