Websites 101 - Part 4
Writing the Right Copy

Curl up in your favorite chair, fix a relaxing cup of tea and JUST DO IT!! Most people need to lighten up when they write their web pages. Afterall, you don't have a brick and mortar store where the person comes in and sees your winning smile. They have to rely on your words to reflect who and what you are.

This isn't rocket science folks, good copy is just one friend writing to another. You have to imagine the other person in your mind and write your copy as if you were talking to them face to face. Listing the benefits **they'll receive** if they use your product or service.

Quite frankly, nobody gives a rip about how many people or customers you have. They're only concerned with themselves and you better keep this in the forefront of your brain when you write each page of your web site. It's not hard if you use bullets listing the benefits on one page and hyperlink to another page for more indepth information.

You're dealing with people who are busy so be brief on some pages and lengthy on others. Then you need to:

Rewrite your copy to make it spider friendly!

This means you'll need to dissect your text word by word to see if you can insert your keyword or phrase into the sentence without making it sound awkward. If you can, do it and keep count.

The keywords also need to be placed strategically throughout your web page. Three or four near the top of your page and another three instances throughout the rest of the page. Remember, this is a generic rule of thumb and might not apply on some of your pages.

For instance, if you only have 25 words on your page and you use your keyword 7 times, the search engine algorithm will be triggered and your site will be dumped for spamming before it ever hits their database.

Other places you can use your keyword or phrase to increase your rating and not get dinged by search engines are:

• Your web page URL - (i.e., freebooks.html)
• Title tags in hyperlinks. You know the ones:
  <a href="freebooks.html" title="Link to free books page">
• Using a keyword as the title of your graphic:
  <img src="freebooks.jpg">
• Alt tags in your graphics. Not only do these tags keep you in compliance with handicap issues but the search engines also count these when ranking your web page. Example:
  <img src="freebooks.jpg" alt="Graphic of 5 free ebooks">
• When you use java script to open a new window to see a larger view of your graphic or to hyperlink to another page with more information between the section of your web page. For instance:
  window.open('freebooks1.html','freebooks','
• Anytime your keyword is put between header codes it gets a higher ranking. Especially if it is the first line in your web page.
  <h1>Download your free books here!</h1>
  As you can see, it's not difficult to make your web page copy spider friendly. It just takes preplanning and a little extra effort to reach those top spots in search engines.
• And, if you don't like your position once your site is indexed, keep refining (rewriting) until you do. Robots and spiders will come more often to your site if they see a new date each time they visit.

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Related Articles:
Websites 101 - Part 1 - Choosing the Right Domain Name
Websites 101 - Part 2 - Tips on Providing Great Content
Websites 101 - Part 3 - Choosing the Right Words
Websites 101 - Part 4 - Writing the Right Copy