Choosing the right or relevant keywords and phrases for a website may or may not fall under your copywriter’s list of things to do. Your clients will generally provide you (or should) with a working list of words and phrases that help sites rank well in Google.

(Yes, there are other engines, Yahoo and Live.com, Ask.com and a few others. But generally speaking, there’s Google and everyone else, unless you’re plying very unique B2B search waters.)

Think of this initial list as a website glossary of terms. Again, your client should also prioritize for you the important of these terms or term categories. You’ll be working with a list of keyphrases for the homepage and generally get more specific in section, sub-sections, and individual pages. (Remember, every page should get its own title tag.)

So you have your lists, your content writing task, but has your client actually identified the short and long tail phrases? Are these initial lists missing little gems of opportunities?

• Do a little of your own keyword research, too.
• Ask the client if you can get their traffic statistics. See for yourself what actual phrases folks are using to find the site. (You may be surprised as to the terms people use!) and where the traffic is actually coming from.
• Ask your client for the sites of their biggest competitors. Review the sites not only for their content, but scrutinize their title and descriptions tags, too. (I’ll talk about description tags in an upcoming post.)

Don’t know how to find them? Go to the "View Source" command in your browser. See how the lists compare. The more direct the competitor the more alike your client/competitor lists will be, but you may find some keyphrase holes you can fill.

Then you’ll want to get a sense of the keyword/phrase competitiveness — especially if your client isn’t Top Dog among his/her peers. (You can rank #1 for keyphrases that no one searches for, no traffic, fun or profit in that, I assure you.) Your job is to write content in such a way that it incorporates the phrases (and their variations) that most folks will use to find your client for that first seach in Google.

Since you’re the copywriter, not the SEO, I’ll suggest these no-fee tools for you to review keyword phrases - their competitiveness and other fun stuff: (There are dozens, if not hundreds, of free, no-fee tools on the web. But you won’t go wrong with these.)

• Google AdWords Keyword Tool
• Yahoo Search Marketing Keyword Tool
• SEO Book Keyword Suggestion Tool

Once you’ve got the phrases, review them with your client. Priortize them for importance and relevance. Then make your list and start "word stemming."

Word stemming is the trick to making your copy readable to humans as well as making the search engines happy. For example, I own several sites on the subject of adoption. The word "adoption" can be word-stemmed as follows:

• adoption
• adopt
• adoptive
• adopting
• adopted

Using these five variations gives me untold opportunity to work in adoption-related single words and phrases into my title and description tags, as well as page content. Consider when I add these additional terms to original five:

• child
• children
• baby
• babies
• toddler
• toddlers
• infant
• infants

These are generic nouns. I could get more specific with sons, daughters, boys and girls. (Quick tip for you — plurals are used more as search terms than singles.)

With just these words alone I can build several pages of relevant content, title and description tags. Once I’ve created my site glossary, I can just write without worrying if I’m using the right keyword phrases.

To learn more about writing web copy that people with read and search engines will index, take a look at Karon Thackston’s The Step-by-Step Copywriting Course (aff). This is a clear, easy-to-understand and follow course that will help expand your copywriting skill set. As copywriters today are expected to be able to write print and web copy with similar expertise, Karon’s course is a smart step in the right direction.

Maven’s Maxim
Write your copy with the actual words and phrases that visitors use. Sounds easy but since you’re not expected to be an expert in every industry or subject out there, brainstorm with your client to start your glossary. Do your own research to add to that list. Word stem to build more phrases from your core terms. And be not afraid of Google search rankings. Relevant content does in time rise to the top.

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