This is is the 3rd post in our Winning on the Web series.  If you haven’t already, you should check out the previous article about the website repair necessary to start a serious on page SEO effort.

Once you’ve made sure that your site is technically sound, the next step is to make sure that your content is matched to words for which people actually search.  This is a lot more difficult than it sounds.  Professional copywriting for the web is significantly different than copy writing for other media.  Our first inclination is to be catchy, creative, and unique.  So we naturally pepper the copy on our site with witty slogans, and repeat our beloved brand names over and over.  WealthNet has a few of these phrases ourselves like “Discover the Art of Business Development” or even the title of this series “Winning on the Web.”

The problem with phrases like these is that people don’t search for them when they want to find a company like ours.  According to Google, in a given month not one person searches  for “discover the art of business development.”.  Only 58 people type “winning on the web.”  And it’s extremely likely that the same is true for your slogan.  So the first step in improving your content for an on page SEO effort is to figure out what phrases people actually search for when they want to find a company like yours.

Knowing we need to find highly searched terms, people often fall victim to another error.  To illustrate, the phrase “business development” is typed into Google over 800,000 time every month!  Wow, I would love to have a pipeline of 800,000 people, so I should work on getting that term, right?  Actually, probably not.  The truth is that many of the people who type in that phrase are probably not actually looking to engage a company like ours.  Maybe they want to find out about new developments in the world of business, or the want to find out about the business of real estate development, etc.  Additionally, even if I were 100% convinced that people who type in that term are looking for the type of services we provide, it’s quite likely that it will take longer to rank highly for that term than for a more precise term.  So I’d be waiting longer for my prospects to come, and when they do come I’d have to wade through a lot of junk. So you want to identify phrases not only that people search for, but that they search for when they’re trying to find someone like you.

The next step in professional copywriting is to use those phrases as frequently as possible in your content.  Furthermore, if you emphasize your kewords by making them bold, linked, etc. the search engines will rank you even higher for those terms.

It’s interesting to note that some shady website owners have tried creative tricks to rank for terms that they don’t actually want their visitors to read (for a variety of reasons).  People have tried having very small text at the bottom of the page (similar to a legal disclaimer), and others have even placed white text on a white background so that it won’t be seen by a typical visitor.  Techniques like these worked for a time, but they don’t anymore, and as search engines discover new loopholes they fix their results formula to address them, and heavily punish the cheaters.  So if you hear about a scheme to increase your ranking without writing bonafide content, don’t fall in the trap or you’ll pay dearly later.

If you don’t have the time or the expertise to write compelling, keyword rich content, WealthNet’s copywriting services make sure that you get the maximum value out of each of your pages.  Also, don’t forget to check our our article on why it’s important to have the best site in your industry, and the technical foundation of on page SEO.