Copy Writing for the Web: Attracting Clients through Words

About 80 percent of all the hits that a Web page gets come from a search engine such as Google or Yahoo. This is a large chunk of traffic, and ignoring that statistic is perilous for anyone who wishes to attract customers to their websites. The reason that so many hits come through search engines is that most people believe that when they put in a search query, the result that they get is trustworthier than any other type of result, i.e. Pay-Per-Click Ads, Banner, Paid Placement, etc. This is called an organic result, because the programming behind the search engine found the result naturally, and not by having the web site's owners paying to be the top result. So getting your website to the top of that organic query is number one priority for all web site managers.

If you "optimize" your Web site with carefully chosen and placed "keywords" then traffic should naturally come to you, through search engines. There are two tricks to getting this done:

1) A search engine's programming (sometimes called an algorithm) has to find your page on the Web.

2) Your Web page must be attuned to the right keywords that customers are searching for when they look for your products or services.

Not only that, you want to make sure that in the list of websites that appear when a potential customer does a search query through their favorite search engine, yours is one top (or as close to it as you can get.) Since consumers feel that organic results are best, this will only help you when they find you "naturally" on the web.

Now, natural results are a matter of course here. Program algorithms, HTML, tags, text, etc. all deem how things work on the Internet but like biology, there is a certain untamed flow to the whole enterprise that even mimics natural selection and evolution. Everything you can do to get your web page get to the top of the food chain helps you get noticed on the web and sell more of what you offer. The first and simplest method of getting yourself found by search engines and the consumers doing the searching is to get that copy optimized.

While some people may search for one keyword, like "scarf," "beer," or "art," many use a string of terms to find what they need like "wool scarf," "IPA beer," or "modern art." Most even use longer terms, a combination of terms or even whole sentences to search for what they are looking for.

Look at your Web copy. Does it satisfy all the possible search terms that customers may be using? Do you utilize tags, titles, headlines and optimized copy to capture that business? Do you know all the terms? Do you know how to use them eloquently so it doesn't look like you are "stuffing" the HTML with random words you think may get you noticed?

While it may be satisfying to set up, publish and even host your own business' Web site, the scary thing is that you may be the only one who cares or even notices. A Web page needs to shout out to the world that you are open to business and here are the things you offer to the public in a real and virtual way. Yes. You may be the expert in your particular field of interest and have the knowledge of the terminology that your customers look for when they seek you out, but how do you get those disjointed terms and keywords onto the computer screens of potential clients?

For that, you might need a professional copywriter.