Copywriting for SEO: Every Page is a "Book"
I heard a great concept at an SEO presentation today, that makes sense for copywriters trying to learn how to write SEO tags for their web site. The speaker suggested:
"Think of every page on your site as a book."
When you pick up a book, you read the book title. Then you might read the short description on the back of the book. Then you might browse the table of contents to see what the chapters are about. This, suggested the speaker, gives the SEO copywriter a great analogy for writng SEO tags for every web page.
If you're writing your own SEO (search engine optimization) tags -- including page titles and page descriptions -- along with the regular copy on your site, thinking of every page on your site as a book can be useful.
- If you read just the book title, the short description on the back, and the table of contents, you should have a pretty good idea of what the book is about -- and whether it covers what you're interested in.
I'd take this great concept one step further, and suggest that if you read just the page title, page description, headline, and subheads on a web page, you should get a clear idea of the FOCUS of each page on your site.
For SEO purposes, you should prepare:
1. A Page Title (or "Title Tag") -- this is the short line that appears at the very top of your browser window. When someone searches for your site on Google, the Page Title also appears as your site's headline in the search results. Every page on your site should have a unique page title.
2. A Page Description -- this description appears in your site code and is not visible to visitor to your site. But if someone searches for your site on Google, your Page Description appears as your site description in the search results.
3. Headline on each page ("H1 Tag")
4. Subheads on each page ("H2 Tags") -- 3-5 per page. If you have further subsections, you can also use H3 and H4 tags.
Review the copy on each page of your site, and select the most important 1-3 keywords that reflect: a) the main message of the page, and b) important keywords that prospects are actually using when seaching for your type of solution. Be sure to get these 1-3 keywords in your Page Title, Page Description, Headline, and Subheads.
- Move away from headlines that are too short and general like "Products" or "Solutions." Would a book ever have one of those words as a title? (Of course not, as they're too general. And from an SEO perspective, they don't include your keywords.)
- Help visitors to learn what your page is about as they SCAN the page -- by usng specific subheads that explain to the visitor what the subsequent paragraphs are about. Think of how chapters might be titled in a book -- usually the more specific the chapter title, the better. So it is with subheads.
(Your programmer will know how to code the Title Tag, Description Tag, and H1, H2, H3, and H4 tags for you, once you provide the copy. But all copywriters working on web copy should become familiar with this new area of "SEO Copywriting".)
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