Easy Furniture Web Tip 222: Natural Isn’t Enough

Furniture World News Desk on 2/25/2016

By Katherine Andes

Many online pundits are saying that writing for search engine optimization (SEO) purposes is dead. All you need to do is write your page content “naturally” and the Google gods will give you great rankings in its search results.

I guess that’s supposed to scare me the SEO copywriter. It doesn’t. If the above were true — and it isn’t — my livelihood could be in jeopardy.

It doesn’t scare me because 1) my core skill is copywriting and there will always be plenty of need for that; and, 2) I’ve found that the basics of traditional SEO copywriting still hold true.

For a web page to rank well in search results …

 Keyword phrases must still be researched
 Keyword phrases must still be selected
 Keyword phrases must still be embedded in content on numerous pages (naturally, of course!)
 Keyword phrases must still be in title tags
 Keyword phrases should still be in headlines (if possible)

The only difference I see from when I first started eight years ago is that you might not need to embed the keywords as many times on a page as you used to. Three times might be sufficient, when in the past it used to take seven. This is good news for furniture retailers who depend heavily on images for their web pages.

You also don’t necessarily have to use the exact keyword phrase multiple times, but variations of the phrase.

These improvements in the algorithms do make it easier to write copy that’s both optimized for search and that reads naturally.

Typically, clients come to me with decent websites, but the above SEO tasks have not been implemented. Usually, once I plug the holes, their rankings significantly improve.

So from the point of view of wanting to rank well in a web search, SEO copywriting is certainly not dead.

Besides website search results, it’s also important to think of SEO copywriting with respect to other online platforms as well. For example, if you have created an app for your business, you should consider if your app titles and descriptive content are written with your keyword phrases. If they are, your app will turn up higher in an app search.

The same goes for YouTube, Yelp, Facebook, LinkedIn, or any other places customers might search for your content.

All of these platforms have fields for you to fill in content. Most businesses don’t put that prime “real estate” to use. It just sits there, a half-empty billboard on a busy street.

Filling it with good content will sell your services or products; and, when you implement SEO copywriting, you’ll also get in front of more customers.

Although it’s difficult to keep up with all the various online platforms demanding SEO’d content, it’s well worth the effort.

Easy Furniture Web Tip 222: Prioritize your search engine optimization task list and start knocking them down one at a time, you’ll soon find yourself attracting more clients and making more sales.

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Katherine Andes specializes in web content development and copywriting for SEO — including page customization for storefront and franchise web sites. Visit her website BetterWebSales.com or phone her at 559.309.2940.

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