heartharmony.com.au

Good SEO copywriting is designed to attract visitors to your website as a result of choosing relevant keywords and phrases and embedding them in just the right places throughout the copy

The challenge comes when SEO writers go out of their way to use the keywords as many times as possible – which can result in copy that is hard to read.

This means that while you might get the people to your site – once they get there they have no real idea what you are selling or what you are trying to actually say.

Your webcopy just looks like strings of keywords loosely woven together with the odd joining word thrown in for show (much like the plots of porn films, or so I am told).

All the SEO experts say that you need a keyword density of 3-4% to get great results in the search engines.  What this means is that out of 100 words 4 of them should be the main keyword. If you are targeting a range of keywords – then they also need another 4 words out of that hundred and so on.

In my experience this is great for the search engines, but very rarely flows for the reader. For example I had a new potential writer create an article for me with the term “Brisbane SEO copywriter” as part of their work sample (and yes I paid them for it).

The results were SEO perfect – but hilariously unreadable. “Brisbane SEO copywriter” appeared in every sentence, even ones that had absolutely nothing to do with Brisbane SEO copywriters! Needless to say the candidate didn’t get the job with me.

Following too slavishly the 3-4 out of every 100 rule may be great in theory, but in reality it can make your work unreadable and make you lose clients. It stops their concentration and derails them into thinking of anything else except what you are trying to sell them.

Good SEO writing needs to be a balance of fantastic sales words and SEO. They are not mutually exclusive!

Focus on the sales as the highest priority for your web writing as that is where the money is made for your business – then add in the SEO touches to give it that extra oomph. If you are not making sales – then no amount of SEO can save your business.

So how many keywords are too much? When someone starts to comment on how often a word has appeared (or bursts out laughing at the twisted combinations), then you have gone too far. If they read your copy without any stops or hold-ups – you have got the percentage just right (no matter what the SEO gurus say).

So – get someone to read over your web copy and avoid stuffing keywords into every nook and cranny.

Until next time

Ingrid Cliff

We put your business into words

Heart Harmony – Brisbane SEO copywriter