Why, you ask? Mainly, because search engines want to provide their users with good content. How do they find it? By surfing the web for it. However, search engines don't view websites with human eyes, instead they use "spiders" (also known as crawlers, or robots), a "spider" is an automated program used to browse the web in a methodical manner.

These spiders rely on actual words to provide the search engine with information about the topic and related content of a website, and its relationship with other related topics or websites. They love text copy, so give it to them! (This is why flash and image based websites don't work!) The more content you have the more text the 'spider' can find and the more valuable your site will be to search engines. (The more valuable your site is ultimately means you will have higher rankings) Plus good content makes your visitors happy too!

If a website only contains images, there is nothing for the spider to read and it won't stay on your site very long, and your site will not likely be indexed. Some images can be read by some spiders if you use proper naming and the alt text feature. (Name your images something related to the topic of your site and use the alt text to describe the image and try to use your keywords within the alt text. But be careful not to "stuff" too many keywords in there ... this is seen as search engine spamming) Optimizing images should be used in addition to optimizing text, not replacing it!

So if this copy-writing stuff is so important to search engine marketing, then why do so many website owners and designers neglect this area? The simple answer is that good copy-writing is time-consuming and difficult. However, it is an essential part of your search engine optimization strategy. If you take the time to do it right (or even pay someone else to do it for you) your efforts will pay off in the long run.