Page 125 - 100 Great Copywriting Ideas: From Leading Companies Around the World (100 Great Ideas)

56 OPTIMIZE FOR YOUR
CUSTOMER FIRST

If you write for the web you’ll be very familiar with the
abbreviation SEO. Search engine optimization is an obsession for
some companies, rightly so, since without those all-important top
spots on Google (and the others) they’re losing business. You can
read books about SEO copywriting, subscribe to SEO copywriting
e-zines, read blogs focused on SEO copywriting, and, generally,
gorge yourself on advice about how to get SEO copywriting right.

But you need to be subtle about it at the same time. If you spam the
search engines two things happen. One, they’re likely to down-rate
your site or blacklist it altogether and two, your visitors, assuming
you still have any, will turn away in disgust.

The idea

From Nick Carpenter, boss of Oxford New Media, a digital
marketing agency
Nick is my go-to guy for all matters web-related. He designed
and handles distribution of my e-zine and advises me on digital
marketing. Incidentally, Nick once told me my website does all the
wrong things in terms of SEO . . . but it still gets the top spot for
the keywords that I care about. Testament to my copywriting skills
rather than my facility for website design, I guess.

We were discussing SEO copywriting one day and he gave me this
simple little mantra that I repeat under my breath when writing web
copy: optimize for the customer first and search engines second.
Otherwise you get stuff like this:

116 • 100 GREAT COPYWRITING IDEAS