Example: Seed copy with keywords for SEO

Writing that’s direct and strategically suffused with keywords improves the odds that searchers will find your site in search results, consider your page relevant to their needs, click through, and engage with the content they see.

In this example—a webpage from a fictional site that sells baby clothes—see how a shy piece of prose can be made over to sell itself. Here are the steps we followed to optimize it:

1. Select a variety of possible keywords.
2. Check keyword search volume. (Search volume is a representative sample of the number of times a keyword was searched on in search engines. A high-volume keyword is a good thing: It means lots of people use that keyword in searches.)
3. Check keyword difficulty. (Keyword difficulty refers to the competitiveness of a term—how hard it would be for your site to rank high in results for that keyword. A keyword with a high difficulty score is a bad thing: The keyword is so common that the competition to rank high for it is fierce.)
4. Choose three to five keywords.
5. Integrate the three to five keywords into the copy.

Before

Bootleg Bäby

We sell rockin’ togs for newborns and toddlers. You don’t want your baby to look like every other kid on the block in pink and blue, bunnies and teddy bears. Dress your mini Ozzy and Siouxsie like the rock stars they already are—screaming, staying up all night, drinking till they spit up.

We sell rock-and-roll tops, onesies, bottoms, and accessories for every head-banging babe. For the future metal master, we have snap-on faux leather trousers, studded cuffs (no sharp or swallowable parts, of course), and black tops with a variety of designs, including a flame-detailed stroller and a skull with a pacifier (our best-seller). For the punk princess, we have tees with tattoo designs, tartan skirts, mesh tights, lace-up booties, and the ever-popular baby Mohawk hat.

Shopping for a band T-shirt? Bootleg Bäby has the largest online selection of band tees for babies, including rock, metal, hip-hop, punk, goth, and indie band logos and images. Can’t find your favorite group? We customize: Send us your vintage concert tees, and we’ll cut them down to baby-sized T-shirts or onesies.

All of our baby clothes are 100% organic cotton, ultrasoft, and machine-washable. We think you’ll find them longer-lasting than the overpriced baby clothes you find in stores—and a lot cooler, too. Start shopping now!

Keyword selection notes

Bootleg Bäby is a website that sells baby clothes, so baby clothes was our first search in the Wordtracker keyword-research tool (find more keyword research tools). Of course, using that keyword would be a bad SEO strategy—Bootleg Bäby would compete with big national and international retailers and wouldn’t improve its search rankings. However, the search revealed some related terms, such as punk baby clothes, that could be fruitful.

We eliminated some other keywords: Baby rocker was too generic, referring to rocking baby seats as well as to clothes for the rocker baby. And rock star baby was too specific, with most results referring to an established site that would compete directly with Bootleg Bäby.

We had better luck with various phrases that combine baby, clothes, and rock or other music terms. But as you can see in the chart, spelling matters: Rock and roll baby clothes got more searches than rock n roll baby clothes, and terms varied in whether they performed better with T-shirts, tee shirts, or T.

Here’s our keyword chart, from highest search volume to lowest (all numbers as of May 2009):

For our main keywords, we chose:

• punk baby clothes
• rock baby clothes
• rock-and-roll baby clothes (Note: Despite the hyphens, this term is a match for rock and roll baby clothes.)

We made a second list of terms that would be good to use if we could incorporate them without making the copy sound strange. These secondary keywords are:

• cheap rocker baby clothes (which includes another keyword, rocker baby clothes)
• rock and roll baby T-shirts (despite a low search volume, it worked well as a heading when it was punctuated)
• skull pacifier T-shirt (because that’s the site’s best-selling item, people might search on that term, and the phrase has the lowest keyword difficulty on our list)
• Mohawk hat for kids (likewise, a top product for the site with relatively low keyword difficulty)

Keyword integration notes

In revising the copy, we focused on placing keywords throughout the copy, especially in high-profile areas such as the headline, subheadings, and links. For links, we assumed that the site has—or could create—subpages for punk, goth, and rock apparel, as well as for individual products. (Roll your cursor over the text below to see which words we linked.) We rewrote a few sentences to squeeze in more keywords. You could go a step further and rewrite some of the copy as lists, with keywords in the bulleted points.

We repeated primary keywords only twice each, except for punk baby clothes, which appears three times. Though we could have shoehorned in more keywords, the copy is so brief and the phrases are so similar—all contain baby clothes—that we decided more repetitions would sound odd.

After

Punk baby clothes for your little screamer

Bootleg Bäby sells rock-and-roll baby clothes for newborns and toddlers. You don’t want your baby to look like every other kid on the block in pink and blue, bunnies and teddy bears. Dress your mini Ozzy and Siouxsie like the rock stars they already are—screaming, staying up all night, drinking till they spit up.

Rock-and-roll baby clothes for girls and boys

We sell rockin’ tops, onesies, bottoms, and accessories for every head-banging babe. For the future metal master or lord of darkness, we have rock baby clothes like snap-on faux leather trousers, studded cuffs (no sharp or swallowable parts, of course), and a variety of black tops, including a flame-detailed stroller tee and the skull pacifier T-shirt (our best-seller). For the punk princess, we have punk baby clothes like tees with tattoo designs, tartan skirts, mesh tights, lace-up booties, and the ever-popular Mohawk hat for kids.

Rock and roll, baby: T-shirts from all your favorite bands

Bootleg Bäby has the largest online selection of band T-shirts for babies, with images and logos from the finest bands in punk, metal, hip-hop, goth, indie, and rock—baby clothes you and your kid will love to go out in. Can’t find your favorite group? We customize: Send us your vintage concert tees, and we’ll cut them down to baby-sized T-shirts or onesies.

Cool, comfy, and cheap rocker baby clothes

All of our baby clothes are 100% organic cotton, ultrasoft, and machine-washable. We think you’ll find them longer-lasting than the overpriced baby duds you find in stores—and a lot cooler, too. Start shopping now for the best selection of rock-and-roll, goth, and punk baby clothes!