Web Copy Optimization: What It Is and Why You Need It

Why optimizing your web copy is important

What is web copy optimization? Let's break it down a bit. First, web copy is written text used for advertising and publicity on the Web. Copy that is sharp, engaging, written in proper English, and search engine friendly can attract visitors to your site and encourage them to choose to do business with you. Effective web copy can make you stand out from your competition. It involves populating your website with the keywords that will get you noticed and is imperative if you expect your online business to be successful.

We know that most web traffic comes through search engines and that both keywords and links to your site affect your search engine rankings. Your keywords tell search engines what you do, and the inbound links tell them how important you are. This combination determines your relevance, which is what search engines are after.

Web copy optimization is achieved by creating copy, text, or content that gives search engines what they want to see, where they want to see it. The first step is keyword research—or keyword optimization—which is the act of researching, analyzing, and selecting the best keywords to drive qualified traffic from search engines to your website.

The selection of your target keywords is crucial; if you don't choose and use the keywords your customers are searching for, they won't find you. Do some research and find the most likely keywords and keyword phrases that Internet surfers would use to find a website such as yours. Keyword analysis is a continuous process so that you keep uncovering new keyword opportunities to expand your reach into various keyword verticals.

Web copy optimization means optimizing your page for better search engine placement. Search engines examine your tags as well as your copy. If the keywords used in your tags aren’t used in your copy, your site won’t be indexed for those keywords. Search engines also consider how often a keyword phrase is used on a page.

After you have compiled a keyword list, write informational or instructional articles based on these keywords. Position your keywords strategically and naturally throughout your document without overusing them.

Place your keywords in metadata such as the page title, description tags, image captions, and alt tags. Title and meta description tags are keyword-based phrases that search engines scan when looking for relevant websites after a person types in a term. The title tag is the first part of a website that a search engine looks at and should therefore contain the most popular keywords related to your business. The meta description is a longer tag that is visible only in the HTML code of the website, but search engines will also scan it for keywords.

Web copy optimization is the cyber-equivalent of placing large, flashing orange neon arrows all around the entrance to a brick-and-mortar business. It increases your visibility to online customers and makes you a force to be reckoned with in search engine rankings. Devoting a little time to analyzing keywords up front will reap definite rewards down the road. If research and meta management are not your forte, it might prove beneficial to contract a website editing service to create the perfect copy for your site.

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