The Importance of Web Copy - May 14th, 2008

Designers and developers alike spend weeks even months developing fancy looking websites and applications but do they take into consideration the true value of web copy? In my experience many don’t as they concentrate most of their efforts on fancy logos, fonts, flash animation and videos. This often results in the copy being an after thought and thus sites giving users a poor impression.

When you break down the Internet to its core concept it is essentially built on web copy and links. Users come to a site expecting to see a nice clean design but more importantly want to be able to read what the website is about in a very short period of time. This is why at Just Search we put a great emphasis on web copy and incorporate it into our fundamental seo processes.

Creating good quality web copy is a difficult process but the dividends of getting it right are plain to see. Good quality copy can help improve conversions and allow users to navigate through your site easily. The web copy tells your users what you are about and what you can offer to them. Getting this wrong can result in lost sales and a low opinion of your company and brand. This is why I have come up with a few pointers for you to follow.

• Keep your writing short and to the point as people tend to skim read content on websites Make the important points clear so that users know to look at that part of a page. Some sites use quotations marks and large bold fonts to do this.
• Consider the tone you are using. Think of your audience and what they would expect to be reading. You may need to write in either a formal or informal manor.
• Avoid using jargon or long words that people will not understand.
• Don’t put keywords in for the sake of putting them in.
• Make your content read naturally.

Mark
SEO Programmer

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Problematic SEO - May 13th, 2008

Over the past couple of months I’ve come across a lot of websites that are not particularly optimised for search engines. I would like to address some common problems I come across on a daily basis. Below is a compiled list highlighting some of these issues.

Splash Page

The main page of any website (root) usually index.html, index.php and so-forth is the most important page on any given website. This is why using SEO techniques within the home page is important. By implementing a splash page the optimisation is minimal and search engines do not favour such pages.

Hidden Text

There are numerous techniques used to hide content. By using hidden text the content is hidden from the user but robots and search engine spiders can search the content. This may be a technique used in SEO but here at Just Search we class this method as Black Hat. Black Hat SEO implementation can result in a ban from search engine indexes, which can often take time to get your site re-included once the offending black hat SEO has been removed.

S.Whiston SEO Programmer

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