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Category Search Engine

What is good SEO copywriting?

here’s a five-part series at Copyblogger called SEO Copywriting 2.0.

It’s a really cool and useful breakdown of what you can do with your copy to really boost your results in Google. I’d recommend reading the whole series for good ideas on how you can tailor your blog posts for a better showing.

But it’s a five part series, and let’s face it, most of us are lazy. So here’s the big not-so-secret secret: almost 90% of what you can do to get good search results is get linked to.

As Brian Clark puts it:

That’s why any true SEO copywriter is simply a writer who has a knack for tuning in to the needs and desires of the target audience. And due to the pursuit of links, those needs and desires have to be nailed well before you’ll ever show up in the search engines.

…

“Ask yourself what creates value for your users,” sayeth Google. As those brainy engineers continue to diligently create better algorithms, combined with people-powered social media tagging and blog-driven links, copywriters with a flair for prompting link response and conversions will become vital members of any search engine marketing effort.

In other words, good SEO copywriting is linkbait.

I think that it goes a little bit farther than that, though: I’m betting on Google. Google’s entire business is based around providing the best search results to whoever is searching.

So my strategy has always been this:

1. Who do I want to reach?
2. What are they searching for?
3. What is the best response to that question?

And that’s what I try to write.

Build a Facebook Application as Part of Your Search Engine Optimization Effort

Everyone knows that Web 2.0 technologies have permanently shaken up the practice of Search Engine Optimization. But when people discuss the confluence of Web 2.0 and SEO, they’re usually talking about blogging. After all, we all know that search engines love blogs because they’re dynamic, link to each other frequently and have well-structured code. Blogs usually beat metatagging and link exchanges on a static website.

But what about Facebook applications? Until recently, search engines weren’t indexing them. But according to Justin Smith of Inside Facebook:

Facebook recently enabled developers to serve XML sitemaps off the apps.facebook.com. Sitemaps are used by webmasters to notify search engines of updates to pages and page structure, and generally are a worthwhile exercise in any SEO strategy. Since apps are served from apps.facebook.com, developers get to ride on the back of Facebook’s PageRank – potentially a big leg up on regular web apps.

As of this writing, the domain www.facebook.com has a Google PageRank of 8. It’s entirely possible that a well-optimized application page could be indexed by Google as being more relevant than a company’s own website. An inbound link from an application page could also make your site more relevant.

If you’re attempting to make the case for developing a Facebook applicatio to reach your audience, don’t forget to mention the SEO benefit to your boss.