Most companies, especially small businesses, commission a web designer to create or update their website, but they forget about the copywriting aspect.  When the designer comes back to the contact person and asks for copy, someone will throw together a quick paragraph or two for each page, but it won’t generate the results that the business had expected.

It’s tempting for small businesses to save money by doing the web copywriting themselves, but here’s why it doesn’t work:

• The writer is too close to the business.  There’s something to be said about knowing the business, but if the writer is too close and entrenched in it, he doesn’t see the benefits of his services or products as easily.  A copywriter is distanced enough where she can extract the benefits from the features.
• The writer isn’t skilled at marketing copy.  A good copywriter is and can write in a way that will engage potential customers and encourage them to act.
• The writing just isn't up to par.  This is the biggest problem for most small business websites.  The business owner is great at what she does: personal training, healthcare consulting, IT consulting, interior design, etc.  But she’s not a skilled writer, and she can’t find the right words.  If she tries to write her website copy herself, it comes out stilted and doesn’t convey what she wants.  A copywriter can extract the information and present it in a coherent way to prospective clients.
• The writing isn’t grammatically correct.  A good copywriter is a trained writer who knows the mechanics of writing.  She is committed to the written word and produces well-written, grammatically correct copy that increases the business’s credibility.  When a business is looking to hire a copywriter, it’s always a good idea to ask if she uses any particular style guides or reference manuals (AP, Chicago, Strunk & White, even Yahoo!).
• The keywords aren't placed correctly.  Most websites should be SEO-optimized, and a good copywriter can seamlessly weave the keywords into the copy.  It goes back to "The writing just isn't up to par" - as good as the keywords are, they should seem to be organically ingrained into the website copy, not stuffed in strictly for SEO purposes.

The investment in good website copy pays for itself in a few clients.  Instead of trying to write copy themselves for the bulk of the website, businesses can benefit from engaging the services of a professional copywriter.  Read what my satisfied clients have to say about the copywriting I’ve provided, or contact me for a complimentary consultation to learn what I can do for your business website.

(And to save time, I have all four style guides and reference manuals at my fingertips!)

As nice as it would be to have the number one Google ranking for "lawyer," that's an unrealistic goal.  What is realistic, however, is being the number one Google result for, say, "Springfield, MA employment lawyer."

Law firms should aim for the long-tail keywords, the ones that mean the prospective client is ready to make the call.  Google frowns upon keyword stuffing, but with well-written web pages and regular site updates, your law firm can rank on Google's first page of results when prospective clients are looking for an attorney with your specialty.

First, select a long-tail keyword phrase that resonates with prospective clients.  Who are they looking for? An employment lawyer in Springfield, Massachusetts, or an estate planning lawyer in the Pioneer Valley?  If you use Google Analytics or a similar tracking program on your current website, you can find out what keyword phrases your prospects use.  If you don't, you can conduct some SEO research using Google Adwords to find out what the most-searched keyword phrases are.

Once you've got your keyword phrase selected, make sure you're using it on your firm's website, on every page.  "We are a firm of Springfield, MA employment lawyers..." and "John Smith is a Springfield, MA employment lawyer..."  While you don't want to stuff your pages with the keyword phrase, you do want it to show up on your pages, particularly in the first few sentences of the site.

The regular updates are what may stymie most lawyers, particularly small firms and solo practitioners.  Consider a blog, for example, and post the latest court rulings that would apply to your prospective clients.  Keep an updated "newsroom" page, where you post press releases and articles about your firm.  Keep your "About" page up to date with updated biographies that include continuing education classes taught and articles written.  Post links to the articles, or the whole text of the articles themselves.

It's simple, basic SEO that any firm can do that will increase page rankings and increase incoming traffic.

Today’s Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has grown beyond the keyword stuffing days of yore. It involves choosing both longtail and single keywords, finding terms that your ideal customer is most likely to use, and examining more than just the copy.

At PodCamp Western Massachusetts, Kathy Hokunson of New Hartford, N.Y.-based Site Seeker, Inc. described the elements of SEO to effectively position a business’s webpage and drive traffic.

The end game is not to be No. 1 in Google, but to drive traffic to your website, Hokunson explained. She advised first thinking about the end game, the goals you want to achieve on your website, before choosing keywords to use.

The first thing Hokunson advises her clients to do is install Google Analytics, even before keyword analysis, to see what kind of searches are driving traffic to the site.  Next, after setting goals and objectives, she uses Google AdWords and Trends to find keywords that will suit the client’s needs.  Hokunson advises starting with broad terms, then selecting longtail keywords that indicate a buyer’s progression through the research process.  For example, a buyer who searches for a public relations copywriting specialist is more likely to make contact and purchase services than a buyer merely researching with the keyword “copywriter.”

Keyword stuffing isn’t wise, but Hokunson does tell her clients to repeat the keyword phrase throughout their copy “as often as [they] can without sounding like an idiot.”  In other words, while you don’t want to say “public relations copywriting specialist” in every sentence, using it in every paragraph of a three-paragraph page would properly saturate the page with the longtail keyword phrase.

Finally, while meta tags aren’t as much of a force for ranking as they once were, Hokunson still advises reviewing meta tags, the site description, url structure, page title, and H1 tag for keywords.