How Important Is Content?

Heather Lloyd-Martin has written an excellent article on search engine optimization copywriting.

Successful SEO copywriting is more than just word counts and keyphrase densities. It’s about gently blending information, persuasion and, yes, keyphrases into your text. It’s knowing the line between “fluff” and “information” – and understanding what power words will translate into skyrocketing sales.

SEOs that simply try to throw your keywords into the page x number of times are doing an extreme disservice. It may be search engine friendly, but it is definately not user friendly.

Heather suggests that your SEO copywriters ask the following:

>What are your corporate core values, and how do you express them to your customers?
>What common objections do people have when they buy from you? How do you address them, and change those prospects into satisfied buyers?
>What “hot points” help your customers take action?
>What information do your customers need to make an informed buying decision?
>What problems does your product or service solve?
>What sales approaches have worked in the past? What hasn’t worked?
>What are your other online and offline marketing efforts?
>What tone and feel best resonates with your customers?

This is excellent web marketing!

To keep costs affordable most SEO firms don’t get into the marketing aspects of search engine placement, they are primarily focuses on top rankings or search engine friendliness alone. The level of detail Heather suggests would considerably increase the cost of your optimization strategy, and if that fits the budget then its definitely the way to go.

If your budget is somewhat tighter, the very least you can do is find an SEO firm that employs professional copywriters. This will ensure that you’ll end up with good, quality and effective text that meshes with the optimization campaign. Again, this level of SEO will be more expensive than many other firms, but you’ll be confident you will get quality results both in rankings and on-page delivery to your visitors.