12 Tips for Writing Effective Internet Marketing Copy (Keywords are King)

In a world where keywords are king, it is curious how the manner in which web copy is written, is still overlooked. Designers lay out beautiful graphics and images only to fill the page with barely-thought-out-not-so-strategic copy. Keywords, links and catchy header copy all present great opportunities to engage your web site visitor and lead them down the path to conversion to lead and sale.

The 12 Days of Christmas seem much more intriguing during this busy holiday season, but the 12 Tips for Writing Effective Internet Marketing Copy may matter to you if you are revamping your search engine optimization approach for the new year. Need some basic rules of thumb for authoring web copy that will yield targeted traffic, leads and revenue for your company? Read on.

1. Create a keyword strategy for your site and implement it. Solid strategy typically uses your top organic and paid keyword terms in your headers and key paragraphs. Use 2-3 words per page as an emphasis, see how the page does, change and test again.
2. Write copy that reflects what consumers call your products, not necessarily the way you or your industry calls your products.
3. Write marketing copy, not just straight facts, web copy needs to compel people to read it.
4. Include links to relevant areas within paragraphs; don’t bounce visitors all over, but do what makes sense to navigate the consumer to what they need and where you want them to go.
5. Chunk copy into small bites, online readers scan pages looking for topic headers that interest them.
6. Add short descriptive headers to key and large paragraphs.
7. Edit down copy to the fewest words possible.
8. Use your spelling and grammar checker and then check again.
9. Make sure calls to action are consistent, visually appealing and in easy to click areas so that the visitor can respond quickly and easily.
10. Each page should have a minimum of 250 words, 500 is best.
11. You can repurpose other’s copy for your site but be sure to give credit where due and do not ever straight duplicate copy. This is stealing and search engines will black list your site.
12.  Give the search engines at least a month to index your new pages and then start studying your visitor activity stats for opportunities to delete or change copy that is not working and add more of what is. Proceed to step #1 and repeat. 

Comments

[John Rasco]

This is a great list of reminders; thanks for being so generous with your experience on behalf of beleaguered marketers everywhere. It really is a great time to take a fresh look at your copy...we are reworking our site this week, while we wait for clients to get back to work!

[Ray Grieselhuber]

Great tips. One of my favorite books on Ad Copy in general is Joseph Sugarman's book, but it feels a little dated in light of SEO / SEM / SMO types stuff.

On the web, copyblogger is a fantastic resource. Know of any others?

[Jennifer Norene]

I don't have a book recommendation. I have been in and out of content development for so long I go by the old standard rules I was taught by a business writer in my Adobe days. Good web writing in my option is great business writing that is snappy and concise. Happy to do some sample editing for you to help you understand what I mean.

[Mark Pilipczuk]

Thanks for the easy to follow reminders. I've sent along this article to a couple of clients to share with their teams as they begin their 2008 website tuneups.

For those looking for books, I recommend a short one that's a great book: Write Right by Roger Shapiro. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1420840487/ref=cm_cr_mts_prod_img

Full disclosure: I know Roger and serve on an Alumni council with him.

[Hannah Paramore]

I like what Seth Godin says in his latest e-book, Money For Nothing (and your clicks for free).

Content wins every time and it's silly to try to trick the search engines with strategies that continue to change. Commit to making your website useful, unique and updated and the search engines will reward you.

(here's a link to the free e-book)
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2007/12/and-your-clicks.html

[Internetmarketing Dictionary]

Hi,

You have a cool blog here. I really loved your content so much. Thanks a tonne for sharing this useful information and hope to read more from you. :)

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