The need for a professional writer becomes apparent when we start considering search engine optimization. After all, having a website no one finds does no good at all.

Writing for the web is different than writing for print. We need to make sure the content on all pages is consistent, speaks of benefits and not features, is readable (per web standards), and has a specific call to action. This is just for the human reader. Now we need to tweak this content for the search engines, mainly Google since it is used in approximately 70% of all web searches.

Here are a few things that Google considers important and uses to come up with page rankings.

Title. The title that appears on top of the browser window is extremely important to Google. So, it needs to be descriptive and include the key phrase that page is being optimized for.

Header. The page header needs to be coded in a specific way behind the scenes and also needs to include the appropriate key phrase.

Bullets and Bold Text. It’s not enough to have bulleted lists and to bold some text. It has to be the right text, meaning the key phrase.

Location and Repetition. Where on the page a key phrase appears and how many times it appears make a difference to Google.

These are not complicated rules, but it takes a professional to combine what a human reader wants and what a search engine wants and come up with a concise and effective block of content.