As technology has evolved, so has the way we must write for the web. Most every day activities revolve around the internet somehow, making it much more people oriented, as opposed to search engine oriented. This has changed the way we must optimize our sites for said search engines. We can no longer hide lists of keywords on our sites by making them the same color as the background, nor should we write articles with asinine keyword repetition. Keyword “stuffing” will destroy your ranking, and human visitors will not stay long to read a repetitive article. As in so much of life, the ticket is balance.

The first step to achieving proper Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is research. There are many programs and companies that provide keyword research, but it’s up to you do decide which ones work for you. For example, if your website provides listings for dog services, it is unlikely that the keyword “dog” will do any good, as there are hundreds of thousands of sites about dogs. You will be much better off concentrating on key phrases like “dog grooming” or “dog sitting”, etc. Writing for your target audience is absolutely vital, as they will be the ones searching for sites like yours. Even if the article you write gets you a top ranking, if the article does not immediately satisfy the reader, it is highly unlikely that they will venture further into your site where you might actually have the information they need.

Your articles should contain a keyword density that will give you a high ranking and provide the information visitors are looking for. A really excellent article will not only do those things, but will also draw visitors further into your site. This includes calls-to-action and links to related articles or blogs. Even if the visitor was just looking for a quick answer, a well written, informative article with links to related articles will prompt more return visitors. Once again, it is absolutely crucial to avoid keyword stuffing as it is actually detrimental to your sites ranking. Essentially, your content should be the guest at the party who brings the host (web crawler) a bottle of wine (keywords), but also brings a few more bottles (well written, interesting content) for the rest of the guests (real visitors). Implementing proper SEO copywriting can be time consuming and difficult, however the difference it makes for your site traffic is well worth the work.