Edit your copy for success.

Read the latest search engine writing information! Buy the updated SEO copywriting book today - on sale now!

If your site contains hundreds of solid content pages, you can relax.

You won't be burning the midnight oil, carefully rewriting page after page.  Nor will your search engine marketing campaign cause you to delete your current copy. All you have to do is edit your inner page for keyphrases. It's as simple as that.

One caveat:  Some pages are easier to edit than others.  Characteristics of prime editing pages are:

  1. The current word count is already a beefy 250 words.

    "About us" pages, "FAQ" pages and some detailed product pages typically have a longer word counts - and they make fantastic keyphrase editing fodder.

    If a page is important enough to you that you want to expand the word count, rewrite the entire page.  Like many ill-planned home additions, too much "add on" copy (copy that's included as an afterthought) tends to look annoyingly obvious, and will throw off your marketing flow.

  2. The page is more informational in nature, and not a crucial sales or marketing page.

    Pareto's Principal, otherwise known as the 80/20 rule, states that a small number of causes is responsible for a large percentage of the effect.  When you review your own site, the same principal applies.  Chances are, around 20 percent of your pages are causing the most conversations.  These pages would be:

    • Your home page
    • Any important product or service pages that are crucial to your marketing, sales or branding efforts
    • Any pages that are popular with prospects
    • Your home page

    These are exactly the pages that you should not edit for keyphrases.

    You should rewrite any pages with high conversion rates, or pages that are critical to your sales or marketing success.  Why?  These pages have a highly critical content flow, and strategic copy and keyphrase strategy is paramount.

    If the copy is not critical (like a FAQ page or a product description page), editing your text and adding keyphrases is a sharp tactic.  The section "How to Transform Non-Sales Pages into SEO Marketing Gold" divulges what juicy pages are ripe for optimization.

  3. You can make the keyphrases flow within the existing text.

    Again, your prospects pay your bills - not the search engines.  If you can't make your keyphrases work, either choose new phrases, rewrite the page, or forget about it.  Remember, you'll have your primary optimized pages pulling for you (like your home page.)  It's more important to keep your marketing flow than it is to have secondary page search engine listings.

Next: keyphrase copyediting