Everything you need to know about SEO copywriting
SEO copywriting is a cornerstone skill and is crucial for anyone looking to create relevant, evergreen content that ranks online and resonates with their audience.
Following Google’s helpful content update, there’s never been a better time to learn more about the best techniques to include in your SEO content strategy – something we’ll cover in this guide.
But first, the basics.
SEO Copywriting 101
SEO copywriting takes the two principles of its namesake and combines them, using persuasive, sometimes artistic copy and combining it with search engine optimisation. Knowing you’ve nailed it isn’t an easy task, but working on the general rule of thumb that it:
- Is engaging, useful and interesting to a human
- Satisfies E-E-A-T guidelines, search engine algorithms, and relevant keywords
Can all drive traffic to your website. Of course, writing like a human should come fairly naturally – but SEO practices and learning to incorporate them can take a little time. We’ll touch on these next.
Keyword research
The foundation of SEO copywriting lies in keyword research. These are easily identifiable terms that your target audience is surfing the web for, with two main varieties.
Short-tail seed keywords are short and generally broad, think ‘shoes’ or ‘football’ – while longer-tail ones are more niche but competitive – often posed as questions or specific phrases.
To help you pin the best ones, we recommend using tools like Ahrefs to supplement your research. Also, make sure to keep an eye out for the ones with less competition and a solid amount of search volume. These are integral parts of any SEO content strategy!
Building structure
The human brain doesn’t always ‘read’ information – especially on a screen. Help them scan and find the things they need by using descriptive headings and subheadings, including keywords where possible. Combined with a structure that makes sense, bullet points and a ‘listicle’ approach can help your audience retain important information without detracting from their experience.
Multimedia elements not only look good but do good too.
Things like images, infographics, and video can also make excellent quality markers for the E-E-A-T algorithm, indicating that your piece is useful for the reader. It also enhances the user experience.
Better content, better rankings
Write for humans first, but structure for search engines. To help you with the former, combine attention-grabbing copy for your headlines, making sure to incorporate your keyword research and longtail terms.
Remember to put your anchor keyword in your title, as well as consider your meta descriptions. These are seen from the SERP itself, so making sure they are enticing enough to get people to click is crucial.
When using keywords, ensure that they are properly distributed throughout your piece – otherwise you could be seen as ‘keyword stuffing’, which can get you penalised.
If it doesn’t read well enough at first glance, both users and search engines will give it a pass!
Consider readability and research
When it comes to producing copy, the content needs to offer something your audience needs or work as a valuable resource. It must address their pain points in a useful, concise way, with plenty of unique research to show your industry expertise and overall authority.
The importance of internal linking
Internal linking works similarly to the synapses in the brain, connecting concepts and providing context where appropriate. Incorporating these internal links throughout your SEO copy not only helps search engines better crawl, discover and index your content more effectively, but also points users to other resources on your website.
Making the most of your media
It’s not enough to just slap a Getty image into your copy to give it a bit of colour. Images can be optimised all the way down to the filename and descriptions, through using relevant keywords to improve alt tags.
According to Google, the probability of bounce increases 32% as page load time goes from 1 second to 3 seconds. To tackle this, you can compress images to reduce file size and improve your page’s overall loading speed.
Keep an eye on your results
Once you’ve published, make sure to keep an eye on your content’s performance through analytics tools such as Ahrefs and Google Analytics dashboard.
The most useful pieces to track are:
- Organic traffic
- Keyword Rankings
- Conversion rates
From here, you can fully understand the success of your SEO copywriting, and figure out which areas need improvement.
Once you’ve gathered these insights, you can experiment and switch up your content strategy to see what resonates most with your audience and overall goals.
If you carefully follow these guidelines and continuously refine your approach, you can create content that not only tops the SERP but also converts your customers.
Even though it can be a bit of a juggling act, the rewards of SEO copywriting, such as increased visibility, traffic, and conversions, make it worth the effort!
