To get optimal listings in search engine and directory queries, keywords and key concepts must be placed strategically throughout your web pages. To summaries, you need these words and phrases in:

1. Title tags

2. Meta-tags (keywords and descriptions)

3. Headings (if used)

4. Body text, and

Alt-attribute in the image source tags
When online marketing professionals optimize a web site for search engine and directory queries, they should not spend most of their time redesigning the layout (in HTML) or submitting the site to the search engines. Most of their time should be spent on researching, writing good copy that will index well in search engines, and writing thorough, accurate descriptions for directory submissions. Good web copy must contain well-researched and varied keywords and key concepts based on a web page's topic; accurately reflect the web pages' content; and be strategically placed throughout a web page as mentioned above.

Most sales and advertising "fluff" should be eliminated.

Here's an example (and one of our pet peeves). How many of you have seen this scam, "Put your printed brochure on the web!" Print advertising copy contains a lot of "fluff" phrases such as "service that is second to none." Search engine analysis? "Service" is a stop word in some search engines and will be ignored in a search query. "Second to none?" How many people do you know really search using that phrase? When we are looking for something on the web, we are going to type in exactly the type of product or service we are looking for, not sales and advertising "fluff."

Web copywriting should contain keywords and key concepts without all the "fluff." Web copy has to flow and be strategically placed to get your web pages ranked well in search engine and directory queries. Your potential customers will also appreciate being able to find what they are looking for as quickly and easily as possible. That's just good customer service.

The one time that web copywriting is extremely important is your site submission to Yahoo. Although Yahoo reserves the right to change or modify the site description you send them, if you can submit a well-written description containing your most important keywords and key concepts without word stacking, Yahoo will likely keep most of your description intact.

Good copywriting is a necessary element of both online and offline marketing. If you do not have experience in writing good copy for the web, we recommend that you hire an online marketing consultant to initially write the copy for you. Then you can learn from the copy you paid for. The more practice you get at web copywriting, the better you will get at it.