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As any poor soul who knows me will tell you, I’ve been evangelising the value of professionally written online copy for some years now. This is driven by a passion for the power of words and bafflement that the business benefit of compelling online content still isn’t always self evident.

A new case for copy
My usual argument in favour of professionally-written copy is twofold. The first strand is that the words a brand uses are as important as the visual identity. The most potent brands speak to their customers in a voice that creates the right emotional connection.
 
The other strand revolves around how poorly executed copy can drag a brand down. This is especially evident online where the sheer volume of content can sometimes lead to a lack of quality and consistency. The little things – typos, poor grammar and marketing jargon – all add up to erode the trust of customers.

So those are my usual arguments. I think they’re still relevant, but there’s a third factor that I think provides the coup de grace. Cleverly constructed copy doesn’t just lead to customer engagement and trust – it can help them to find you in the first place. Strategic insight and skilful writing can lead to search engine optimisation.

Make more of your meta tags
The first simple way in which this can be achieved is through making more of Title and Meta Description tags in the Head of your webpage HTML. I should explain, for non-techies, that the head of an HTML document contains information that can’t be seen on the page itself, but can be read by your web browser – and search engines.

The Title tag is the line of copy that appears in the bar at the top of your browser (and the wording that is saved into your bookmarks). The keywords in the Title tag are important to Google spiders (also known as ‘bots’) as they trawl through 8 billion web pages, relentlessly analysing and ranking. Choose the right key words (no more than 90 characters, mind) for your title and the web page should appear higher up in search results.

The description tag is the summary that appears under the page title in Google search results. This isn’t given any weight by spiders, but it’s essential that it is meaningful and engaging. It should be under 150 characters in length and must be an absolute killer line that convinces the user to give your link a click. Who better to craft this than a copywriter, whose stock in trade is creating maximum impact with the minimum number of words?

Content strategy within the page
I don’t think there’s anything revelatory about my saying that density of key words in the copy on a web page affects its ranking on Google. The additional emphasis given by bots to headlines has also long been exploited by savvy websites. In fact, this led to a backlash from despairing online journalists tired of, full of key words, for bots.

I think the real insight is to be found in the tension between complying with the criteria set by Google’s software while still appealing to the human beings that visit your site. Combining creativity with strategy in your copy will deliver results for your brand in more ways than one.

Finding the right key words
These have been called ‘care words’ by web content guru Gerry McGovern. They’re the words that your customers type into Google when they’re looking for the stuff you sell - the words that resonate with them most. Of course the skill is in identifying these words. There’s an entire industry devoted to selling you software and services that help you to do this, not to mention free tools like Google AdWords, so I’m not going to delve too deeply into this here. As a writer what interests me is that so many organisations could still write better copy by focusing on what interests their customers, rather than writing inward facing copy.  Perhaps latching onto the business value of ‘care words’ will help them to communicate more effectively?

Using the right words effectively
Once they are identified, weaving these key words into your copy in an imaginative and resonant way is the other half of the solution. This is where having a good copywriter is a real asset. The raw data gathered from your key word analysis will then be combined with an understanding of the medium, the psychology of your audiences and how to communicate effectively.

So, in the battle to keep up with bots and customers, good old wordsmithery could be your secret weapon.

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