Web Copywriting - Writing Effective Web Copy

Article Posted 2002 June 16, Sunday - Page 1 | 2 | Last modified: 2004-01-02
by Edward Lewis, aka pageoneresults™ - System Administrator

Continued from...
Web Copywriting - Writing Copy for the Web

Here are the primary areas you should focus on when writing effective web copy. We've listed these in their order of importance. The Page Title and META Description are usually the first two elements that the consumer sees when searching. This does not apply to all search engines or directories.

  1. Page Title
    <title>Web Copywriting - Writing Effective Web Copy</title>
  2. META Description Tag
    <meta name="description" content="Primary areas of web copywriting. The Page Title and META Description are usually the first two elements that the consumer sees when searching. This does not apply to all search engines or directories.">

    The above two tags will produce something that looks like this in the SERP's (Search Engine Results Pages)...

    Web Copywriting - Writing Effective Web Copy
    Primary areas of web copywriting. The Page Title and META Description are usually the first two elements that the consumer sees when searching. This does not apply to all search engines or directories.

    Note: Not all search engines will show the META Description. In fact, some will show snippets of visible content from your page that may be relative to the search term used. Google is a prime example of how snippets are used to present the user with focused content for scanning. Google snippets may look something like this...

    Web Copywriting - Writing Copy for the Web
    Web Copywriting - Writing Copy for the Web. Submitted Sunday,
    June 16... Web Copywriting, what is it? What is different about...
    www.seoconsultants.com/articles/1007/effective-web-copywriting.htm - 25k
    Cached - Similar pages

  3. Heading Tags
    <h1>Primary Areas of Web Copywriting - Writing Effective Web Copy</h1>
  4. Visible Content
    <p>Here are the primary areas you should focus on when writing effective web copy. We've listed these in their order of importance. The <b>Page Title</b> and <b>META Description</b>are usually the first two elements that the consumer sees when searching. This does not apply to all search engines or directories.</p>
  5. Hyperlinked Text and the Title Attribute
    Introduction to Writing Effective Web Copy

    From the W3C - The Global Structure of an HTML Document
    "Values of the title attribute may be rendered by user agents in a variety of ways. For instance, visual browsers frequently display the title as a "tool tip" (a short message that appears when the pointing device pauses over an object). Audio user agents may speak the title information in a similar context. For example, setting the attribute on a link allows user agents (visual and non-visual) to tell users about the nature of the linked resource."

    The tool tip that pops up might look similar to this...

    Introduction to Writing Effective Web Copy

    Note: Certain browsers may not support the <a title> attribute and therefore you will not see the tool tip popup when you pause your cursor over a link.

    The html code for the above link looks like this...

    <a title="Introduction to Writing Effective Web Copy" href="/articles/1007/web-copy.asp">Introduction to Writing Effective Web Copy</a>

  6. Files Names
    /web-copy.asp
  7. Directory Names
    /articles/1007/
  8. Alternate Text Tags
    <alt="Web Copywriting Strategies">

    This would be the alt tag for an image that shows a web copywriter planning his or her web copywriting strategy. Alt tags are not to be used for stuffing keywords that don't apply to the image and/or the page topic. This means you should probably be using topic specific imagery so you can name them appropriately, and utilize the <alt> tags effectively.

  9. META Keywords Tag
    <meta name="keywords" content="web copywriting page title meta description heading tags website content writing web copy">

    Not the powerhouse that it once was, the keywords tags has suffered severe abuse by unethical marketers and uneducated consumers. The search engines have pretty much tuned these out of the relevancy factor. There are still a few viable resources who index the tag, but the weight given is minimal. Make sure the keyword sets you use in this tag are in the visible content for that page.

Effective web copywriting can only be achieved after you have carefully researched your keywords and keyword phrases. It doesn't make sense to write copy if you don't know what your audience may be searching for. You may think you know what terms are being used, but in most instances, that is not the case. Targeting the proper keywords and keyword phrases is the most important step in writing effective copy for the web!

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Edward Lewis aka pageoneresults™
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Last modified: 2008-09-25T07:25:47-0700

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