SEO Copywriting Tips: 5 Places Your Keywords Must Be Used in Client Copy

As an SEO copywriter, you have to do more than write text using keywords. There are specific places keywords should be placed for them to generate the most traffic. This is, after all, what clients pay you for. Following are five places you should make sure that keyword phrases appear in client copy.

Note: I have to admit, I don’t always follow these rules when writing copy for my own websites and blogs, but I always do when writing client copy. You can use the following as a sort of SEO copywriting template. It’ll help you write more effective SEO copy, which leads to more clients.

SEO Copywriting Tips to Help You Create Better Copy & Get Land More SEO Writing Jobs

1. The Headline: While this may seem obvious, many forget about it in favor of trying to write cutesy, humorous, catchy titles. DON’T! If you can write cutesy, humorous and catchy headlines — that tells the reader what the article is about AND includes your main keyword phrase – then by all means, do so.

BUT, all three of these objectives can rarely be accomplished. So stick with what works — even though it’s boring and staid. Remember, search engines don’t have a sense of humor. They only know how to categorize text and spit it out to the end user (eg, web  surfers (your buying customers)). So give them what they need to do their job — keyword text in your headline.

2. First Paragraph: To be frank, I don’t quite know why your main keyword phrase should be repeated in the first paragraph, but it should. I think it may be because once a search engine has grabbed hold of your title, they want to be sure that the copy that follows it is really relevant. By repeating your main keyword phrase in the first paragraph, it tells the search engine bots that it is indeed on topic.

FYI, I usually repeat the main keyword phrase only once in this first paragraph. You don’t have to write spammy, crappy copy just because it’s SEO (this is why the industry has such a stinky reputation, in my opinion).

3. Subtitles: SEO articles of 350-500 words should have at least two sub headlines (subtitles). This serves two purposes, ie:

Fits the way web surfers read: Web surfers don’t ready copy word for word. They usually skim. Bolded headlines help them to determine what’s coming up. It gets them to the information they’re looking for quicker.

Looks better on the page: Web copy should also be broken up. I’ve read that paragraphs should be no more than 3-5 lines. Longer than this, and the copy appears clunky and thick. Remember, web surfers skim; they’re not looking to read a book. Having shorter paragraphs — even if there is a lot of info on the page — will help them “digest” it better. It’s more pleasing to the eye to look at than a big wad of text.

4. Final Paragraph: Your main keyword phrase should always be repeated in the last paragraph. Some SEO copywriting experts say that it should be in the last sentence — preferably the last words. I don’t adhere to this. I think that if it’s in the last paragraph, then it’s fine.

5. Throughout the Text: Some experienced SEO copywriters say that you should use your main keyword phrase every 100 words or so. This all goes back to keyword density, which was discussed in the SEO Tools and Tips series. For a 350-500 word SEO article, this would give you a keyword density of between 1-2%. Learn how to calculate keyword density. Not enough in my opinion.

I won’t rehash this topic here, as it’s discussed in the links to Part II of the SEO Tools and Tips series. I try to achieve 3-5% keyword density for my SEO article clients. So for a 500-word article, I will repeat a keyword phrase 8-10 times. I use primary and secondary keyword phrases to achieve this density. How do I do it? By making sure a primary or secondary keyword phrase is used in almost every paragraph. Most of my SEO articles have 7-10 paragraphs, so this makes it easy.

If you follow these simple SEO copywriting tips, you’ll give your clients professional SEO copy that brings them traffic.

P.S.: Learn how to make $100-$250+/Day as an SEO Copywriter.

Follow us if you found this post helpful!

Copyright © 2009: Yuwanda Black for SEO Writing Jobs. This article may not be reproduced or redistributed without the express, written consent of the author.

Search New Media Jobs by Category
SEO/SEM; Freelance; Blogging/Bloggers; SEO/Online/Web Writing; Internet/Online Marketing; Web Strategist/Consultant; Web 2.0 Designer/Developer; Social Media Marketing/Networking

Search New Media Jobs by State
AK; AL; AR; AZ; CA; CO; CT; DC; DE; FL; GA; HI; ID; IL; IA; IN; KS; KT; LA; MA; MD; ME; MI; MN; MO; MS; MT; NB; NC; ND; NH; NJ; NM; NV; NY; OH; OK; OR; PA; RI; SC; SD; TN; TX; UT; VA; VT; WA; WI; WV; WY

Can’t Find What You’re Looking For? Search jobs by keyword and location in the ”Jobs” Section to the right.

Photo Courtesy of: Svilen Mushkatov at SXC.hu.