Well, if you are at the stage of searching for how to write copy for SEO, then you’ve already skipped through the steps that most go through when designing a site.  And congratulations to you, as you have now clearly realised that you need to have great content for great products, or your visitor numbers wont be, well, great… (sorry).

The trick here, is to realise that there really isn’t a magic formula for SEO copy writing, other than ‘write what you know about’ and if you are lacking in knowledge about a product, do some digging into the subject / product before you write. 

Top tips for writing SEO copy

Here is a summary of a few quick pointers to get you started:

• Know your subject, product or service – if you don’t  then writing will be stilted, so spend some time and get to know the facts
• Write copy straight off – by this I mean do not copy someone else – just write from your experience and facts that you know.  Where you have a product with  specification, you obviously need to be accurate with those facts  It is common to have data sheets, which may be the same from site to site, but this does not stop you embellishing your own product description, and that is the part I am talking about.
• Do not ‘key word stuff’ for SEO - putting endless key words in every sentence is pointelss and difficult to read - just allow the key words that are associated with the product or service flow into the writing at appropriate places.

SEO copy writing is not about stuffing as many key words into a page as you can muster, but more about being informative about the product or service you are pushing.

I’m sure you must have found sites that seem to deliberately fluff up a page with lots of repetitious mentions of their key words.  Now, if you have noticed this, then it has served the purpose of distracting you from the product itself.   These pages have been written with the simple aim of getting the search engines there and not for the customer’s benefit.   If that page had been written with the customer in mind, however, it would have read much better for it, and would still have contained a number of references to the product itself. 

By relaxing and simply writing in an informative way, you will achieve a natural looking piece of text and hey presto, you will also have included your key words in a non spammy way.  Not only that, but you will have probably stumbled across variants of the key word, such as plurals and similar words, or have moved your key words around in order, all of which can act as pointers to the search engines that you are writing on a particular subject, without over cooking the page.

Well, you’re looking at one.  Simply, Blog stands for web log, and as such it is a series of articles about you, your business, or any topic you choose to blog about.

Articles are typically anywhere from a hundred words to many hundreds and, thanks to modern blog software (we use WordPress, as it’s so easy to use and install) can include images, links, formatting, videos and other delights – as you can even add in html directly to the posting.

You then have the option of having replies to your posts from people visiting your site, which you can choose to allow or disallow. 

Why would you want to blog?

This is a question that even I was asking, not long ago, but now have seen the light.  It’s a very quick way to stay in contact with your customers, and interact with potential clients or users of your site in a controlled, moderated way. 

You get to highlight stuff you are doing, or want your readers to take notice of, and this can be a very effective way of getting articles or products noticed on your site.

In addition, there seems to be a vast appetite for blog articles out there – if you call us, I’ll happily illustrate what I mean, person to person, over the phone.

Where do I get a blog?

Well, you can go direct to WordPress and get up and running straight away.  However, we offer a hosted solution, where you can have a domain name for your blog – i.e. www.yourdomain.co.uk/ rather than it appearing at WordPress.  Call us for prices and a discussion of your needs – but we currently start at just £78+ VAT p.a. for this service, including initial installation of the blog.

As a local company, we can offer you personal service in the surrounding area and indeed, UK-wide.  Most of our customers are not local, as we have traditionally attracted a range of enquiries using our high ranking website. 

For people near Bishop’s Stortford and the surrounding areas of Harlow, Chelmsford, etc., we are a short drive to reach and can sit with you to discuss your needs, either at our office (by appointment only) or at your own address. 

Although we are local to the Bishop’s Stortford area, we offer telephone consultation throughout the UK, which works very well.  We have customers from across the country and many of these we never met and we conduct successful support over the phone and by e-mail, some of whom have been with us for many years.

Our service is multi layered, with simple website design being the entry level.  We offer the ability for clients to update and add to their website, using their Internet Explorer web browser on their PC or laptop.  More complex sites with interactivity are possible upon request.  In addition, we offer blogs, and Facebook and Twitter account set up and management.

We have successfully run Pay Per Click campaigns and also website promotion for clients’ sites. 

So, whether you are local to Bishop’s Stortford, or further afield, we welcome the opportunity to quote for your needs.

The term cheap is relative.  You can pick up a very cheap web design, but then find that several or even many tens of other websites have the same layout.  At that stage, you have to ask yourself, is it worth saving those last few Pounds?

On the other hand, there does still seem to be a large number of companies that offer the design side at a rather inflated price. 

However, there is a middle ground.  With so many graphic designers available on the net, it is possible to have a relatively cheap design at an affordable cost. 

Certainly, we would advise you budget for a good graphic design before you consider your website.  A good website design company should be able to use the design of your choice.  However, ideally you should look for a company that offers a combination of cheapness and service at an affordable rate. 

Don’t go too cheap in your design costs!

Bear in mind, that if you go for too cheap, you cannot expect multiple reworks of your design, as designers still have to make a living. 

What are the key factors in choosing a designer then? 

• Do they work to a fixed design cost?
• Do you like their work? – make sure you have seen plenty of examples.
• How many alterations will they make within the budget?
• What happens if you don’t like anything that they produce for you?

With these questions, you should be able to pick up a relatively cheap website design, without compromising on quality, if you have a realistic budget to start with.

We hope you will make a habit of visiting each week, as we will keep this area of the site populated with new developments and comments as we progress. 

Having recently started to blog (on another site), we were very sceptical about the necessity for doing so, but have found that in general, the search engines seem to like content within blogs and therefore come back more often than to standard pages.

We hope that you will do so too!  Please look for updates each Monday, or subscrible to our RSS feed (bottom right) to keep up to date.