What is SEO Copywriting?
What is the Importance of SEO Copywriting?
What is SEO Keyword Analysis?
How Can You Write SEO Copies For Customers?
Final Thoughts
Are you a fan of writing? Do you find it exciting to share your views with the rest of the world?
Well, currently there are lots and lots of articles on the internet, so the sector of content marketing is surely a tough one to crack in.
You might be creating lots of content, without compromising with your quality but somehow you are not getting the desired results. If you’ve similar concerns, then you have come to the right place.
The only reliable answer to this problem is SEO copywriting. It’s a bit hard to leverage the full potential of SEO in any content, and those who know how to do it can claim the top spots in the Google search engine results. It has a lot more to it than just putting popular words here and there in your articles.
To make this process easier, I will share a detailed approach on how to do SEO copywriting to improve your content’s exposure.
So, let’s dive right into it!
What is SEO Copywriting?
The method of combining traditional SEO practices that can generate traffic with appealing language that attracts users to perform a particular action.
This action can be purchasing a product or joining an email list. A lot of companies use this copywriting in their business pages, online websites, or even while running email marketing campaigns.
There’s a subtle difference between SEO content writing and SEO copywriting. The primary goal of SEO copywriting is to focus on conversions, whereas in the case of SEO content writing it aims for generating traffic on their website. And unlike in content writing, you have to concise the SEO copywriting. An experienced copywriter knows how to be playful with their words, such that even a few words are enough to make those conversions.
But, the two can surely work together. You may write a blog article with a CTA that was written using SEO copywriting techniques, and the phrases can urge readers to move forward in the funnel or persuade them to download an eBook you are offering.
What is the Importance of Copywriting?
Let’s talk a bit about its importance, before getting into the details of copywriting.
For maintaining the top spot in the search engine results, SEO necessitates the constant upkeep of your site’s digital presence, which includes content.
The web crawlers always prioritize the content, according to the requirements of the visitors. This basically implies that your copywriting should have a blend of some of the most common searches done by the readers. Having said that, the type of searches will not remain the same, so you might have to adapt your SEO practices, or make some tweaks from time to time. Otherwise, with time the rankings of your content will become lower.
Even if you don’t have an in-depth knowledge of copywriting, you must know the fundamentals.
Here are the three main reasons, why you should focus on your copywriting techniques:-
- To bring in qualified prospects, depending on the content of your articles
- To develop a trust factor among your readers, by addressing their concerns.
- To persuade the readers to take certain actions. This might be downloading a pdf, or subscribing to a mailing list.
What is SEO Keyword Analysis?
Keyword analysis can be referred to as examining the keywords or popular phrases that drive organic and sponsored traffic to your webpage. Therefore, being a marketer all your marketing campaigns should undergo a keyword analysis stage.
Keyword analysis helps you to determine what your target audience has been searching for, or what are their general queries. Once you get a better idea about the general concerns of your consumers, you can better adapt your content to address those concerns.
If your visitors are satisfied with your answers, they can surely stick around for a longer period of time.
Steps You Should Take To Improve Your SEO Copywriting Content
Until now, you should have a pretty good understanding of SEO copywriting. Now, let’s discuss what you should do to improve your copywriting practices.
- Find The Right Keyword
Even before starting with your content, you have to determine a few relevant keywords related to your industry.
It will be beneficial if you can choose keywords that are frequently entered in the search engines. For better reference, you can also take help from some keyword-finding tools.
You should have a clear search intent before choosing your keywords. You can also try using the words that immediately pop in your head, that can perfectly describe your products.
Here are some things you need to keep in mind while choosing your keywords:-
- Begin by typing a basic search term, sometimes known as a “seed” phrase.
- Refine your keywords based on search frequency, keyword complexity, or other criteria.
- Examine the purpose of your selected keywords to check if they align with your objectives.
- Address The Frequently Asked Questions
The primary objective of a search engine is to make it easier for users to find information.
This is why Google keeps improving SERP elements; users don’t even have to click on a webpage to get results.
Predicting your users’ next inquiries is a wonderful approach to keep your material organized.
It is, however, an excellent technique to target SERP elements such as the PAA (People Also Ask) box. Moreover, answering popular queries related to your industry also shows your expertise in this sector.
If you don’t know where to start, there are a number of SEO software that can assist you in locating queries that are relevant to your subject and keywords. Some of the popular tools are:-
- AlsoAsk
- AnswerThePublic
- Quora
Now, after figuring out the most popular topics, you have to include these topics in the content that you are posting on the Internet.
For instance, you can address any popular quality in your blogs, articles, or even on your business website.
You also have to try to provide more value to the topic than anyone else on the internet. This will give your content a fair chance against your competitors.
- Determine the Search Intent
While purchasing a product, the customer journey has a lot of elements. And the search intent will vary, depending on where they are in their journey. Therefore, make sure to use keywords that can be relevant for the entire customer journey.
Finding “keyword intent” basically involves figuring out why a user is entering in a specific search query.
Let’s understand with an example. Let’s say, a user shows interest in coffee machines. There are usually four types of intent:-
Informational- The consumer wants to learn about a certain type of product. So the search keyword can be “most advanced coffee machines”.
Navigational- Here the users try to visit a particular website or want to see some product details.
Commercial- For this intent, the consumers can try to compare different options for the coffee machines. So the keywords can be “How to compare coffee machines?”
Transactional- The users now have a particular type of product in mind and want to purchase the product. The keywords for this intent can be “purchase a brand new coffee machine”
So, if you have a business of coffee machine, you would want your visitors to open your website with commercial intent. Once they start browsing through different options, the possibility of a transactional intent increases. So, make sure to adapt your website from a commercial point of view.
- Observe Your Competitors
Owning a business, your main goal will be to hold a dominating positive on your market. And, for that, you have to beat your competitors. However, you can’t do that, unless you know what they’re doing.
It’s important to know how your competitors are ranking in the SERP, and if they are ranking higher, find the reason behind it.
There are a lot of keywords overviewing software that will help you get a thorough analysis of any keyword on the SERP.
However, keep in mind that thoroughly auditing the high-performing pages of the SERP is critical. You have to make tweaks in such a way that they should provide greater value compared to the content of your competitors.
There are some points you have to keep in mind while observing your competitors:-
- Figure out your top ten competitors and keep an eye on how they use their keywords.
- Compare the readability of competing pages.
- Check out the length of your competitors’ pages.
If you can check these points throughout, you will surely get some answers about the reasons behind the performance of your online content.
- Use Unique Data
Readers always try to find something new, something that the others are not offering.
Sharing unique data or discussing any case studies is one way to pique the interest among your viewers. This will not only help you get connections, but it will also establish your company as a pioneer in your industry.
Now, if you’re considering hiring a freelancer, they should have proper background knowledge and statistical sense about your industry. Putting together random stats or irrelevant data can be bad for your brand image.
If your internal content writers don’t have the necessary information, then acquiring those data becomes critical.
Here are a few methods, which can help you to gather reliable data:-
- Leveraging Social Media
You can start by creating polls on your social media sites and question your fans about their interests, lifestyles, and other topics. These poll results will help your writers to get a brief understanding of your target audience. So, they will be able to write something that the audience can relate to.
- Find trends in your sales data
If you’re an internal writer, you undoubtedly have access to a variety of information. This is especially important when businesses are in a state of flux. You can give a brief understanding of your sales data, to your writers. Stats like which products are growing or which products are showing some potential. Covering these topics can even increase your sales.
- User-Generated Content
There’s no better promotion than word-of-mouth from your clientele. Solicit success stories from your consumers, along with statistics on how your products have improved your customer’s lifestyles. If you can include some real positive reviews for your products in your content, it can have a better snowball effect for your product, attracting more and more buyers.
- Improve Your Meta Descriptions and Headers
Everybody tends to judge a book by its cover. And for your online content, your meta title and descriptions are your covers.
The header will be the first thing people see when they arrive on the website. So, keeping your meta clean and quirky will surely raise more eyebrows! You will get a boost at your organic click-through percentages and will increase your website visitors.
However, you want to keep in mind that Google will give more priority to the user’s query. So, the meta descriptions which might appear on the SERP might be tweaked by the search engine depending on the query.
So, it becomes very important that you use attractive language throughout your content. As at the end of the day, not leaving any gaps is obviously the best way to go!
So things should keep in mind:-
Meta Titles
- It should be one-of-a-kind and contain your desired keyword.
- It should be between 55 and 60 characters long since longer title tags are shortened by Google. A 600-pixel width restriction is also in place, however, it might vary depending on the device of the user.
- It should cover a message that can appropriately reflect the content. If the title and content don’t have much connection, it will increase your bounce rates.
Meta Descriptions
- It should have the targeted keywords
- Calls to action should be included
- You can make them lengthy, although Google prefers them to be between 155 and 160 characters long. So, keeping it short and intact might be a better idea for improving the user experience.
- It should be a bit different from others and accurately define a website. You should make it meaningful, to give people a reason to go to that particular page.
H1 Header
- It should fall within the length of 600 pixels. Anything bigger than that, Google will try to abbreviate it.
- Numbers are acceptable in the headers. In fact, headlines having numbers tend to receive more attention than the rest.
- [consultations], [clips], [2021] are some of the examples of bracketed explanations. Content having bracketed clarifications generally outperform the others by 38 percent. This indicates that visitors like a complete overview of what they will receive when they click on the blog.
- You can include some action verbs such as “Discover,” “receive,” “improve,” or “enhance”. This might help readers figure out what they’ll get out of the page.
- Users are more likely to visit the website if emotional triggers are used in the header.
- Using and Easy and StraightForward Language
While browsing through the internet, most individuals look for simple and straightforward explanations. No one is really a fan of intricacy if they want to learn about a specific topic.
Search engines are used by people who are looking for precise answers or assistance. This suggests they want a speedy response without having to wade through a lot of difficult text.
Remember, you have to do everything to improve your user experience to make those conversions. Your readers shouldn’t feel uncomfortable while going through your content.
The initial step is to understand who you’re trying to reach. While experts in specialized areas may want more in-depth information, it’s always essential to make things simple.
Let’s look at some techniques to improve the readability of your writing.
- Good Structure
A proper structure makes it as easy as possible for consumers and search engines to navigate your information. While writing your content, you can use headers, bulleted points, or leave some spaces after your images. All these practices can give your content a neat and clean appearance.
- Skimmable Headlines
Before reading any article or blog, most people like to take a quick scan. Basically, in this stage, they make the decision whether the article is worth their time or not.
Headlines should tell viewers what they may expect to learn from certain passages or the entire page. Try to think about the reader’s main objective of reading the content, and deliver solutions in your headlines, then expand in the passages that follow.
- Simple and To-the-point Content
Viewers like to scroll through sentences to find the material they require instantly, much like they do with headlines. Scanning large walls of text can be intimidating and difficult.
When writing your articles, don’t try to beat around the bushes. Give a short and catchy intro, and then come straight to the point.
If you’re targeting decent readability and consumer satisfaction then your content should project simplicity and concision. And if possible, try to structure your content with an F-shaped pattern. This type of content is more visually appealing.
You can also try visibly offset content, allowing visitors to skim the material more easily. While leading the visitor through directions, it’s also a good idea to use lists and bulleted points.
- SubTopics
The Sub-categories in your content should be informed at the start of your headers. Users are likely to have follow-up inquiries while searching for a certain query. You also mention some solutions related to those in your subtopics.
You can use different heading sizes to group relevant subtopics together. It’s also crucial to organize these subtopics in a meaningful sequence.
- Simplistic Vocabulary
Keep the usage of complex terms to a minimum. You can teach your visitors about business and branding buzzwords, but you should also provide a simple explanation for those terms.
To make your work easier, you can use some readability tools for your content. These tools can evaluate your target phrases dynamically and recommend the best readability grade for your material depending on your top competitors.
Some things you need to check while using these tools:-
- Identify which sections are excessively long.
- Find out which sections of your copy might not be genuine.
- Try to make sure that your content is well-structured for a certain keyword and produced in an SEO-friendly manner.
- Ensure that your content fits your general brand tone, whether it’s informal, moderate, or formal.
- Using Attractive Visuals
We all know that visuals can be more eye-catching and it better sticks to our minds.
Using visuals on your web pages, such as small video clips, photos, charts, and animations can be a great way to engage your readers.
The usage of visual components can improve the amount of time visitors spend on a website and encourage them to share the graphics on social networking sites. This method can greatly expand the reach of your material.
And while you are at it, make sure the image alt tags. As, your images might appear in your Google image searches, which will increase your web traffic.
- Using Call-To-Actions
One of the key goals of copywriting is to move customers through their journey.
Calls to action can be greatly useful in these situations.
Do you recall the term “search motive”? A visitor will (hopefully) come to your website for a certain purpose. You could prefer them to go to a business page next if they were searching for instructional stuff.
Use call-to-actions (CTAs) to inform your visitors what they might be searching for next. Simple hyperlinks, buttons, photos, and other elements can be used.
If they can easily search for what they were looking for, they will try to stick around for a longer period of time. This can ultimately boost your conversion ratios.
This can also help your SEO by increasing page views, decreasing bounce rate, and sending favorable interaction indicators to Google.
- Internal and External Links
There is a reason why we are so fond of web services or serials. As they have a sequel, which gets us thinking about what will happen next.
Users might not be motivated in investing in time and energy if there are no obvious next steps.
But why would you use internal and external links to send users away from your page?
You can increase credibility in your material by referring to external content. A hyperlink to another website acts as a stamp of confidence in that website. You can also back up your statistics by linking them to an informative analytical page.
Apart from that, you can link your internal content which can act as relevant next steps. If your visitors spend more time on your website, the chances of successful conversions will automatically go up.
How Can You Write SEO Copies For Customers?
“SEO copywriting” entails more than just crafting copy and throwing in a few keywords. Since search engines prefer material that fits the demands of customers, writing “for SEO” and “for users” are practically the same thing.
It will obviously come in handy if you can apply SEO practices that are mentioned above but remember, your intimate goal should be to improve user satisfaction.
For users, it’s essential to develop material that’s simple to skim. Some of the things you can do to make easily skimmable content are:-
- Creating brief paragraphs
- Using useful H2s to organize content
- Use bulleted points and leave enough spaces.
Having said that, you can’t really ignore the SEO standard practices like selecting the correct keywords. As, without those keywords, your audience might not be able to find your content in the first place.
However, just spamming those keywords will not work, as the Google search engine bots can detect those tactics. Therefore, you have to balance your keyword density. For optimal results, try to keep your SEO keyword density around 5 percent in your content.
Best SEO Copywriting Tools
Until now, I have covered almost everything there is related to Copywriting. Now, it’s time for you to get acquainted with some top-notch tools that can help you to organize your SEO writing practices. Here are some of the best tools you can find for your SEO copywriting:-
WordStream
No one can deny the importance of keywords in SEO, but they don’t have to be off-putting for your audience because they should integrate smoothly into your text. This tool analyzes your keywords and determines their relative importance, allowing you to ensure that you’re using the key terms that your consumers are looking for. As the keywords account for around 15 percent of Google’s search algorithm, this is an area where you should concentrate your efforts.
Keyword Density Checker
Not only can a website crammed with keywords turn off your reader, but it will also hurt your SEO. The majority of content strategists think that keywords should make up only 1-3 percent of every article. While it’s difficult to keep track of this manually, this software will do it for you to ensure you have the right mix of keywords to increase SEO without overloading your visitor. To put things in perspective, anything above 7-8 percent keyword density can give your content a spammy appearance.
SEO Optimization Tool
Some companies prefer to create a post that is solely for their customers. They strive to give their visitors an amazing experience, which is fantastic. However, before you publish it, you may examine it here and make any minor changes necessary to ensure that your post is both SEO and reader-friendly. This is a fantastic approach to examine your posts through the eyes of a web browser. The majority of the clicks happen from the first three results on the SERP. Therefore, regardless of the quality of your content, you won’t be able to reach them until you invest time in SEO.
Paper Fellows
If you are new in the field of content writing, you might not be sure what to write to make your content more interesting.
In these cases, it’s better to take professional advice over your content or chat with a specialist in your desired sector. This tool is a type of forum, where you can get some valuable insights and learn from their experience. This is a healthy discussion space for content creators when you can enjoy a safe and open-minded space.
Google AdWords
If you are into SEO, you might have heard of Google AdWords. Have you ever noticed the sponsored suggestions that appear when you Google something?
This can only be done through Google AdWords!
To get started, you have to sign up for the program and provide some keywords that your target audience might use. So, if they use those keywords, your content will appear at the top because of your subscription. However, the price will vary depending on the keyword you enter. Popular keywords will have higher costs. The average keyword cost is around $2, whereas the popular ones might go up to $10.
Final Thoughts
A good SEO copywriting approach will instill some life into your content, and help you give those rankings any quality content deserves. Make sure to follow the tactics mentioned in this article and give them a go!
To know more about SEO you can also check out “7 SEO Strategies to Improve Your SaaS Marketing”.