26 Tips To Write Copy That Sells Users & Search Engines

How do you create exciting prose and witty copy that will enchant your audience and make the search engines give you a top 10 ranking? How can you use the art of search engine optimization to please real readers and not just try to appease the fickle google gods?

It’s simple write like a king, or more precisely like B.B. King. The legendary blues icon was once asked how he found his heart-warming, bone-chilling sound and relied “It’s simple,” he said. “I only steal from the best.”

Many a great SEO and company has used this to their advantage, most recently Google’s announcement of hijacking appropriating your persona information for their web 2.0 social networking venture.

Here are great tips to write optimized copy for both search engines and endusers:

Writing Headlines

• Headlines: Do You Really Need 200 to Land a Good One? — Attversumption.com
• Are Your Headlines Missing These Precise Psychological Triggers? — Ezine Articles
• Top 10 Ideas for Testing Your Headlines — GrokDotCom

Readability

• Nobody Reads Web Pages — But Everybody Engages Websites — American Small Business
• The Secret of Writing to be Read — Seth Godin
• People Really Do Read Online — Who Knew — Marketing Interactions
• Fight the Bull — Bullfighter software helps to eliminate jargon from web copy

Customer-focused Copy

• Test your customer-focus ratio with Future Now’s ‘We-We’ Monitor. Having studied French and participated in the culture while in France this is a particularly poignant point.

Copywriting Techniques

• Six Types of Words That You Should Axe in Business Writing — Bizcovering
• Going for Broca: Show Don’t Tell in Action — Grok
• Time vs. Money — work less and make more money at the same time GrokDotCom
• What is Substance? — GrokDotCom
• Style vs. Substance — Mr. Blackwell would be a great SEO, as long as he wasn’t a blackhat (linking to TMZ.com is a first for the Naked SEO) GrokDotCom
• Pain vs. Gain — Arnold the Governator is here to pump up your keyword density and remove words that make you look like a girly copyblogger GrokDotCom
• Intellect vs. Emotion — this is a battle of wills, similar to the debate between emulation and imitation by Mr. Colbert –GrokDotCom
• Emotional Perspective Redux — GrokDotCom
• You Ain’t All That! — A Marketing Copy Autopsy keeps your search engine optimization strategy alive — GrokDotCom

Trust & Relationship Building

• Transparent Marketing: How to Earn the Trust of a Skeptical Consumer — Marketing Experiments Journal MEJ
• Inspiring Online Credibility – 3 part series showing how testimonials, real user feedback, friendly faces, inviting graphics, clear purchase policies and straightforward toll free support will boost your website’s bottom line. GrokDotCom
• Screencast: Building Trust & Credibility Online — GrokDotCom

Blogging

• Blogging for Beginners — ProBlogger Whether you’re starting a blog or just thinking about it, this is the place to be. A great collection of must-read how-to posts on how to make money online from Darren Rowse the original Pro Bloggeer.
• 5 Simple Ways to Open Your Blog Post With a Bang — Copyblogger (Finesse tips from Brian Clark.)
• Write a Review — Rediscover Your Blogging Groove — The Emperor isn’t the only person who can get a new groove ProBlogger
• How to Attract Links and Increase Web Traffic — The Ultimate Guide — Copyblogger
• The Two Most Important Words in Blogging — be user centric Copyblogger
• Lessons in Corporate Blogging — Nicholas Carr shows us that not only SEO bloggers in their pajamas can have fun online BusinessWeek

Like all good duplications, I have to thank Grokdotcom for the all the ideas inspiration for this post. As Steven Colbert said to Bill Oriley, its emulation not imitation that makes great men (or at least a great comedian).