Copywriting refers to writing text to promote or advertise and is a crucial element of any website. Having effective copy on your website is essential for online marketing and can often make the difference between an ineffective website and a highly productive and profitable website.

Copywriting is both an art and a science and comprises many different elements that combine to persuade a potential customer to make a call to action; be it make a purchase, fill in a form or make a telephone call.

A good copywriter or ‘wordsmith’ will use their writing skills by using specifically selected words or phrases  to promote a product, person, skill, idea, opinion or cause, while maintaining the integrity, readability and interest of the piece they are working on.  Traditionally journalists and editors are excellent copywriters. In the online world however, copywriting has evolved to incorporate search engines and search algorithms thereby promoting the strategic placement of targeted keywords.

Copywriting For Search Engines

First and foremost even when writing copy with search engines in mind the primary goal of the copywriter must be to write copy that is interesting and compelling to humans. It’s all very well writing perfect copy for Google or Yahoo, but if none of your target market are interested in what you are saying you are wasting your time.

If a well considered SEO campaign has been put into place, keyword research has already been undertaken and target keywords have been selected.  If this is the case, a professional copywriter will be able to interweave these terms within the compelling copy they are writing, thereby satisfying both search engines and readers.  One must be very aware that overuse of keywords (otherwise known as keyword spamming) is disliked by Search Engines and may even result in a penalty or blacklisting.