Website content is more than simply words. Persuasive sales pitches, informative articles and moving essays are just a few of the different types of content typically found on websites. SEO companies understand that the true power of the content included on a website lies not only in what it is saying, but the actual words used to say it. The best content attracts not just the human reader, but the search engine bot as well. In this way, a single piece of content can help you meet your goals with your client base and increase the visibility of your website. Content may very well be the single most important ingredient on a website over which an SEO company, content writer or website owner has control.

The content needs to be more than simply words strung together. Because content is viewed by both human readers and search engine spiders, it must be written to meet both of these goals.

Attract the Human Reader

• Use clear, concise language
• Use proper grammar and spelling
• Create content that is relevant to the reader
• Provide the reader with information they need
• Include a clear ‘Call to Action’ such as ‘sign up now’ or ‘purchase the eBook here.’
• Update content on a regular basis
• Be accurate when representing facts
• Develop a tone or style that is suitable to your needs. For example, if you are seeking to engender trust, use a friendly tone, while those who are attempting to establish themselves as an authority should use a persuasive tone.

Attract the Search Engine ‘Reader’

• Use appropriate and relevant keywords
• Use keywords in the proper density, typically 3 – 5%
• Use bulleted lists or subheadings
• Use keywords in titles, headings and subheadings
• Include frequently updated content

By combining these two lists of content rules, you can begin to develop content that will serve you well. Many SEO companies provide content services themselves or have a third party contractor that provides content, articles and even blogs.

Understanding how to artfully blend the two different types of content writing together will allow you to take advantage of both types of website traffic. SEO companies understand why content is so important. It attracts search engine spiders and bots, which in turn increase the websites rankings and visibility. This increased visibility leads to more visitors. The content will then serve its second purpose of educating, convincing or informing your visitors.

The best content always keeps in mind both audiences. Working with an SEO company that can provide you with this type of content will allow you and your business to succeed.

There are many factors to SEO writing that skilled writers are not aware of, while a SEO copywriter would have knowledge of how to develop better content. But just how does video and games affect SEO copywriting?

A World without Flash

Right now 70% of games and 75% of video on the web is Flash based. Adobe Flash is a multimedia platform that’s used to add video and animation to websites. But if you’re using an iPhone or iPad then you are missing out on a large percentage of the internet. As of press time, Apple and Adobe had not come to an agreement about installing Flash based platforms to their line of iPhones and iPads. Other smart phones still support Flash as part of their browser capabilities. But, Flash takes a long time to load and cannot be read by search engines. All info that is embedded in a Flash file cannot be indexed, and the whole point of SEO is to make your content visible and understandable to the search engines.

No where to go but Up?

How does this affect SEO writers if Flash goes away? Well, many people have thought about this and the answer is on the way. Right now HTML 5 is being developed to alleviate the shortcomings associated with Adobe Flash. HTML 5 in the proposed new standard for HTML, HTML is the markup language for web sites, it is said to reduce the need for plug-ins such as Adobe Flash and Microsoft’s Silverlight. Also, font and center tags are eliminated with the new format. The effect that HTML 5 will have on mobile devices is profound. SEO copywriters will be able to develop video and game content that the top search engines will actually be able to index.

How will this change SEO Copywriting

Right now, no one knows just how the change from Flash to HTML 5 will affect SEO writing. We know that video will be indexed and searchable, but how will this change the way writers go about creating content for websites? With new tags and improved page segmentation it should make writing for websites much more accessible. The important thing to do is make sure that you find a SEO copywriter who has the changes figured out.

There is one fundamental difference between SEO copywriters, and freelance writers who are not familiar with SEO. Skilled SEO writers are not writing for one audience, but two. Everything written for the web should be written for both readers and search engines. Most freelance copywriters are writing only for the client as an audience.

Keywords in Web Content

This distinction becomes most evident in the use of keywords. There is both an art and a science to the use of keywords for web copy. They must be grammatically correct, yet represent search terms visitors will actually use. Keywords should be unique to the website, and not overly competitive. Keywords that fit this criteria are hard to find, however. In addition, keywords cannot be over or underused in web copy, and should be placed in particular areas of the content for maximum affect. Writers who are new to SEO often have a hard time utilizing keywords with finesse. When used properly, readers should not notice them at all.

How Relevant is Your Web Content?

Relevancy plays an important role in page rank. Relevancy is used to describe how well the content of a page matches the search term that points to it. Highly relevant page content will be focused specifically upon the main keywords used. For example, if the search term used for a site is “Women’s wholesale clothing” then the content of that page should focus only on wholesale apparel for women. It should not mention men’s clothing, or anything that is not related to the keyword. By making relevancy a factor in ranking a page, search engines ensure that when users click on a result, they will actually find the information they are looking for.

Writing For Readers and Search Spiders

Writing content for spiders is not fundamentally any different than writing for readers. Copy should be written in full sentences, and should be grammatically correct. In addition, certain aspects of good SEO copywriting are beneficial to both audiences. Subheadings, bulleted lists, and other methods of breaking up blocks of text make reading easier. This kind of formatting helps leads visitors through the content, and the use of bold or italicized text indicates to spiders which areas of the content are the most important.

SEO writing is both a science and an art, and no good web content writer can function without knowing the basics of optimization, or knowing the client’s audience inside and out. It’s always best to work with a dedicated team of writers who take the time and effort to get to know the goals of the website, and the people who will use it.

The first thing you need to do is make sure you know what you’re talking about. If you aren’t knowledgeable on the subject, do your research. It’s not a good idea to pick a topic you know nothing about and just write ‘on the fly.’ If you get your facts all wrong, you could end up looking silly, being discredited, and having to work twice as hard to get any kind of reputation back. You could also lose a lot of respect among your customers and potential customers, as well as among other people in your field. Don’t let that happen to you! Make sure you do research and get your facts from reputable sources.

Once you’re armed with the knowledge that you need, discipline your time. Know when you’re going to write the article and how long it’s going to take you. Don’t spend all day on it, but take the time to make sure you say what you mean and that you’ve included everything that’s important for the readers to know. Give them a reason to keep reading and offer them a call to action so they can take the information you gave them through your SEO and do something with it – preferably something that helps you to make money.

When you’re writing the SEO article, think about visual interest. In other words, don’t just write one big block of text. That’s hard for customers to read, and it can look unprofessional. Instead of doing that, break it up. Use shorter paragraphs than you might use for something that would be in print. Give your customers subheadings and bullet points, or a numbered list of things that are important to know. If your customers and potential customers find reading your article easy and fun, you’ve got a higher chance of making sales.

Last, before you publish that article on your blog or website, make sure you check your keyword density and placement. You should write the article naturally, but if you find you’re short on keywords you can always adjust something you said to include your keyword a couple more times. Proofread it, and have someone else look at it for further proofreading and editing. That person may catch something that you missed. When they send it back to you, make any needed changes and then publish. That will keep you looking professional and help you make an impact where SEO content is concerned, allowing you to be more successful.

At its heart, SEO is aimed at attracting not human readers, but search engine spiders. Because of this, content written solely from a search engine optimization perspective is often difficult for a human reader. This content is often stilted and contains grammatical errors. For example, a company that sells homemade jam in Brooksville, Florida is likely to determine that a common search term used to locate their business may be ‘homemade jam Brooksville, Florida’ and decide to use that phrase exactly throughout their website. While spiders may recognize this as a common search term, human readers are unlikely to respond to it. It is for this reason, savvey online business owners turn to SEO copywriting to achieve their goals.

SEO copywriting is directly related to generalized SEO techniques with one major difference: SEO copywriting strives to attract both human readers and search engine spiders. A talented copywriter can artfully blend keywords, in the proper density, with unique, relevant and informative content. When you consider the fact that your website and the content contained within it is actually the face and voice of your company, you begin to realize how important it is to write for both human readers and spiders.

Developing content that is easy to read and contains the necessary techniques and language to attract spiders is, in effect, a subset of generalized search engine optimization. When selecting a company to handle your optimization, one of the critical areas you should review is their ability to provide SEO copywriting. By reading several articles or webpages written by various copywriters, you will begin to see the difference between copy written by a general SEO specialist and one with experience in SEO copywriting. By carefully analyzing possible keywords and including them in the proper density, a skilled SEO copywriter will provide you with copy that is driven by the need to attract human customers while still increasing your page rankings.

The distinction between SEO copywriting and simple SEO may be slight, but it is very significant. At the end of the day, it is the difference between copy written solely in an attempt to include a requisite number of keywords and content written to provide readers with useful information. Choosing an SEO firm must be based, at least in part, on their ability to provide you with content that is written by someone who has a firm understanding of the difference between these two skill sets.

Many online business owners get stuck on the first step of content creation:  what type of content to include. The truth is that all content is good – as long as it is properly written, keyword rich and relevant. Topics should be closely related to your product or service. It should be fresh, professionally written and include keywords that are both relevant and unique.

You may choose from several different types of content, each equally valid. Blogs are a popular addition. Easy to write, personal and a favorite hunting ground for spiders, blogs can be an excellent addition to almost any website. Another option is SEO articles. Unlike article marketing, an SEO tactic in which articles are posted to various directories for increased visibility, placing articles directly on your website gives you a chance to educate your client base, present yourself as an authority and increase your rankings.

If we have learned that the type of content we include on our website really doesn’t matter, we should also know that the form of the written content does. In order to obtain maximum benefits, you must tailor your content to appeal to both human readers and spiders. When writing or proofreading content for your site keep in mind the differences.

Content for Spiders

This content must be keyword rich. Focus on 2 – 3 keywords per page and mind your density. Keyword density, or the number of times a keyword is used compared to the total amount of text, should be between 3 and 5%.  Spiders also like fresh content, so be sure to plan on updating your website regularly.

Content for Humans

Humans don’t read articles like spiders – we look at more than how many times a given word or phrase is included in a piece of text. For this reason, your content should be easy to read. Here is how:

• Use bullets or numbering to make important facts stand out
• Write short paragraphs of less than 10 sentences
• Use shorter sentences
• Use flawless grammar and spelling

Always remember it is less about the type of content that you include and more about how you create it. Be sure to keep your content clear and concise. If writing isn’t your strong suit, you may want to find a qualified SEO copywriter to work with. There are many professionally trained companies dedicated to providing businesses with the best possible content.

Writers for SEO companies will, of course, continue to be responsible for creating readable content that is arranged and worded in such a way that it generates traffic, but they may also find themselves expanding their technical skill set. Sear Engine marketing, after all, is much more complicated than simply repeating a phrase throughout an article. Writers who can claim proficiency in XHTML, search engine algorithms, and site design will have an edge in a burgeoning field. Writers with extensive SEM experience may even find themselves becoming consultants and teachers for the new wave of SEM writers this growth is ushering in. In fact, many companies already offer in-house training, presentations, and auditing for companies interested in making the most of search engines.

However, even as the more established places finally come around, the field remains tainted by black hat tactics. Spamdexing, the catchphrase for such tactics, is when illegitimate sites manipulate a search engine’s index and resources to improve their placement in search results. Though most search engines, including Google, have ways to combat and minimize such methods, it’s impossible to cut out completely. As such, any serious web content writer needs to have a code of ethics rivaling that of any journalist.

The poor reputation earned by black hat SEO may be part of the reason why some content-heavy websites have yet to adopt it. FOX News, for example, plans to begin charging users instead for its web content. They claim that people will pay for content if it is original and high quality. Yet part of the problem with such models is the assumption that optimized content isn’t equally capable of generating business and quality traffic. A good SEO article will be succinct and encourage readers to surf around the site the search engine brought them to. In this way, poorly written articles that beat you over the head with keywords might be just as bad for SEO’s reputation as link farms or keyword stuffing, two black hat tactics. It remains vital that writers for SEO companies continue to create engaging content.

Social media, much like SEM, is becoming another fundamental of online marketing. Even better, the two make a great pair since part of SEO is linking and being linked to and social media is an easy way to achieve this. Writers, then, are also likely to increasingly utilize social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to generate additional traffic for their articles, parent sites, and companies. As an added benefit, social media can be a great way to draw regular readership and develop a niche audience.

The start of this new decade already seems to be about writers for search engine marketing companies embracing the latest in internet media and technology and avoiding the well-established damaging practices like spamdexing. Seeing the top web fields grow and work together should make for a decade that’s worth writing in and about.

Unnecessary wordiness. “A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” French writer Antoine de Saint-Exupery knew the value of a succinct writing style. If you feel like the writer is still talking, but not telling you anything new, you know that the piece has a problem. See also: using “to be” (or is, are, were, was) too much and general overuse of the passive voice.

No direction to the work. The level of involvement for every client/writer is different. Some clients want to simply be able to pass on a list of keywords, and get back useful articles. Make it clear that you expect your writers to develop the topic further. If you give them the keyword “Bandsaw,” make sure that they know you expect something with the title “How to use a bandsaw to build furniture.” Sometimes communication can make the difference between a good writer, and a bad one. Just make sure your SEO writer is both willing and able to develop your topics fully. If they can’t, it’s time to send them packing.

Failure to understand the purpose of the piece. You can waste a lot of money on copywriters if you’re dealing with ‘artists’ rather than commercial writers who understand your goals and objectives. If you need an article on the benefits of Vitamin B for an affiliate marketing site, and you get an article that says Vitamin B is useless, it won’t matter how well it’s written. If your writers don’t understand what the purpose of the piece is, then they’re not helping you.

Obvious grammar, spelling, and word choice mistakes. The good writer is constantly self-editing and striving to create the perfect sentence that communicates his or her ideas exactly. The bad writer does not reflect on their writing during composition nor does he or she comprehensively edit after writing. This is the sloppiness that creates bad writing. While even the best writers occasionally have a typo, consistent errors are a big red flag.

Figuring out whether what you are reading is “good” is a little more complicated. Bad writing loudly declares itself within a sentence or two, but often a work has to be read for a page or more before the reader can really discern whether it is quality writing.

However, there are a few important elements that are often present in good writing. A great piece of copywriting should not only be to the point, but have a clear point, and it should make that point with well organized, logical ideas. The reader should be able to read the work in the writer’s “voice,” which must be distinct and apparent. A good writer uses correct grammar and a varied vocabulary. Finally, and most importantly, good writing is interesting. The reader wants to read it – reading a well written piece is never work.

Even now, the quality of website content is highly variable. However, the users of search engines are shielded from much of the lower quality work that is out there.

Certainly, the average web-surfer will run into a few pages that are duplicate content or “scraper” written. But with the use of a search engine, such as Google, sites like this get banned in no time at all. Meanwhile, SEO professionally-written sites move to the top of the search list, making them more accessible and more likely to be read.

Anyone’s who has been using the internet over the past ten years knows how much things have changed in that time span alone. Search engines grew from basic indexes of available sites to the complex rule-based organisms that they are today.

As soon as search engines became popular, people began looking for ways to fool them —to get their website seen— whether its quality website content and message were compatible with the applicable search term or not.

So sneaky tricks like hidden links, hidden text, and cloaking, began to surface. The user ended up with results that had nothing to do with what he sought to learn or find. Clearly, this type of response could have killed the search engine, due to a lack of utility.

As time has passed, the search engines have become better and better filters for the amazing amount of information and entertainment material available on the web. Without them, we’d have data overload.

So with such dishonest methods of catching the public’s attention out of the way, businesses have been guided towards a better way — working with the search engines, instead of against them, to give the public what they want.

This is where SEO copywriters come in. First of all, businesses need to catch the public’s eye, if they’re to do any business. Second, and just as important, they must keep the customer in the online “store,” by engaging their interest in the material presented on the page first encountered.

If that material is well-received, the customer is likely to browse more of the site, further drawing them into the business, and further being exposed to whatever service or product it offers.
With search engines keeping businesses honest, the copywriter selects appropriate search terms to base articles upon — search terms that customers are demonstrably interested in using. Around these search terms, an article is crafted, using strict guidelines that meet search engine optimization requirements.

With well-selected search terms, the website hosting the article can move up in the search engine’s list of sites containing the search item, hopefully bringing the site to the public’s eye. If what is visible of the article in the search engine’s interface engages public interest, and is applicable to their search term, users will click on the link to read the article.
Hence quality articles multiply across the web based upon what the end user wants.

Search engines and their spiders rely on complex formulas to rank websites. Some of this formula relates to size, hits and registrations, but a large part of the formula relates to content. Spiders analyze pages for length, content and keywords and determine how relevant your site is to a particular search term. While the formula itself is complicated, the theory behind it isn’t. Content improves search engine rankings.

What is crucial is the type of content that is contained on your website. It would be very simple to write content that includes all of the keywords related to your site, but that content might not make a lot of sense. Instead, by focusing on just a few critical keywords or phrases and creating well written content that contains those words or phrases, you will see an increase in your rankings.

One pitfall of content can be content that is written using ‘black hat’ techniques. These unethical techniques are designed to trick spiders into ranking your site higher than it should be. Hidden text, strings of words and nonsensical information are all considered black hat. These content techniques may show you a brief increase in traffic, but will ultimately result in search engines banning your site. Make sure that if you hire an SEO writer for your site, they don’t use any black hat methods.

Instead, use generally accepted techniques when writing your content. This can still result in improved SEO as long as it is done correctly. The key here is offering quality content, services and products on your website. Your content should center on your product or service, be well written, clear, concise and include only relevant keywords.

Writing content with relevant keywords is crucial. Search engine spiders will review the content of a given web page for relevant keywords. An important step in optimizing content for SEO is a thorough review of keywords and their placement and usage on a given website. Reviewing similar websites for their keywords is a great way to start. Many web site owners make the mistake of including too many keywords in a given piece of content. Instead of trying to ‘word stuff’ the article with 20 to 30 versions of a keyword or phrase, rely on 8 – 10 keywords and use them as effectively as possible.

Finally, provide content that your users will want to read. Once your website has been discovered by a user, you want to keep them coming back, so be sure to keep your content fresh and updated to ensure return users.

Using content to increase SEO can be a time consuming job, but one that is well worth it. Expertly written content, rich with SEO keywords will result in higher rankings in all of the major search engines.