Persuasive Website Copy: How do I Use My Keywords?

So - you now have your list of keywords.  Keywords that are as competitive as possible - that is, that have reasonably high search levels, but not too many competing results so you have a reasonable chance of appearing near the top.  (However, if you are selling a particular brand, by all means use that as a keyword - even if not many people are searching for it, those who do type it into the search engine are absolutely targeted.)
Similarly if you are marketing a particular book - use its title as your main keyword - so people who arrive at your page will se exactly what they are looking for.

So what now?

When writing website copy, use the keyword as many times as possible, right?
WRONG!

This is called "keyword stuffing".  “Stuffing” means putting your keyword far too often, in order to try to get your site or article ranked high in the search engines for that keyword.


So you get sentences like: “When your small business is ready for a small business start-up, your small business should get the best small business resources for a small business start-up.”


In the first place, this clearly sounds ridiculous.  If all your website copy is like this, nobody will read it.  In the second place, far from impressing the search engines, it will get you BANNED!  Their spiders are very clever and can easily detect keyword stuffing.


You should aim for a keyword frequency of between 5% and 8% of your total copy.  Certainly have your main keyword near the beginning and near the end, but otherwise have them spread out throughout your copy - not more than once, or at the most twice, in each paragraph.  And weave them into your writing so that it sounds natural.  Remember, you want real people to read your copy as well as search engines!


And, of course, you need to have your keyword in your HEADLINE!  We'll start discussing headlines in the next post.


Meanwhile, come and visit us at Bizwrite to learn more about writing compelling copy! Or to find out all the ways we can help you.  And don't forget to let us know any questions you'd like dealt with in this blog, or anything you don't agree with!