Slightly Askew

You’ve probably heard of search engine optimisation (SEO): it’s the art (or otherwise) of getting your site to rank highly in search engines.

The good news is that it’s not actually that difficult.  And, on the other hand, er… it is.

It all depends on what keywords you want your site to rank highly for.

Keywords are the words or phrases that a user types into Google (other reputable search engines are available, but I don’t use them).

The keywords you want to rank for will for will affect how easy it will be to rank highly.

If you want to rank highly for “fish restaurant” then you’re going to struggle.  Much easier is to include the town or county that your restaurant is in.  The search term “fish restaurant Ipswich” will be easier to rank for as there’s less competition.

It’s a lot more relevant too - someone isn’t going to drive from Newcastle just for the halibut.  (If they are, you needn’t worry about search engine optimisation - go open a few more restaurants).

But how do you know people search for the term “fish restaurant” and not “seafood restaurant”.  The answer, gentle readers, is Google trends.  Ideally though, you’d want to rank highly for both terms.

This where an SEO copywriter should do their bit.  An SEO copywriter, as you’ve probably guessed, does their copywriting with search engine optimisation in mind.

The first, and most important, thing to do is to look at the HTML title tag.

The title tag is what you see at the very top of your browser.  The words in the title tag are the words that appear in blue on Google’s search results pages.

A nifty title tag will include your restaurant’s name, what type of food it serves, and where it is.  Aim for 65 characters or less.  Something like:

The Captain’s Table | Fish & Seafood Restaurant, Ipswich, Suffolk

That’s exactly 65 characters long and includes all your keywords.  And more to the point, it’s still clear and easy to read.

That’s all for today’s lesson.  More on SEO in the coming days, weeks, and months.

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This entry was posted on Monday, June 23rd, 2008 at 8:06 pm and is filed under Copywriting, SEO. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.