SEO Copywriting Tips: How to Drive More Traffic to Your Site with Clean URLs

November 11, 2009 | By SEO Writing Jobs Editor In Site News |

Even if you’re not an SEO copywriter, learning to apply SEO techniques to your writing will help to drive more traffic to your site — and client sites (if you write for them).

Today, we’re going to discuss two reasons clean URLs are a necessity. It’s an easy, seamless way to get more web traffic.

1. Search Engines: Search engines (SEs) like clean URLs. This is perhaps the most important reason to use them. SE’s like clean URLs because it’s easier for them to tell what a page is all about, which makes it easier to index it.

2. Social Bookmarking: If you use social bookmarking sites like StumbleUpon and Digg on a regular basis, you know that some will allow you to save only the URL and page description. So, having a clean one will get more people to click through because it clues them into what the content is all about.

SEO Copywriting Tips and Examples for URLs

Good Example of a Clean URL: http://InkwellEditorial.com/freelance-writing-ebooks

Bad Example of a URL: http://InkwellEditorial.com/bizguides

Note: I’m embarrassed to say that the bad URL is the actual URL for the Freelance Writing Ebook page on InkwellEditorial.com. This page was created long before I knew the intricacies of SEO though. When you know better, you do better.

4 SEO Copywriting Tips for Writing Clean URLs

SEO Copywriting Tip #1: Keep URLs Short. Make them as short as possible, without sacrificing description.

SEO Copywriting Tip #2: Make URLs Descriptive. Make them as descriptive as possible because, as stated above, it clues search engines and readers into what the content is all about.

SEO Copywriting Tip #3: Use Keywords. Take the time to look up the keywords relevant to that page and use them in your description. This will drive more traffic.

SEO Copywriting Tip #4: Use Hyphens. Notice how in the “Good Example of a Clean URL” used above I used hyphens? This is because SEs treat words separated by hyphens as individual words.

It’s like having spaces (which of course is not possible in URLs). Hyphens also make the URL easy to read for web surfers, which will make them more likely to click on your page when they show up in search engine results.

Nowadays, it’s automatic for me to use good, clean, descriptive URLs that tell readers and surfers, as well as search engines, what a page is all about.

If you blog in Wordpress, you know that it automatically creates your URL from the title of your page. Sometimes, this is not the best one, especially if you use the guidelines outlined above. Most of the time, I create my URLs from scratch.

If you use these SEO copywriting tips, you’ll also develop the habit of creating traffic-generating URLs.

SEO COPYWRITER MARKETING TIP

Pass these tips along to prospects and existing clients in your newsletter, tweets, on your blog, etc.

By demonstrating your knowledge of SEO, it makes them that much easier to sell your SEO writing services to prospects, and for existing clients to recommend you.

Want to Start a Career as an SEO Copywriter

Inkwell Editorial offers three products — each addressing various skill and knowlege levels — to train you, ie:

(i) How to Make $250+/Day Writing Simple, 500-Word Articles;

(ii) How to Write SEO Copy That Sells: An SEO Copywriting Training Manual (Read a 13-page preview of what this SEO copywriting training guide contains); and an

(iii) SEO Copywriting Ecourse.

Free Report: Learn SEO: 6 Reasons SEO Copywriting Is the Ideal High-Paying, Work-from-Home, Recession-Proof Career (pdf file).

Good luck if you decide to pursue this lucrative, work-from-home career.

Sincerely,
Yuwanda Black, Publisher/SEO Instructor
http://InkwellEditorial.com
http://SEOWritingJobs.com