It really gets my blood pressure up. SEO copywriting has begun to get a poor reputation all due to carelessness. How so? Because too many people claim to know what they are doing. In reality, they simply shove keywords into copy without any concern for how the copy flows. Copy that sounds mechanical or stiff is a sure sign that an amateur writer has had his/her hands in things.

When you write SEO copy, you should take the time to find out what works and what doesn’t. There are two mistakes almost every amateur search engine copywriter makes. Let’s take a look at each one.

#1 – The List

Let’s say you visit the home page of a website that sells beauty supplies. As you read the copy, you keep coming across a string of items: hair salon supplies, hair salon equipment and professional manicure tables. The copy reads something like this:

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The Best Selection of Hair Salon Supplies, Hair Salon Equipment and
Professional Manicure Tables On the Internet

When you’re shopping for hair salon supplies, hair salon equipment and professional manicure tables, you need a vendor who offers great selection as well as great service. Because buying hair salon supplies, hair salon equipment and professional manicure tables can be an expensive venture, you also want a company that delivers the lowest price.

Trust ABC Beauty Supply to bring you the widest selection of hair salon supplies, hair salon equipment and professional manicure tables in stock every day. Orders are shipped within 24 hours and – for all hair salon supplies, hair salon equipment and professional manicure tables orders over $100 – shipping is absolutely free!

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Do you see how that flows (or doesn’t flow) when you use all your keyphrases in a row every single time? One time, sure. That’s fine. Even twice, depending on the length of your copy. But to put all your keyphrases in a list and use them every time you have the smallest opportunity is just far too repetitive. What do you do instead?

Discuss each one in its own section. Talk about the various types of hair salon supplies. Review the reasons your hair salon equipment is better than that sold by others. Or even list the features and benefits of the line of manicure tables you offer.

#2 – Substituting Keywords for Generic Terms

This technique (just like the one above) is perfectly fine IF you use it in moderation. However, to replace every instance of a generic term with a keyphrase will cause your copy to sound downright silly. Let’s have a look at an example from a Web design site.

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New Orleans Web Design

Our New Orleans Web design firm offers a high level of creativity to businesses located in the general area. Our New Orleans Web design styles are never made from templates. Each New Orleans Web design is a custom creation just for your site.

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If you walked into a Web design company’s office and the employees began to talk like that copy is written, you’d most likely think they were on drugs! So why in the world would you write your site copy that way? The reason is because most amateurs mistakenly think they can’t write for both the search engines and the site visitors. I’m delighted to say they are wrong! You can most certainly write for both with great success.

Try this:

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Progressive, creative, upbeat. Those are phrases that best describe many online businesses based in New Orleans. Web design for your organization should match your style. Never created from templates, the site designs you’ll receive will be truly reflective of your corporate personality. Because we work exclusively with companies located in or near New Orleans, Web designs retain that Big Easy feel.

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Did you see it? The phrase was broken up using punctuation. That won’t hurt your rankings one bit, but it will make your copy sound a LOT better.

These are not all the mistakes. I wish they were! But most of the mistakes made by amateur writers can be fixed using one simple test. Read it out loud. If the copy sounds ridiculous to you when you re
ad it out loud, it is going to sound equally ridiculous to a site visitor.

Take your time. Learn the ins and outs of SEO copywriting before you begin to create the text for your (or your clients’) pages. Then you can rest assured that your copy will convert better while it contributes to your high rankings.

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Popularity: 18% [?]

Writing for the web is the same as any other type of writing, except that it’s different. That is, web readers expect the same quality of writing as print readers do, but they want it presented differently.

Your customers and potential customers approach the Internet like an information buffet. They skim… they scan… if they find a website that appeals to them, they sample the content. If they like it, they stay. If they don’t find what they’re looking for… click! They’re off to sample another.

The best way to attract customers and keep them coming back for seconds and thirds is to serve up website content that is satisfying and visually appealing.

Appetizers

Whet your reader’s appetite with a headline that gives them a reason to stay on your website. A good headline catches attention and tells the reader what they will gain by reading further: “Ten Tips for Closing More Sales”. “Packaging That Inspires. Packaging That Sells”. “Write Better Web Site Copy”.

The Main Course

Apply the fundamental rules of good writing. Craft and edit your website content to ensure that your writing is:

Purposeful, compelling and clear

Lean and active

Free of spelling, grammar and usage errors

Unlike print readers, who almost always read columns or pages in sequence, web readers skip from page to page and site to site. Accommodate your readers by summarizing early and often. Include your main points in the first paragraph of your site and the first paragraph of each page, so that visitors find relevant information anywhere on your site.

Serve bite-sized pieces. Organizing your website content into small clusters of information makes it easy for site visitors to digest information quickly. Lists, bullet points and side bars are useful for highlighting key points and maintaining visual flow on a website.

Some website content is difficult to divide into small sections. Use intra-site links to direct readers to other pages of your site for deeper exploration of select topics.

Although web readers generally prefer content that is divided into short pages, it is more important that your page divisions make sense. Don’t truncate your presentation of Internet marketing strategies just to make it fit on one page. Web readers are more concerned with ROI than word count. If your website content is relevant and well-written, you don’t need to worry about page length.

Dessert

Entice your readers with special offers, informative newsletters, or up-to-the-minute industry news. Make it deliciously easy for them to subscribe or contact you directly.

Providing links to other relevant, non-competitive websites such as professional organizations and educational institutes reminds website visitors that you are a valuable resource.

Lastly, always sample your own work. Use as many browsers and platforms as you can to check your website pages after uploading. No matter how good your website content is, if customers can’t read it – it’s spoiled!

Popularity: 19% [?]

Web content writing is said to be the most easy and relatively straight-forward thing one can ever do. But when you finally sit down for it then you realize how difficult it can be. Web content writing means writing quality yet unique content for the website so that ultimately it boosts the business and your website. But ironically web content writing is chiefly driven by seo and web design. To be more precise web design literally dictates that what font should be used, particular type of wording, perfect layout. This is just for the benefits of the visitors so that they never feel uncomfortable or disappointed while surfing your site. Same happens in the seo as they want the content which is search engine keyword friendly. Thus, in short web content writers have to listen what seos and web designers have to say.

To be honest web content writing is not as easy task and involves a careful process. And this careful process is basically dependent upon the right information, the right style, and the right keywords. All these measure are taken just to attract more visitors, easy for search engines to index, assuring that you achieve a good ranking and are easier for web users to find. Thus, it won’t be wrong to say that web content writing is an art and skill which is to tackle with full ease. Else you will end up loosing your visitors and customers. The sure shot mantra to web content writing is that each and every word should be focused on the reader or visitor. The content should be very engrossing and crisp so that visitor is bound and attracted to read it till the end. As longer the visitor sticks around your website, the better your chance of getting your message across. And in return you’ll achieve your goal for which you actually strived for.

Keywording is the nucleus of any web content writing. It should be done in keeping the needs of seos and web designers. Both have their different needs and requirements and should be catered properly so that none of them suffers. As far as seo point of view goes keyword placing is the most important task involved in it. And for web designers there are certain rules which should be kept in mind. Those rules are as follows:

1- Always use 10 or 12 font size as this font size is best for readability.

2- As far as size goes always use Verdana, Arial, Palatino Linotype, and Helvetica. Reason being all of them are very clear, and well spaced.

3- Avoid the usage of any other color in web content writing. At times it looks very jarring for the eyes and makes it difficult to read.

4- Always use black text on white background as it is pleasant for eyes and also it’s the standard rule.

Thus, try to keep all these mentioned points in mind while doing web content writing and see your online business flourish.

Popularity: 10% [?]

Do you have an English language website? Are you not quite fluent in English?

Then guess what: there’s an elephant in the room. Actually, there’s an elephant on every single page of your website.

The English language expression “an elephant in the room” refers to a situation when there’s something obviously wrong about how you present yourself but no one mentions it for fear of embarassing you.

For instance, if you are attending a funeral with your fly wide open and your shirt sticking out, there’s an elephant in the room.

Do you have an elephant on your website? If you struggle speaking English, chances are you do. To an English-speaking visitor, your web content probably sounds “not quite right.”

Now don’t feel bad. I’ve seen plenty of web content written by native English-speakers that reads poorly. Some people just don’t know how to write.

But you do know how to write. You’re fluent in your own language and you’ve worked hard to develop fluency in English. I’ve been contacted by numerous non-native English speakers at my own website who ask, “How can I learn to write web content like you?”

They can’t. I’ve been speaking English since birth and writing professionally for nearly 20 years.

But why would they want to write like me? Why would they want to write like anyone other than themselves? You see, here’s the thing about elephants in the room:

If you acknowledge them, they tend to go away.

It’s true! When you don’t acknowledge the elephant in the room, people tend to roll their eyes and whisper behind your back. They think you don’t know how you sound. You don’t know how you write.

But if you do acknowledge the elephant, all of a sudden you’re accepted! And liked! And if you can acknowledge the elephant with humor, even better. Visitors are much more comfortable with a host who is capable of laughing at him or herself! In fact, they will probably begin to find your English and your web content “charming.”

Instead of “broken.”

Wouldn’t that be great?

So how do I acknoledge the elephant?

There are as many ways to acknowledge the elephant as there are websites and web authors. You could say,

“I hope my English is not hurting your ears.”

Thought it might be funnier to say,

“I hope my English is not hurting your brain.”

Or you could mix it up a little, to make it still more awkward:

“I hope your brain is not hurting from my English.”

You could also say,

“Think of me as your New York cabdriver. If I could speak better English, wouldn’t you wonder why I didn’t have a better job?”

Or,

“Please feel free to laugh at my English. That is how I will know you are still there.”

These are all just examples. You will surely do better and be more convincing if you write them yourself. Also, you probably want to acknowledge the elephant more than once on your website. It would be a good idea to do it near the top of all your entry pages.

It would be even better to express it differently on each of these pages.

Something amazing happens when you acknowledge the elephant

Not only do your visitors forgive your English and learn to enjoy it (and perhaps stick around a little longer, and take a little more of your advice or buy your product), but once the elephant is acknowledged it frees you to worry a little bit less about your English.

Why? Because you’re no longer trying to fool anyone into thinking you’re a native-speaker, which they probably didn’t believe anyway!

In fact, maybe you can have a little more fun writing your web content once you’ve acknowledged the elephant. You might even choose to make your English a little more entertaining – as long as you’re sure it will still be comprehended.

Of course, when writing website content, there are two types of writing that are important.

1. The written English that your visitors will read
2. The written English that the search engines will read

As you probably know, the search engines are looking for a certain mix of keywords and content that, to a large extent, results in ranking some websites highly and some not so highly.

If your websi
te isn’t ranking highly, you need another kind of English help than this article is offering. (And also some incoming links, of course! Visit http://value-exchange.sitesell.com/writingsuccess.html for a great way to get some.)

I invite you to a special page on my website for some thoughts on writing excellent search engine English. See http://www.best-childrens-books.com/web-content.html.

Popularity: 9% [?]

A compelling topic and an attractive design will initially draw readers to a white paper. But those readers may lose interest if the paper contains any of five common writing mistakes.

Mistake #1: “It’s All About Us”

Of course, a white paper primarily presents the company’s perspective on an issue or technology. But if the focus is too much on the company, it is easy to forget about the reader’s interests.

When reading a company-focused document, your prospect may feel it doesn’t present useful and unbiased information. Avoid this mistake by asking: “Does this content really address the reader’s interests and concerns?”

Mistake #2: Lack of Clarity

Don’t make readers guess the messages you are trying to convey in the white paper or why readers should be interested. Excessive use of passive voice, overly long sentences, convoluted syntax, and complex words and noun strings can make a white paper seem incoherent or overly academic.

Write directly and simply, and you’ll create a white paper that is engaging and understandable to readers.

Mistake #3: Jam-Packed Jargon

Some marketers feel their materials won’t be effective without the latest trendy words, regardless of whether these words have become over-used, have any real meaning for the topic, or have any power for delivering the paper’s key messages. But using trendy words in a white paper may prompt readers to view it as “just another bunch of sales noise.”

Don’t forget that readers may not understand the latest hip jargon or internal terms used in your company every day. For example, would you understand that Visit your PrimeWidget value-added channel partner actually means “go to a computer store?”

To avoid this mistake, list the words and phrases that are currently trendy in your industry or target markets. Then write a list of synonyms or alternate phrasings that are simpler and clearer, as well as more relevant and interesting to readers.

Mistake #4: Forgetting the Audience

Don’t try to make one white paper be all things to all people. For example, business executives have different concerns than the IT staff or product users about a product purchase.

Separate white papers may be necessary to address these different audiences and better support the sales process. Within a paper, effective techniques include using subheads that identify the audience or isolating information for a specific audience into a sidebar.

Mistake #5: Errors and Irrelevancies

After multiple drafts and even more reviews, it is easy for errors of fact or omission to find their way into a white paper. Not only can these errors be an embarrassment, they may cause legal problems.

To catch errors before publication, use checklists of facts, proofread on a printout instead of the screen, and give the white paper to an expert reviewer who is seeing it for the first time.

Irrelevant information is another mistake that can arise when you feel you need just one more bit of evidence to support a message. These irrelevancies will distract readers, or worse, will raise unnecessary questions in the reader’s mind: “Oh yes, what about that?” You want to give readers just enough information to make a decision or take an action–and no more.

Avoiding Mistakes in Your Writing

Did some of these mistakes seem uncomfortably familiar? Did you think of other problems that commonly creep into your company’s white papers? Good! Use this knowledge to create a checklist and guidelines that will help you recognize these mistakes in the future.

By avoiding these common errors, you can create white papers that will be more effective and useful in your company’s promotional efforts.

Popularity: 10% [?]