Seen that SEO Copywriting Vs Sales Copywriting post from a while back? Either way, here’s part 2. It’s an analysis of the aspects of your web presence that impact on your ranking and is based on the algorithm breakdown above, kindly shared by the great gods of SEO at SEOmoz. Interesting huh? Sure, it’s been a round a while now but the essential truths are rock solid relevant.

Let’s cut to the chase – When it comes to SEO, what people do in response to your site on other sites is way more than half the battle: 66.46% of your SEO happens off page. 85% if you include everything other than on-page keyword use.

As Brian Clark says: “What people say about you is more important than what you say about yourself.”

• 23.87% – The general trust and authority that your domain has from quality incoming links is the largest indicator of SEO success. Google treats inbound links as votes of confidence. Trust is rewarded with better search placements.

• 22.33% – The number of links to a specific page on your site is also extremely important. Content – usually copy content, is tasked with the role attracting natural incoming links.

• 20.26% – To a greater extent – the web IS text. The anchor text of links from other sites is vital. Anchor text tells Google what your page is about according to other people, not just the keywords you choose to use. Anchor text reveals the real relevance of your pages.

Q – So what’s this SEO stuff got to do with copywriting?

A – Everything. SEO and copywriting work hand in hand. Especially off page SEO copywriting. It’s the last mile to strong search rankings. Apply your SEO copywriting well – your linkable to content, your guest posts, your social media, your press releases, articles, white papers, your sales copy and your SEO stands a chance.

More insight and analysis to come. In the next part I’ll be looking at The Top 10 Off Page Ranking Factors and the different ways of approaching SEO Copywriting.

For completeness sake here’s a quick chart run through:

1. Domain authority: Aspire towards a trusted domain with plenty of visitors, rich content pages and juicy inbound links. High authority sites trump highly optimised sites. That’s why Wikipedia often ranks above above expensively optimised sites.

Whether you have the resources and/or commitment to develop an authority domain is the challenge

2. Link popularity of the page: The quality AND the quantity of inbound links to a page. Put simply, you can have thousands of low grade links but they’ll offer minimal benefit in the long-run. You need a balance between link popularity and link quality. Though virtually all SEOs will buy links in one form or another, especially for competitive terms, it’s potentially only a short term fix. Best build success on cornerstone content. Why just ‘rent’ top positions when you can own them with great link inspiring content?

3. External anchors to the page: Keyword specific anchors from quality sources mean healthy ranking.

4. On-page keyword usage: Keyword density, keyword co-occurrence, LSI, LDA, you name it. SEOmoz seem to think that as algorithms evolve and start being able to identify context – i.e. The Stones, Apple etc then keywords and semantic relevance as opposed to slipping down the list of important signals with become even more important.

5. Registration & hosting data: Google is always in the look out for players, hunting for any clues that might betray an attempt to game the system. Older domains are weighted more than possible fly-by-night newer ones. Edu domains are valued more than .info. Hosting data that reveals location, bandwidth issues and site down-time also pay a role.

6. Traffic & click-through data: If visitors respond positively to your content then Google rewards you with stronger placements. If the site is poorly targeted, the content irrelevant and users quickly bounce then you’re in trouble.

7. Social graph metrics: Google is increasingly incorporating the social aspects into the ranking algorithm to create a social search platform throwing in Twitter feeds, Facebook and other social site websites into the search mix, not to mention the +1 button. It’s realistic to expect the 5.30% social graph metric to be increasing rapidly.

Thoughts team?