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Copywriting for SEO
Training for IWK EditorialNovember 2012
Brian Pereira
Topics
• Introduction
• How search engines work
• Page ranking, relevance, organic & inorganic search
• Definition of SEO
• The structure of a Web page (HTML basics)
• How the CMS is used for SEO
• SEO copywriting – techniques & best practices
• Keyword selection strategies & tools
Introduction
• What this short course is about
• What it isn’t
• At what levels can SEO be done?
• Why is it important to do SEO?
How Search Engines work
• Search engines have three components:
– Database
– Spider/Web crawler
– Search tool / user interface /query processor
Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNHR6IQJGZs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0xUHykOPtY
• Further reading: http://computer.howstuffworks.com/internet/basics/search-engine.htm
What Web crawlers pick up
• Page Title (in our case same as story title)
• Keywords (Tags in CMS)
• Description (Summary in CMS)
• Keywords in a link (links on page)
• Words in Bold face
• Repeated words on the page
Search terminology
• PageRank• Page Relevance
http://www.prchecker.info/check_page_rank.php
• Organic (natural) vs inorganic (paid/PPC) search• (Ex: Type “Resorts” in search box)
• VIDEO• https://www.google.com/settings/u/0/ads/preferences/?hl=en#gen
eral
• Tags, meta tags• ALT text
Why your page should be listed on top of search results
• People usually click on links on the first page
• Rarely look beyond the second page
• More visitors to your site mean more page views
• Advertisers look for no. of page views and want
to do lead generation activities with you
• Leading to more revenue for you from online
Definition of SEO
• SEO – The techniques used to design, code and write content for a Web page so as to give it a high page ranking and relevance in search engine results
• SEO done at different levels– Text (SEO copywriting)
– Coding
– Image, video
Video
http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo
Learn more:
http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo
http://www.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo
http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seohttp://www.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo
The structure of a Web page(HTML basics)
The structure of a Web page(HTML basics)
• A web page - a series of instructions plus your
content (text, images etc)
• The “instructions” are a series of HTML tags or
commands. HTML tags are used in pairs; not case
sensitive.
• So a Web page is regarded as an HTML document
and its file name has a .htm or .html extension
HTML document
• The document is structured in two main parts:
• A. Header
• B. Body
Basic commands
<HTML><Head>………..………..………..</Head><Body>………..………..………..…………</Body>
</HTML>
Optimization tags
<HTML><Head>
<Title> InformationWeek – Business value of Technology </Title><META NAME=“DESCRIPTION” CONTENT=“This is the summary of the story”><META NAME=“KEYWORDS” CONTENT=“Web exclusive, Big Data, Analytics”>
</Head>
<Body>………..………..
</Body></HTML>
View source code
• To see the page source code
• Firefox - Ctrl + U
• Internet Explorer – View > source
• Chrome – Ctrl + U
How the CMS is used for SEO
<Title> = Story title in CMSThe story title also becomes the page’s URL
<META NAME=“DESCRIPTION”This is the Summary field in CMS
<META NAME=“KEYWORDS”This is the Tags field in the CMS
SEO CopywritingTechniques & best practices
SEO CopywritingTechniques & best practices
• Write original content that’s relevant to your readers
• Write information rich copy
• Use keywords in your copy that people are likely to
type in search engines
• Repeat these keywords in your copy
• Don’t try to trick search engines by stuffing keywords
that are not relevant
• Copy should make sense to humans first, then engines
SEO CopywritingTechniques & best practices
• Use links in your copy; link to other pages on
your site.
• Repeat keywords in your body copy, but the
copy should make sense.
• Use keywords in the story title (because it
becomes part of the page URL)
Keyword selection strategies& tools
Terminology
• Search Volume
• Keyword Difficulty
• Current ranking
There are tools that let you test your keywords against each of these parameters
Ideally you want to find keywords that are high in Volume and low in Difficulty
Tools
Search VolumeTrellian Keyword Discovery(free trial)
http://www.keyworddiscovery.com/
Google Adwords – http://adwords.google.com
Word Tracker Keyword Research tool https://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/
Keyword Difficulty (competition)Google Search-based keyword tool (Google Adwords)
http://adwords.google.comSEO MOZ http://www.seomoz.org/keyword-difficulty
Current ranking - SEO MOZ Rank Tracker tool
http://www.seomoz.org/rank-tracker
http://www.seocentro.com/tools/search-engines/keyword-position.html
http://download.cnet.com/Keyword-Ranking-Tool/3000-18485_4-10972753.html
Keyword Research Tools
• Search-volume research tools• Keyword Discovery• Keyword Discovery free search-suggestion tool• Wordtracker• Wordtracker free keyword-suggestion tool• Google AdWords• Google AdWords free keyword-ideas tool• WordStream free keyword-research tool• Microsoft Advertising Intelligence: Keyword research add-in for Microsoft
Office Excel 2007.
• Keyword-difficulty research tools• SEOmoz Keyword Difficulty Tool (paid version)• Google Search-based Keyword Tool
Process
1. Note down all the keywords in a column in a Spreadsheet
2. Use the various tools described and check the Search Volume, Keyword Difficulty , and Current Ranking for that keyword
3. Note the weightages or scores in columns in the spreadsheet
Testing keywords
• Look at your keywords in the spreadsheet
• Eliminate keywords from the list that have high keyword difficulty
or very low ranking
• Eliminate words that are not relevant to the article
• Eliminate words that you cannot repeat 3 – 5 times in your copy
• Sort the list by Search Volume (highest to lowest)
• You should arrive at 3 – 5 keywords or phrases
• Use these in your story title, sub-heads, lead-in, conclusion,
embedded links and throughout the story
• Try to use 3 – 5 word phrases instead of single keywords
Keywords Tips
• Put together longer phrases of 3 – 5 words
• Don’t use single words
• From your list of keywords, select words that are high in Search Volume
but low in Keyword Difficulty (be more specific)
e.g. Instead of ‘Pets’ use ‘Pet care in India’
• Combine high and low volume words in a single phrase e.g. Buy Apples
(high) + Kashmiri Apples (low)
• As you go from the Home Page to the sections within the site, use more
specific keywords
• Home page has all the highest-volume keywords
Learning SEO
• http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo• http://www.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo
• http://styleguide.yahoo.com/• http://www.sitepoint.com/google-seo/• http://computer.howstuffworks.com/search-engine-optimization.htm
• http://www.dailywritingtips.com/a-freelance-writers-basic-guide-to-seo/• http://www.slideshare.net/mherzber/seo-for-writers• http://www.selloutyoursoul.com/landing/seo-course-for-writers/• http://webdesign.about.com/od/seo/a/seo_content.htm
• http://www.youngprepro.com/seo-for-writers/• http://www.seocontentlab.com/
