The most crucial single element of SEO is the content on a website. Everything else—h1 and h2 tags, emphasizing key phrases through bolding, meta tag optimization, SEO-friendly URLs, etc.—is driven by the site's copy. It's not unusual to see horribly optimized sites still show up well across the search engines for certain terms based solely on their content.
With that in mind, here are a few of the best articles and blog posts from 2007 on optimizing website copy for SEO.
Google Guy Tips And Formula For Top Ranking by SEOmization
This short post, based on evaluating comments made by Google's Matt Cutts across various online forums, may be the single best piece written in all of 2007 about search engine optimization, and this sentence on how to use key phrases may be the single best bit of SEO guidance: "Once in the title, once in the description tag, once in the heading, once in the url, once in bold, once in italic and once high on the page."
SEO Copywriting by Shimon Sandler
Search consultant Shimon Sandler provides an excellent post on SEO copywriting strategies and techniques, target keyword density and page design.
'Search-Engine-Friendly' Copywriting Style Is Often Not Very Friendly To Humans by MediaPost Search Insider
Writer Rob Garner offers advice on how to write web copy that's friendly to both search engines and humans. His advice on how frequently a key search phrase should be used on a page: "How about once, in the first paragraph, as it relates to your main page theme. And don't forget to put the keyword theme in other search engine friendly areas of the page, like the title element, heading and alt text."
Writing For Search Engines Is Really About Writing For Your Customers by MediaPost Search Insider
In another Search Insider post, Ambar Shrivastava points out the importance of keyword research in incorporating the right search phrases on your website—the words that your customers and prospects use. "Businesses often use language to describe their products or services that is very different from the language their customers use." Only by understanding and using the language that your prospects use to describe your product or service can you assure that your copy is productively optimized.
From No to Know - How to Get Started in SEO/Marketing Copywriting by e-Marketing Performance
Michelle Montoya provides an extensive list of helpful online SEO and marketing copywriting resources.
