Should You Write Copy For People Or For Search Engines?
A common situation is deciding whether you should write copy that appeals to people or to search engines. Your copy needs to appeal to people because they're the ones who decide whether to buy your product or service. But your copy also needs to appeal to search engines so people can find your site and read the copy.
How do we solve this problem?
Ideally, you want to appeal to both, but whenever you can only pick one of them, choose to appeal to people. The reason is that if you choose to appeal to search engines instead of people, your copy becomes awkward to read. And awkward copy doesn't sell well.
When you appeal to people instead of search engines, there will be at least some people reading your copy. So you'll at least get some sales. But search engines are not the only way to get traffic. If your product or service is good, people will spread good word-of-mouth about it. And people will find your sales page. So you'll still get traffic ... and sales.
But if possible, write for both people and search engines.
It can sometimes be tough to write copy that appeals to both. As you're writing, it's hard to think of SEO at the same time. You might even get writer's block from trying to do so.
An easy way around this problem is to ignore search engines in the beginning and write to people first, just like you would for offline copy.
Write your first draft and let the ideas flow. Get it all down on paper. Don't edit yourself. And don't worry about SEO for now.
Once you're done with the first draft, revise it multiple times until it's as strong as possible to appeal to people. Proofread for grammar and spelling.
Now that your copy appeals to people as strongly as possible, you now need to make it appeal to search engines too. This is the time where you go over your copy and insert your keywords. Of course, make sure you don't include your keywords too much otherwise you'll get penalized for keyword stuffing. Sprinkle your keywords in and make sure your copy still flows naturally and is easy to read.
So apply the above tips to make your copy appeal to people and search engines. But whenever you're faced with a situation where you can only appeal to one of them, choose to appeal to people over search engines.
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Francis Lui is a web copywriter with web technical skills.
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