Web copywriter - some optimisation lessons
Lots of the pages on my site are optimised for the phrase "web copywriter". Handily enough, this means my main website usually ranks in the top three for the Google search engine results page for this phrase. Sweet.
Clients often ask what they can do to improve their rankings after I've written their search optimised copy. Well, here goes with some thoughts.
Inbound links from relevant sites
The most obvious answer is this: get some good quality (and relevant) sites linking in to yours. In some sectors, it's simply enough to contact friendly site owners and suggest a bit of reciprocal linking. The key here is to choose sites with a high Google PageRank - and which have content really closely related to your sector.
The name of the link text the linking site uses is really important. If you sell amber necklaces , a perfect inbound link to your site would look like this:
Pol Store Amber necklaces
There are other ways of doing it, but the main point here is that the link term you want to optimise for is in the link text itself.
Help the search engines and directories help you
I won't get into the whole "when to submit your site/when not" debate. However, there are a couple of big search engines and directories where you really need to submit your site details. These are:
DMOZ (which forms part of the Google Directory)
Yahoo
Another tool you should consider is the Google Sitemap. This is a brain-free way of sending all the relevant pages in your site to Google, and finding out what Google makes of your site. Very handy. This also contradicts my usual advice to avoid submitting your site to Google. In the past, sites that Google found by itself received a higher ranking than ones people had actively submitted.
Last of all - keep it clean, folks
Lastly, and most obviously, you need to keep working that site in order to climb up the rankings. Remove deadwood; publish fresh news; add new pages - you get the idea.
Obviously there's a whole lot more you should do - like keeping track of the competition and reviewing your search phrases. In fact just the three little projects on this post should keep you busy for days. Just remember to keep things in proportion, and have a little patience while the directories and search engines get to know your site.
The results will be well worth the wait.
Clients often ask what they can do to improve their rankings after I've written their search optimised copy. Well, here goes with some thoughts.
Inbound links from relevant sites
The most obvious answer is this: get some good quality (and relevant) sites linking in to yours. In some sectors, it's simply enough to contact friendly site owners and suggest a bit of reciprocal linking. The key here is to choose sites with a high Google PageRank - and which have content really closely related to your sector.
The name of the link text the linking site uses is really important. If you sell amber necklaces , a perfect inbound link to your site would look like this:
Pol Store Amber necklaces
There are other ways of doing it, but the main point here is that the link term you want to optimise for is in the link text itself.
Help the search engines and directories help you
I won't get into the whole "when to submit your site/when not" debate. However, there are a couple of big search engines and directories where you really need to submit your site details. These are:
DMOZ (which forms part of the Google Directory)
Yahoo
Another tool you should consider is the Google Sitemap. This is a brain-free way of sending all the relevant pages in your site to Google, and finding out what Google makes of your site. Very handy. This also contradicts my usual advice to avoid submitting your site to Google. In the past, sites that Google found by itself received a higher ranking than ones people had actively submitted.
Last of all - keep it clean, folks
Lastly, and most obviously, you need to keep working that site in order to climb up the rankings. Remove deadwood; publish fresh news; add new pages - you get the idea.
Obviously there's a whole lot more you should do - like keeping track of the competition and reviewing your search phrases. In fact just the three little projects on this post should keep you busy for days. Just remember to keep things in proportion, and have a little patience while the directories and search engines get to know your site.
The results will be well worth the wait.
posted by web_copywriter at
9:39 PM
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