SEO Blog

Copy is a core part of every website. It is your communicative device, the way you interact with customers and persuade them to utilise your services. Without having a voice on hand to guide everybody through, you are reliant on strong copy to do the job for you.

Whilst the quality of your content is absolutely vital, you also need to be aware of keywords and search engine optimisation. Search engines look for all kinds of things when they’re trying to rank a site, but one of the most important is on-site copy.
You can give your SEO strategy a huge lift just by implementing a few key phrases on each page. Preferably you’ll want the main keyword to sit in the first paragraph (first sentence if you can manage it) and somewhere towards the bottom. This will flag up to the search engine crawlers exactly what it is that you’re targeting.

The main danger when it comes to integrating keywords into your copy is over usage. You want to ensure that at the very most, your keywords account for five per cent of your total. But realistically you will probably go under this figure, but certainly won’t be penalised as a result.

Since the bad old days of black hat SEO, search engines like Google and Yahoo have been quick to pounce on anything deemed to be ‘gaming’ the system. Their search algorithms are highly complex and will invariably pick up on any misdemeanours on any site; no matter how deep you try to bury them.

This shouldn’t be of any concern though. All your writing, perhaps with the exception of the main keyword, should flow naturally. You shouldn’t be looking to shoehorn in your terms left, right and centre; instead you should have an understanding of what they are and have them in the back of your mind when it comes to writing the main copy.

Whilst the search engines are important, I doubt anybody would argue to the contrary, remember your audience above all else. If your copy is dull and unreadable, its whole purpose will be voided. So keep an eye out for those keywords, but don’t forget to keep your focus elsewhere too.