Search engine optimizing a copy (SEO) is one of the many factors that you can improve on in your quest to get a higher ranking in search engines. Every website owner wants his or her website to rank high in search engine results. By using targeted keywords and well optimized content, you can achieve that goal and make your website visible on the first page of search engine’s results. At the end of the day what matters is conversions for the website owner and to make that happen good SEO copies are needed.

5 SEO Essentials that a SEO Content creator shouldn’t live without

Though there are no set guidelines to implement better SEO but the 5 essentials mentioned below would be really helpful:

Title Tags – Title tags are extremely important to get a higher ranking in search engines. Keep your title tag concise and focus only on targeted keywords. This helps you create good content for the title tags. Also if you want to brand your website you can use the website name along with the keywords in the title tags. This makes your company’s name appear several times in the listings of a search engine. However, if the name is too long then you can pass this.

Description tags – The meta description tags will also not show up on the page but will come as small descriptions on the search page. Use the important keywords from the meta tags as these are highlighted in bold when searched for. With your well crafted meta description tags you can influence your buyers and increase the probability of customers clicking on your tag. Call to action must be added in the meta tags.

Headings – Title tags and headings should be synchronized so that the most important keywords are repeated in the beginning itself. Also use H1, H2 and H5 tags for headings and sub headings to highlight the important keywords. Keyword variation leads to uniquely created tags, which helps and works too.

Internal linking – Hyper-linking and internal linking of pages is extremely important. Link important pages to more relevant information related to that topic on some other page. This also helps build the authenticity of the pages in search engines. Though excessive linking is never recommended yet it should not be underused as well.

Usage of keyword – Keyword usage has been a debatable topic for SEO experts and copywriters. How to infuse keywords and in what density is very important to know! Keyword usage should never lead to keyword stuffing in an article. Use keywords at important places like in meta tags and title tags. These should be used in the beginning of the article and sporadically in the entire post. When making meta tags ensure that the keywords are inserted wisely too.

No one wrote the rule book of SEO copywriting as yet and a lot can be added to the above mentioned points to increase your website’s ranking in search engine results. While we analyse more essentials that work up a rocking SEO content strategy you start out with these.

Content strategy means jotting down everything about what your copy is, can or will be – before you start creating it. A well documented content strategy works like a shiny but very useful add on to your project reports/ propositions that your clients eagerly await every month.

Having said that, content strategy is more about sharpening your craft as a wirter than adding some bling to a client proposition. With a content strategy in mind, it is hard for anyone to lead astray into irrelevance while creating content for various web pages.

The key elements of any content strategy are:

• Objective
• Design
• Measurement
• Time-lines, creation
• Optimization, proof-reading and
• Presentation

Also, creating a content strategy involves answering three relevant questions:

• Why to write?
• What to write? &
• Who to write it for?

When strategizing content creation for any website, particularly, eCommerce stores, keep the following in mind:

Usability
You write content to enhance the usability of the website. This includes directions, instructions, guidelines and even 404 error pages. Remember those buttons saying ‘Click here to read more’ or a ‘quick four step guide’. Explain how to place your order, or what can a user do if not buy immediately. These will enhance the usability of your website manifold.

Communication
Each word on your website represents you (the brand). Unless you are operating in a monopoly, you very much need to devise a message that your content should carry. Bringing forward the values that you as a business adhere to or offer, is and can be communicated through content.

Search Engines
Your content can make your website search-engine friendly. All the web pages that rank top for certain keywords should be optimized for that keyword. Placing the keywords repeatedly in your content, makes your web pages optimized for search engines which further lends visibility to your website.

Content refers to everything that conveys meaning. Build your content strategy with usability, communication and search engines as key elements and see your website where you want it to be – ranking top, right?

Long-tail keywords are more specific, catering to definitive searches, as opposed to generic keywords. For example, if you are looking for a track, it’s like mentioning the exact track lyrics rather than browsing the whole oeuvre of an artist by mentioning his name.

Starting with a new business and relying on high-search volume keywords is a risk proposition as reaching a rank amongst top-notch competitors is not an easy task.(Find out more on this here: http://www.seobook.com/why-it-makes-sense-target-longtail-keywords-first). It’s like getting lost in the traffic where zillions are already endeavoring to maintain their hard-earned positions.

Long Tailed Keywords – Far from the Generic Crowd

Long-tail keywords, although get you minimum traffic but certainly assure you a ranking. As mentioned by Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief, Wired magazine, “If the 20th- century entertainment industry was about hits, the 21st will be equally about misses”.

The long-tail keyword Internet marketing strategy is all about those missed misses which aren’t tapped by the established high-ranking websites. Long-tails drive the traffic seeking a definitive search (Read: http://www.searchengineguide.com/matt-bailey/keyword-strategies-the-long-tail.php).

As Internet specifically denotes abundance, long-tail keywords denote the scarcity that can be maneuvered toward conversions. This is just in accordance with the 80-20 rule (The Pareto Principle, the law of the vital few) which states that, “for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes”.

Conclusively, you climb the ladder with misses and chart the success route with less sought-after keywords but definitive conversions.

Content Management systems were not designed for Search Engines. The objective was to allows the site owner to edit his website easily (usually just the content and images). The content is stored in a database and the webpage is generated on the fly when a user requests for one.

Why CMS became search engine un-friendly?

The restrictive approach caused a lot of problems. From dynamic urls that contained special characters and no keywords to common meta tags for all pages, the content management systems became more of a roadblock than a help.

Search Engine Friendly CMS

Today, most Content Management Systems have improved drastically. They are user AND Search Engine friendly. The open source CMSs had much more support and came through faster. However, many implementors still have trouble setting up the CMS is a search engine friendly way. Its very important to ensure that your CMS has all the required plugins/contributions installed to make it search engine friendly. There are lots of content management systems available today. But you need to look for one that:

1. has valid and clean HTML
2. maximum flexibility
3. allows you to customize it
4. can be integrated with other applications
5. is modular
6. gives you freedom over the pagenames
7. is tested for all browsers

This will be a good start.

Search Engine Optimized is More Than Just Search Engine Friendly

Don’t confuse search engine optimized with search engine friendly. While a Search Engine friendly CMS may help you get indexed, it may not help you get ranked well. In order to rank well, you need to ensure that you are catering to the needs of your end user first.

And it all starts with a keyword search.

While search engine rankings may seem important, and I am not saying they are not, what matters more is how much traffic you are getting. Of course, you’re not going to see traffic if you’re not ranking well.

But, its not necessary that you see good traffic on your website if you are ranking well for a few keywords.

Keyword popularity is the key factor here. The end objective of an online marketing plan should not be to rank well on Google or Yahoo or MSN. The objective should be to bring as many qualified visitors to the website as possible. Good search engine rankings should be one of the means of bringing the traffic, not the end objective.

The ranking capacity score card is an indicator of the website’s status in the ranking system of Search Engines. The report consists of a list of ranking capacity indicators with certain scores. The scores tell us how far ahead or behind a website is viz-a-viz its competitors and what kind of improvement is required in the scores so that the target audience can find it on Search Engines.

The score card not only lists the scores of the website, but also that of the competitors to find out the ranking capacity indicators for which they score well.

The ranking capacity indicators are responsible for the rankings in SERPs. By assessing the gap between the ranking capacity indicator scores, an online marketing plan for a website can be outlined effectively.

While the report is generally defined as a ranking capacity score card, it also acts as a record keeper. Because the ranking capacity score card is created at the begining of the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) plan, it helps in measuring the impact of the SEO plan when its recreated at the end of the SEO plan.

So if you’re about to launch the SEO plan for your website yourself or have hired a company to do that for you, have the ranking capacity score card created!