L&S Unscripted

There’s nothing tricky about writing copy for web sites. Generally speaking, if real people love your site so will search engines. Here are a few tips for writing user- and search-friendly web copy:

—

Example 1: “Vinnie’s Vegetables offers ripe, glorious vegetables of all varieties: carrots, celery, radishes, rutabaga, red peppers, green peppers, yellow peppers, onions, garlic, zucchini, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, leeks, bok choy, eggplant, squash, green peas, sweet peas, snow peas, brussels sprouts, collard greens, green beans, spinach, red potatoes, new potatoes, Yukon gold potatoes, russet potatoes and yams. Our vegetables are grown “clean and green”. For more Vinnie’s Vegetables click here.”

Example 2: “Vinnie’s Vegetables offers fresh, organic produce year-round. Our pesticide-free vegetables are grown locally – no shipping means a lower cost and greener living for our customers. Sign up for our email newsletter to get ‘Vegetable of the Week’ updates.”

—

1. Use keywords when contextually appropriate, but stuffing is for turkeys. You can’t trick search engines into looking at your page, and you’ll probably scare away visitors if you try. Instead of a long, boring keyword list of products/services (like in Example 1), be upfront about the best attributes of your company. If you hook a visitor on merit, they’ll dig deeper for details.

2. Think like your potential customers. Use keywords a visitor might type into a Google search. Instead of vague phrases like “grown clean and green”, try “green lifestyle” and “organic produce”. Also avoid industry-speak if your audience is the general public. If you aren’t sure what people search for, ask your mom (or spouse or kid) what they would type into a search engine to find your product. Their answers might surprise you.

3. Link internally from keywords. In Example 1, “click here” isn’t doing Vinnie any favors with the search engines. It takes up unnecessary space and makes navigating less seamless for visitors. Also, make sure the words you link from make sense with your destination. In Example 1, “offers” isn’t a clear link – is it an order form? Special offers? Good internal links should forge clear paths to more information.

Even with good-quality, succinct copy on your pages, search engines will still look for the most relevant site overall. So in addition to good copy on each page, give visitors a reason to dig around and come back again. Throughout the site, have lots of fresh, thorough content and calls to action (order a brochure, sign up for our email newsletter, etc.).