For some reason that lies beyond my grasp, I feel compelled to talk to SEO copywriters about the things that they have to look at if they are to make a success out of a career as SEO copywriters. There is always on-page optimization, sure, but there is so much that precedes it even before you get to that. And most SEO copywriters don’t know about it, which in itself is a bit of a travesty. Think of these as style elements of SEO copywriting that you must incorporate in order to be the best you can be.

The title

No matter whether you’re optimizing from the outset or later on, you need to know your keywords and use these in your title. The closer it is to the start of the title, the better the use of the keywords. But you have to make sure it is somewhere in your title at the very least. Take the title of this post. I used “SEO copywriters” as the keyword, but could have made it more compelling by saying “Things that most SEO copywriters don’t know”. Note the change in positioning. It can make all the difference in your page rank. Keep it under 65 characters for maximum visibility in the search engine.

Meta description

A good meta description will ensure you get a click-through. Some say this influences your page rank, some don’t. But you will want to use the keyword in this as well and keep it short. It is in a way a reassurance to the visitor that this post or website offers what they are looking for. Keep it under 170 characters for maximum visibility in the search engine.

Quality content

Use keywords liberally, but don’t overdo it. Quality content always wins you repeat readers and so you should update your content regularly while keeping quality in mind. Of course, a somewhat larger post will rank better than a smaller one, so use at least 300 words for your post. You can also bold keywords for added emphasis. And so we are left with…

Frequency of keywords

As the name suggests, this refers to how often you use a given keyword. Keyword density is a measure of the ratio between the presence of keywords to words on the page. Obviously, the frequency of keywords affects your page ranking too but the keyword density in itself does not. But you do still need to pay attention to density as such. Don’t overdo it though; anything more than 5.5% and Google will down-rank you. Don’t be mindless with your repetition, use keywords frequently, but sensibly and as liberally as possible.

Linking

Google looks at how many popular sites link back to you and this affects your ranking tremendously. The search algorithm Google uses wants to know that you’re connected. If you’re not, you won’t rank as well as you can, it’s as simple as that.

There is more to SEO copywriting than just these 5 elements, but if you stick to these 5 elements, you’ll be absolutely fine.

You have picked a hot topic that your readers are eager to know about. You write the post with extreme authority as you already know much about it. You even put in your opinions and write it from a very interesting perspective. In short, you write a killer post that must, ideally, attract thousands of new readers to your blog.

You realize the significance of your post, hence you send an email to all the top bloggers with a link to your post. You then simply wait back for links to flood in.

However, nothing happens.

You don’t receive any links days after sending the email. You don’t even receive any reply from any of the bloggers you sent the email. Worried and anxious, you check your blog’s statistics, and you realize not many even clicked on the link that you had sent them.

Yes, they have ignored you. And you also realize that no one is even paying attention to your blog. You wonder is it practically possible to exchange links from top bloggers?

Yes, it. You simply don’t know the right method. Let us discuss why doesn’t your blog attract links and how you can get them.

Biggest Blogging Myth

‘Content is King’

Theoretically, it’s right. If you write a remarkable piece of content, readers should ideally be attracted and links should flow in.

It worked practically too, but many years ago. The internet is now much better place than it was years ago. It’s full of remarkable content, and bloggers don’t really have time to read them all, let alone linking it.

If you want links, especially in times like this when competition is much beyond your imagination, you need something more than just great piece of content.

How To Build a Popular Blog

This wouldn’t have been relevant to blogging industry years ago. However, it is very much true today: ‘It’s not what you know, it’s who you know’.

If you are an exception writer with no online blogging friends, it will take years for your blog to become successful. On the other hand, if your friend is a mediocre write, but friends with Technorati Top 100 bloggers, he will be popular much faster than you.

Why?

This is because most bloggers link to their friends more than any one else. If you have written remarkable content, and if they link to you, it may not because of the content, but, simply because they know you personally.

So, the secret of building a great blog is not just writing great posts, but having good connections.

Is there any way to be friends with popular bloggers?

Traditional method asks linking to popular blogger’s post, and wait for them to notice your blog. If they like your blog, they may link to you as well. It may work for you sometimes. However, I believe you will need more creative method. Here are some tips that might help:

• Write guest posts for top blogs that receive many comments and lots of traffic
• Go to conferences that talks about ‘Who’s Who’ in your niche. This might help you get started.
• Actively vote or digg any articles they post on social media networks
• Send them emails asking irresistible questions. Ask questions that sparks a healthy discussion
• Post many comments, most of them should be really useful and memorable
• Interview them and ask intelligent questions

Give More to Receive More

Most top bloggers aren’t self-sufficient. They too have problems like everyone else and they need someone to help them. If you can help them resolve any of their problems, they will remember you for a long time.

The key is to find ways to be useful to them. Once you have established a reputation in their eyes, use it for your benefit. Yes, it involves lots of hard work and patience. If you put effort in building relationships as much as you do for writing content, your blog would become popular within no time.

Besides, you will be friends with few of the best minds on the web.

Not many bloggers, except for those on the top of search results, are happy with Google.

Yes, Google has a lot of influence over online business right now. However, with tremendous increase in number of bloggers and webmasters, it will eventually lose its power.

Since the beginning of BloggingWithChris.com, I have never bothered much about search engines. It’s not that I have something against them or I don’t entertain people coming through search engine. Not at all. It’s simply that I don’t rely on search engine for the success of my blog.

You obviously get some traffic from search engines. But you also need to realize you get most accurate traffic through direct links, and that’s where you need to focus in order to get remarkable results. Simply pretend that search engines doesn’t exist as far as your blog’s traffic is concerned. Instead, work towards building sources that no one can take away from you.

Here are three things you can do to eliminate the Google (or any search engine, for this case) Syndrome.

Focus on Subscriptions

Don’t worry about search traffic or page views. Instead, simply focus on getting more number of subscribers. After all, that’s our ultimate goal. As an online publisher, getting the right people to spend time reading your content is the greatest gift you can get. Try every possible way to get more subscribers. But avoid trying to please search engines.

Social Media

Instead of trying to please search engines, try to get direct traffic from social media networks like Facebook, StumbleUpon, Twitter, Digg, Delicious, Sphinn, and so on. You will get more targeted results through these sites than search engines.

Instead of writing more everyday and targeting specific keywords, take time to write quality content. This is a sure-shot way to attract traffic from social media network. You will generate amazing results by writing less but unique content.

Selling

Most bloggers who try to please Google have their income coming in from Google AdSense. In most cases, however, the income is very low, unless you are among the top ten blogs.

When you target increasing number of subscribers through social media network, you build trust among your subscribers. And if they trust you, they can buy products sold by you online. You can sell e-books, start affiliate marketing programs, or simply have paid subscription. You will surely earn money once people start trusting you.

This is how you can eliminate over-dependency on Google and become an independent blogger.

Optimization means making better use of something. However, if you have nothing precious to work on, what would you optimize? Before you start search engine optimization process for your blog, you need to have good content. Only fretting over keywords, without providing quality posts and useful links would be worthless.

Besides, only knowing optimization techniques doesn’t mean your blog will get enough exposure. You have to inform search engines the material you provide is exactly what people are looking for. SEO is this simple.

Before you start with on page optimization, here are few things that need to be in place.

Accessibility

If the content on your blog cannot be accessed by search engine due to erroneous codes, your page wouldn’t be indexed. Thus, it would never be ranked high with search engines regardless of how much you try to optimize.

Content

After having codes in place, focus on what people really want: content. Write outstanding content and share knowledge with your visitors. Links will automatically follow.

Enhance User Experience

Keep your site simple and easily navigable. Most people don’t want to visit a site that create barriers, is cluttered, and looks pathetic.

Marketing

There are several ways to promote your website online and offline. The more your market your website, the more traffic you will attract.

When these things are in place, you need to focus of five significant elements of SEO copywriting. Here they are.

1.    Title

Based on the niche area you are targeting, gather few keywords that are highly searched on the web. Use these keywords in title of your posts to increase it exposure. Also, it’s more effective if your title starts with the keyword.

Let’s consider an example here. Say you own a blog that helps people with making money online, and the keyword that you are targeting is ‘Make Money Online’. Instead of writing the title as ‘5 Remarkable ways to make money online’, you can write ‘Make Money Online Using these 5 Remarkable Ways’. Although it may not be as attractive as the former, it’s very effective from SEO’s perspective.

2.    Meta Description

Meta Description is a small description of your article that’s visible in search engine results just below the title. Whether or not you will get a click depends on how well you have written this description. Again, you need to infuse targeted keyword in your meta description, but make sure it’s not stuffed with it. Simple summarize your article in around 165 characters, and make it as attractive as possible.

3.    Content

If you want to impress most search engines out there, create unique content and update your blog frequently. For better optimization results (and reader friendliness), make sure you generate content that talks only about the topic, and circles around the keyword.

Very short articles make it difficult for search engines to rank your page. Try to generate post with more than 300 words.

4.    Keyword Frequency

Keyword frequency is the count of targeted keywords in your post. If you have used ‘Make money online’ 3 times in your article, the keyword density is 3. Keyword density, on the other hand, is the ratio of umber of times keywords used to rest of the words. It should be around 2% of the total number of words. If it exceeds 5.5% of the total words, you may be penalized by Google for over-stuffing keywords in your article.

Keyword frequency affects your search engine optimization process significantly. Using keywords 3 times in an article is much better than using just once or twice.

5.    Page Links

In order to get your blog optimized effectively, you need to link your web pages with others on the web. Here are some effective tips to get SEO-friendly links on your page:

• Link your page to relevant web pages early in your post
• Approximately after every 120-150 words link your page to other relevant web pages.
• Paste links to your internal pages as well.
• Link with relevant anchor text

There are many other things you can do to make your content search engine friendly. This includes like using keywords in images, categories, tags, and so on. However, if you perform the above mentioned five points effectively, you would cover basic and highly efficient ways of optimizing your content.