To start off my week of blog posts about "search engine friendly" copy, I'd first like to define what exactly this term means to me.
I hear people use this phrase as a way of dismissing search engine optimization (SEO) efforts. Because you're writing copy for the search engines, as opposed for people, the thinking goes, optimized copy really isn't as powerful as pure direct response copy.
Of course, I completely disagree.
This week, I'm going to focus on optimized copy that's written for people and that also helps a site rank well in the search engines.
Notice I put "people" first.
Why? Because no matter how well a site ranks in the search engines results pages (SERPs) for a particular keyword set, if the site's content *sucks* it's going to deter inquiries and/or sales.
And conversely, if a site has great content but buyers and prospects can't find the site when doing searches, then again, you're losing sales.
SEO and great sales copy go hand in hand.
But, before we get into the nitty gritty of optimized copy, I'll first ask you to do the same exercise I perform for prospective clients who call me about their sites' lack of performance: Analyze your site's analytics.
Why do you need data? Because you can't write optimized copy until you know what's going on with your site.
It's the same thing Bob Bly does before writing a direct response letter. "Before I start writing," he recently told me, "I ask the client to send me the control letter plus the results of any recent test packages. My mission is to beat the control but I can't do that until I have data."
If an ISP hosts your site, you may have Web analytics as part of your monthly hosting package. If you have a corporate site, your IT or marketing department may have an application such as Web Trends.
If you don't have Web analytics, get it. Today. You can sign up for Google Analytics in about two minutes and start getting data as soon as the code is installed on your site.
If you do have Web analytics, go look at your data to determine the following for the last six months: number of unique visitors, top downloaded pages, average time on site, the Websites that are sending traffic to your site (referring sites), and the keywords people are using to find your site.
Feel free to post anything you learn. If you already analyze your data, tell us how you've used it to improve results. Personally, the more I analyze other sites, the more I learn about SEO, online marketing, and copywriting in general.
Tomorrow: Performing a keyword search
