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.
How it’s done
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!
Crafting valuable copy
Especially in the age of AI, your copy needs to stand out. While AI can help with content planning and performing mundane tasks that take up a lot of your content team’s time, it shouldn’t be used to write your copy. There’s a risk of inaccuracy and a lack of originality. Users and Google alike value valuable copy!
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.
What helps is to look at search intent, which could be:
- Informational
- Navigational
- Commercial
- Transactional
Once this has been pinned down, you can craft valuable copy that fulfils a user’s needs. Keywords can also be based on intent, so really digging deep into what your user wants can help with all parts of SEO copywriting.
Amelia Ward, Content Writer at Embryo, adds:
“Ultimately, valuable content is content made to satisfy several different needs.
It should be fine tuned and targeting, not so broad that it speaks to everyone and anyone.
Think about the target audience’s pain points, desires and expectations and offer the right solution.
It’s uncomplicated when you’re able to empathise and understand what people want. “
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 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, by using relevant keywords to improve alt tags.
According to Google, the probability of bounce increases by 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.
Channelling your inner writer
Now you know the basics of SEO copywriting, it’s time to get stuck into the actual writing process. It can be hard to get going at first, but the best way to begin is just by typing what you can.
Even if you can’t get going with an intro, there’s no obligation to do this first. Come back to this at the end and start with the main body.
Remember, editing exists! And you can do as much of it as you’d like. Anything’s a start, and it won’t always stay in the end product.
Linking back to our point of ‘building structure’, centering your writing process around this structure helps keep you grounded and on track. Not only does it help the users digest your content, but it can also help you approach the writing process and know what points to address.
Writer’s block is very real and can often be hard to overcome. Here are some tips for SEO copywriters to beat the writing slump:
- Take inspiration from competitors
- Have a break from your current piece and come back to it with fresh eyes
- Get into the mind of a customer, what do they want to hear?
- Read creative resources to reignite your creative spark!
- Try not to panic- a sense of urgency might just keep you stuck in the mud
- If all hope is lost, rejig the structure of your piece- maybe you’re targeting the wrong things
You’ll soon get into the flow of SEO copywriting while implementing all the necessary SEO practices. There’s no quick shortcut- it’s a process that takes time and seeks to prioritise the needs of the user.
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! If you’d like a hand with your copywriting efforts, then feel free to get in touch with our team.
Frequently asked questions
Answered by Amy Leach
Do copywriters need to learn all aspects of SEO?
Copywriters don’t need to understand all aspects of SEO. Understanding how their work can be optimised within SEO best practices, however, is essential.
How does Google read my content?
Google uses many different signals to understand your content. This includes the URL, internal links, placement of internal links, site structure, backlinks, backlink quality, keywords, headings etc. All different aspects of SEO come together to give Google the context it needs to understand your text.
Do I need to plan how my pages interlink before writing?
You can set out a basic plan of how your pages will be structured as part of your content planning. For example which pages will be, primary, secondary and tertiary? From this, you will have a basic idea of how they can be interlined once uploaded on your site. This however will be determined by the relevancy of certain anchor texts to make sure your interlinking is natural.
