10 Steps for Writing Web Content for SEO Lead Generation

Content is king on the web because content is information. People love information and search engines want to make people happy. Feed the search engines good content and the search engines will bring you people, just like one big happy family. It's easy-sort of.

1. Find your niche. Pick a manageable topic that will serve as your website niche. A search engine friendly website has a defined niche. Pick one topic or theme that will be covered on your website. If you are targeting leads in a specific geographic location, then choose one-and I do mean one-main area that will serve as your niche.

2. Do Keyword Research. Use a keyword research tool to determine what keywords and keyword phrases are being searched for most. I recommend the following tools:

a. Google Keyword Research Tool - Free

b. Wordtracker - Free Trial (I find that it's a bit overkill for typical SEO jobs)

c. Yahoo Keyword Tool - Gives precise numerical activity of searches

The goal of your keyword research is to obtain a list of keyword phrases elevant to your website's theme. Note the levels of searches being conducted for the various phrases. This will help you determine what you want your keywords to be.

Tip: Google's Keyword Research Tool allows you to Add your keywords to a list and export them into an Excel file.

3. Determine Main Keyword Phrase (Main KP). First, rank the keyword phrases you discover in the order of importance. The keyword phrases that are searched for the most should get higher ranking than the ones with no searches.

Second, rank the keyword phrases in terms of competition. If you find a phrase with a high search volume but a small amount of advertiser competition, you can bet that it will likely have less competition in the natural search area as well.

Choose the keyword phrase to be the Main KP of your site that does all of the following:

a. Has the most searches with the least competition

b. Accurately describe your web site's chosen theme

c. Describes your product or service in a very common way

d. Includes your main geo-target (city, state, country)

4. Determine your secondary Keyword Phrases (secondary KPs). The remaining keyword phrases play an important role in the content of your website. Keep your ranked list handy for integrating into your website's content. In fact, these secondary keyword phrases will later become the Main KPs of the interior pages of your Web site.

5. Choose topics of interior web pages. Start writing the content of your web sites interior pages before you write the home page. Decide how many pages of content your site will have and select one keyword phrase from your research that most closely relates to your theme and meets your objectives. I suggest starting with only 3-5 pages when you first launch the website. You can always add more pages later.

6. Start writing interior pages. Start by putting your keyword phrase on the page. This will be your title. Research your page topic and write basic facts pertaining to the keyword phrase. Keep in mind that it's facts that people are looking for and stay away from all forms of puffery. Give the facts without a lot of hype. This will naturally pull more keywords into the equation. Feel free to weave keywords into your content, but be careful not to overdo it as you can set-off Google's penalty triggers.

If you find yourself writing sentences just to incorporate keywords-don't. Stop yourself and get back to the topic. If you are really writing on topic, keywords should flow naturally.

Web Content Writing Tips

a. Write scannable text. People scan the web, they don't read it so write text that can be scanned

i. Use bullets like they are on sale two for one

ii. Bold keywords

iii. Use a combination of compelling and keyword rich headings

iv. Use headings liberally (practically for each paragraph)

v. Write short, choppy sentences (long ones are for print)

vi. Use the shortest word possible to get your point across

vii. Write at the 9th grade level (even Rhodes Scholars prefer this when scanning)

b. Remember your goal is to provide information. The search engines today have become answer engines. People come on line wanting an answer to their question. Providing the answer to these information hungry visitors will help you put them at ease, gain credibility and build rapport. Credibility and rapport online can lead to the same in person when that visitor becomes a lead.

c. Incorporate KPs and Keywords. Add keywords liberally, but don't make it sound unnatural. It's wise to add them to the beginning of sentences, paragraphs and headings. The very end of the page is also important. Staying on topic is one sure way to get more than enough keywords on the page. Be sure not to over do it. You need a keyword density of 6% per phrase to get real recognition from search engine crawlers. More than that can get you penalized.

d. Don't try to sell too soon or too hard! Save your sales copy for the end. "Give to get." Provide the information they crave and at the end, offer your services. Do this as opposed to selling from line one which puts people off and puts them on guard. Be the one to give people the answers they are looking for and they'll respect you for it and be more open to your soft sell approaches at the end of the page or in the right and left columns.

e. Keep your opinions to yourself. Using words like "fantastic" or "incredible" too often sounds fishy. Take a look at the successful Wiki's and notice that there is very little opinion going on. Of course, your opinion is valuable, but it's more important to give the facts, Jack.

f. Edit to the bone. Please do not put copy that's destined for print on the web. Yuck! Copy written for print is just totally different than that on the web. The web is more succinct, choppier and less visceral, so get out your pencil and click "delete" to many of those extra words you don't need.

g. Be original. You can't get away with copying the content of someone else. Google will catch you, and if they even remotely THINK your content is duplicated, your page may never see the light of day. Try to take an angle that no one else is taking. Be thorough and go the extra mile to bring content to the table from sources other than the web (like the newspaper, the tv news or Barnes and Noble).

h. Do a spelling and grammar check. This goes without saying, since it's easy to get in a hurry when writing on the web.

7. Add photos to the page that accurately convey your topic. A picture really is worth a thousand words, so don't hold back. The more excellent photos you have on the page (within reason) that help define and describe your topic of interest, the better. Just be careful that you make the photos small enough to prevent your page from taking forever to download. Here's a few other warnings about photos:

a. Don't put low-quality photos on a page

b. Don't forget to use photo editing software

c. Keep photos consistent

d. Don't put photos up that are not precisely related to the topic

e. Don't OD on photos

f. Make sure you have padding around your photos to separate it from the content

g. If it's a short article, one nice photo will do

h. Consider visiting http://www.istockphoto.com/ for cheap photos or http://google.com/images for free photos

8. Use high quality font. Believe it or not, the font you use on your web site IS important. There are only three font types that are universal among all browsers, so you can forget about fancy scripts anyway. The Times New Roman font has been shown to be more difficult to read than Arial and Verdana on the web. I've decided that Verdana is the easiest to read online, but that Arial looks more professional. My own site uses Verdana: the-marketing-shop.com/. (Ah, made you look!)

a. Cool Tool to test different Typesets - See which font works best for you.

b. Font Tester -

c. Font Comparison Table - Compare fonts for the web

9. Write your home page. Write the home page of your website only after you've completed the interior web page content. Your home page should be mainly about your Main KP, but should also incorporate all the secondary topics and keyword phrares of the interior pages. This will send a signal to Google that you have your site themed and you're ready for business.

10. Link to interior pages from home page. Link to all your interior pages from the home page using the Main KP of each page as the anchor text for the hyperlink. This will increase the rankings for the home page and interior pages.

Jenna Ryan specializes in Search Engine Optimization for Real Estate Agents. Her company, The Marketing Shop.com, Inc. serves Realtors, Brokers and Agents nationwide in building custom real estate websites that get to the top of the search engines and generate leads. Visit us on the web today! The Marketing Shop.com

Jenna Ryan with The Marketing Shop.com specializes in Real Estate Websites, Search Engine Optimization and Lead Generation for Realtors, Agents and Brokers. Visit us on the web today!