ithout good web copy, copywriters often strive to evoke
the best team of emotion and pique your curiosity
designers and programmers early on. Once they’ve captured
in the world can’t help you. The your attention, they develop the
goal is good writing and a central themes of the story.
clear, concise message that
Web writers, on the other
speaks to the target audience. hand, structure content in a sort
But let’s assume that you already of inverted triangle: meat
have that: Maybe you’re first, details later. Why the
re-purposing some amazing copy stark contrast?
that you’ve used for another
Well, think of how you look at
medium—a print piece, perhaps. web sites: Click, glance, click,
How can you adapt it to work well scan, read a little, click, next
online?
page, click, click. Your eyes
If you want people to find quickly gather an idea of what
you, you have to speak to the page is about, your brain
search engines. But if you decides if you’re interested, and
want them to stay, you have then you read a bit or move on.
to speak to people. Writing for The entire process takes only a
search and writing for visitors few seconds.
are often competing
To support this quick-to-click
endeavors.
behavior, web copy should be
Write for people
easy to scan and understand at
Think of how you look at a a glance. It should include
newspaper: skim headlines, take plenty of
in the first few sentences of
* Bulleted lists (like this
interesting articles, and if an one)
opening captures you, read on to * Captions
get to the meat of the piece.
* Headings and sub-headings
Feature journalists and * Bolding
* Short paragraphs text of the page (links and
* Links headers don’t count here—although
Write for robots
your keyword should definitely
If you’re concerned with your appear there as well).
rank in search engines,
So you start with this:
this next part’s for you.
“Learning to knit is easy.
Targeted web content is one of Just sign up for our convenient
the keys to successful classes.”
search-engine optimization But, since “knitting classes”
(SEO) . There are 3 basic is the target phrase, you change
steps for creating web copy that it to this:
will boost your search
“Knitting is easy to learn
position:
when you sign up for our
1. Research the optimal convenient knitting classes.”
phrases for your business
In the first case, “knitting
2. Select your keywords through classes” never appeared as a
careful analysis complete phrase. In fact, the
3. Show your relevance with word “knitting” didn’t show up at
optimized copy
all. As a bonus, “knitting”
Let’s look at an example:
appears twice in the revised
Say you’re creating a site for sentence.
your Chicago-based knitting
True, the first example sounds
store. To show search engines better. But if you’re competing
that you’re relevant, you’ll have for search-engine ranking, you’re
to boost your keyword better off with the second
frequency—which means that version.
you might have to bend the rules
Ready for a real challenge?
of writing for people.
Work the word “Chicago” into the
Ideally, your key phrase will page 5 – 7 times—and keep it next
appear 5 – 7 times in the body to “knitting classes” if you can.
This is where it gets tricky.
To view the original article
After all, you might lose in its entirety, copy and paste
visitors if your copy is too the following link into your
clunky and repetitive, like browser:
this:
http://orbitmediastudios.com/page
“It’s easy to learn knitting s/february_2008/117.php. Please
in Chicago if you sign up for feel free to link to this address
Chicago knitting classes.”
from your own web site.
Or even worse:
“A new class of Chicago
for humans. This is easier to align="center">
achieve if you have a few hundred
words on the page. (After all, search engines love text-heavy type="text/javascript">
"728x90_as";
google_ad_type = "text"; type="text/javascript"
google_ad_channel
="8710800197"; src="http://pagead2.googlesyndica
tion.com/pagead/show_ads.js">
google_color_border =
"F5F7FB";
google_color_bg = "F5F7FB";
google_color_link =
"0000FF";
google_color_url =
About the Author:
As a principal and strategic director at Orbit Media Studios, Andy draws on his knowledge of marketing, usability, and interactive design to lead strategic planning for the firm and its clients. Orbit specializes in web, print, and video design & development. Orbit Media Studios
Article Tags: knitting, web, youre
