In the early days of the World Wide Web, traffic was king. Just get traffic to your website and hey, you were up and running. With the amazing number of websites now, there is a need to market your website, or optimise it by using search engine optimization techniques. Getting your site noticed is a challenge. Most web users search for information using search engines. So you need to design your site in such a way to attract the search engine spiders that index your web pages in order for them to be found. So, what is search engine friendly copy? Well it is not about stuffing your website with target keywords. Indeed, you will probably fall foul of the search engines if you do that. You do need to research your keywords but you need also to write to human beings, not just spiders. There is no point in having a highly ranked website that nobody can understand.
Remember that your website has to be user friendly. First of all, what is your website for? What does it do? What do you want your visitors to do? Do you want them to spend money while they are visiting? Or is it just an information site? This will have an impact on how you compose your copy. Bearing in mind that you are designing your website for humans to interact, it is advisable to plan the style of your written content. Short paragraphs and bullet points will attract eager eyes, whereas lengthy essays with few breaks will drive people away. If you are selling something, you need to make your site look interesting with many calls to action and not just like an online price list. In conclusion, remember that you are trying to attract the search engines but your website is first and foremost designed for human readers. As a general rule, any site that is written and designed well for people will be search engine friendly, so do not compromise your message to your human audience simply to make your pages more accessible to search engines. People are your audience. You may have to pragmatically balance the two needs, but in doing so, never take a decision in favour of search engines. It is pointless getting a high ranking and attracting visitors to pages which do not communicate properly.
About the Author
Manager at White hat media.A seo and web design agency providing a wide range of services such as web design, seo consultancy, pay per click, email marketing... http://www.whitehatmedia.com
