Source: isedb.com

SEO and web copywriting are often mentioned together; so often, in fact, that whenever SEO is mentioned we think about SEO copywriting first and other aspects of SEO second, as if they were the same thing.

Of course, we all know that SEO is much more than just writing optimised content. It involves technical issues, quality inbound links and other subtleties of the profession that seem to be making the rules of the game harder as time goes by. But copywriting remains the core of SEO, as has been the case since the first days of the WWW; the engines are looking for content they can deliver to their searchers, which means that to be found you need to provide content. They can forgive your unfriendly design; in most cases they will find workarounds (unless you try very hard to make your site totally unspiderable); they can give you rankings for certain terms even if your site has only a handful of incoming links; but if your site lacks content, the engines will have zero interest in it.

“Content is king”

I’m sure, if you are learning about SEO online, you’ve heard this statement hundreds of times. But what does it mean to you?

Unfortunately, a lot of webmasters take it too literally, and start creating tons of content optimised for different keywords in the hope that it will attract more traffic. Some do this using content generating software (which is a very spammy, unethical technique); others scrape content from other websites (which is also highly unethical, and illegal besides). Many people just hire writers to write the so-called content for them, aiming at quantity and not quality, and often using the "copy and paste" method. The information can be inaccurate, completely wrong, or utterly useless, but who cares? The website owner is happy, because it still attracts traffic (and, in 99.9% cases, the Google AdSense revenue as well).

As a result, the Net has turned from the best and largest source of information (available to us for free) into a huge recycle bin. We can still find the information we need, but too often we have to struggle through the jungle of rubbish content (sometimes total nonsense), in order to find it.

Being an incorrigible idealist, I still believe though that good SEO/SEM should work for the common good first and for the website owner’s pocket second. Overloading the Net with rubbish for the sake of the AdSense buck is totally against the common good. This is why I have always advised against it, and always will.

To me, "content is king" means a very different thing. To me it means "Write something that others will enjoy reading, something totally original, informative and, to your best knowledge, true. Avoid misinformation. Highlight the benefits of your product – but only the real benefits, and don’t forget about the USP. Describe your service in such a way that everyone could understand what you offer. Don’t be afraid to educate. Express yourself – but respect the reader. This way, your content will sooner or later bring you success."

If your copy complies with all of the above, you’ll often find out that it doesn’t need much optimisation for the engines. In most cases, your important keywords will already be there, because they help make your message clear and simple.

Educational copy on a business site

Often my clients will ask me, "Why should we target this search term? I’m sure those who search for it are not going to buy my service/product. They are looking at ways to have something for free, or to do it all by themselves." They speak on the assumption that only content that converts directly into sales makes sense on a business site.

I don’t think that’s necessarily so (or perhaps it’s my idealism again). I strongly believe in the importance of the indirect benefits that educational content can bring us, even though such indirect benefits are hard to measure.

But they are still real. First, articles and FAQs will highlight your knowledge and experience in your specific niche and, as a result, improve your credibility. Second, grateful readers might decide to link to you from their blog, forum or even a regular site, and it will benefit your overall online visibility. Third, those articles can be republished on a few authoritative websites, consequently bringing you more readers, more links (remember that links are still an important SEO factor), more credibility and even actual leads (and I’m speaking from experience). And last but not least, the search engines love educational content and often rank it higher in their SERPs than your thoroughly optimised business-related stuff.

Why so?

Here, we have to go back to where we started. As I’ve mentioned above, the engines are looking for content they can deliver to their searchers, and were originally created for this purpose alone. As a side-effect, they sometimes give you free referrals from their organic listings, but that’s not the main goal of their existence. If you wish to receive, be sure to give something in return - the world is just built this way. If you want those free referrals, give the engines something they want – and they want information. When your site has a lot of useful information, properly written and verified for accuracy, the engines see it as quality.

How to maximise the benefits

Of course, to maximise the benefits of your educational content, make sure your article pages, FAQs, blog and other such stuff are linked back to your business pages. If appropriate, provide a link to your services from within your article (if it fits in the context). This way you can subtly encourage your readers to buy from you.

Content may be king – but king is nothing without people

Of course, your content is the core of your SEO, but other factors are also important and shouldn’t be neglected. We should never forget about the basics of SE-friendly design and navigation; we should take care of usability; and of course, incoming links still play their role. In short, if no links point to your website, nobody will ever know it exists, and the engines won’t index your site even if you submit it to them. If your site is unspiderable, they will never know about your great content. SEO itself is just a part of the whole process of optimising your online presence; if your code is a mess (and, consequently, the site doesn’t display properly in all browsers), or the whole site is hard to navigate, or your visual design is ugly, then your visitors will just leave it and never come back. They will probably forget to read your great content, let alone buy your service.

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