A large volume of inbound links from high Page Ranked sites is now the single biggest factor affecting a site's own ranking.

This notwithstanding, writing keyword-rich copy for search engine optimisation, being an SEO copywriter, is probably now the most sought after skill in the copywriter's repertoire.

The ability to accurately identify key search terms, and then stitch these naturalistically into a page of relevant associated content, can contribute to escalated rankings with significant increases in traffic and, consequently, sales.

Good SEO Copywriter: bad SEO Copywriter

SEO copywriting has something of a mythology attached to it, and the number of 'SEO copywriters' whose lack of acumen as a copywriter is surpassed only by the paucity of their knowledge of search engine engineering, or of css and xhtml (an absolute must for a good SEO copywriter) is quite astonishing.

I do a lot of SEO copywriting, combining my copywriting experience with purpose built SEO copywriting tools to create content which delivers requisite keyword presence while remaining both informative and readable.

I'd be pleased to talk to you about your SEO copywriting need, whether it's to optimise a single piece of text such as a landing page, or a large number of pages covering off a wide range of search terms.

(In the screenshot of Google's return against the heavily competitive search term 'freelance copywriter', my own site- - boxed in red to help you see - appears in position #3 of the first page of the organic search listings, behind a couple of hard-to-displace directory pages. Incidentally, my site appears again in the very first position on the page, #1 of the Adwords pay per click slots. In truth, this may be slight overkill, and could result in my paying for a click which my organic listings would deliver free, but it certainly contributes to an impressive suggestion of brand dominance.)

SEO Copywriting Myths

In case you are entirely new to SEO copywriting, it might be worth going over a couple of basic truths.

The first of these is that no page can be optimised to simply "come top on Google" or to "get on the first page of Google".

Optimisation, by definition, always involves a keyword. So it's fine to say, "I want this page optimised to improve its ranking on Google against the keyword 'elephant'", but a nonsense to say simply, "I want this page optimised to improve its ranking on Google."

Secondly, a page can really be optimised for one or two keywords or terms (literally 1 or 2), but cannot be optimised for 6 or 8 or 20.

Thirdly, the 'keywords' meta tag in the 'head' section of your page is by no means the be all and end all it once was, yet it and the <description> and <title> tags must all be attended to for your pages to stand a chance. So these tags should be appropriately filled, but doing this does not mean the page has been optimised.

Lastly, if you're serious about optimising your pages, and you are in a truly competitive sector (such as financial services or travel) you need to be prepared to consider every element of the page, including how much copy it contains, how it's built, and how its visual design is achieved, in order to optimise it to maximum effect.