When writing your page content: you must balance the needs of your target audience with those that will make your site search engine friendly. Here are the five keys to help you succeed with both your intended target audience and search engines.
Assume your website visitors must comprehend the primary benefits you are offering them within 30 seconds or click their gone. This most important benefit must be emphasized in your headline.
A strong, enticing headline is the most important single element of your Web page copy. Studies have shown that the right headline can increase response to an offer exponentially - and, only one in five will get beyond the headline to read the rest of the your text.
Short copy blocks work best, highlighted by bullet points, keyword-rich links, and subheadings.
Multiple, specific subheadings create immediate context when a visitor is exploring your site. Make sure they can always see at least one headline on the screen. Like magazine index headlines, they are summaries of what they can expect.
Readers of Web copy (in English) most often start in the upper right hand corner, drop their eyes toward the bottom of the page, and then ascend to the upper left. The order in which they read is:
Which means, you must take into consideration all of these elements when constructing body copy.
Above all, write to the needs of your intended target audience. Put yourself in their place and ask: "What's in this website for me?" That's what they really want to know, regardless of whether you are marketing or simply delivering information.
The next two elements have to do with writing for the search engines.
Determine what keywords or key phrase would describe your entire website - a key phrase someone would use often on the search engines to find related information. To pick heavily searched, popular key phrases, try:
Word Tracker: http://www.roibot.com/w.cgi?IM7470_wordtracker
Write your entire site around you chosen key phrase for proper search engine
indexing, a process used by search engines to determine an entire site's primary
topic.
Topic indexing search engines include Altavista, Google, Excite, Lycos and Webcrawler. Each has their own unique way of evaluating your website using page titles, meta keywords, the description tag, page headlines, general content and links. Which means, your key phrase must be present throughout your website.
Search engines read from the top of the page down in HTML code, or roughly from the upper left to the lower right of your visible text. Therefore, it's in your best interest to use a keyword-rich phrase in the upper left corner of your Web page.
Use your primary key phrase within the first 25 words on your page. Also use keyword-rich hyperlinks as well as third party links to similar websites.
Seek a balance of 3-7% keyword-density. Check this before you submit pages with the free Keyword Density Analyzer: http://www.keyworddensity.com. Also do key phrase searches on the most popular search engines to find out what your competition is doing and how they're doing it.
More and more people are relying on search engines to find what it is they are looking for, so it is important that your website be properly indexed on the major search engines if you want to increase your exposure and zero in on your intended target audience.