What is SEO Copywriting? 6 Tips to Get You Started
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Simply, SEO (search engine optimization) copywriting is the process of writing content that helps search engines like Google determine what your web page content is about. If optimized well, inquiring people can find your content higher in search engine results pages (SERPs) when they search for the specific term(s) relating to your website.
Without SEO copywriting, words are just random words, and search engines won't understand how to categorize your content. It's like trying to read something in a language you don't speak. You might as well write in wingdings.
Makes sense, right?
But how do you know what keywords to include? Does formatting matter? How long does your article need to be? Does adding photos help SEO?
This blog post will walk you through the benefits of SEO copywriting and why it matters for your website.
SEO Copywriting Helps Grow Organic Traffic to Your Website
A solid SEO foundation is essential for any website to improve its visibility on Google and other search engines. Good SEO copywriting will help your organic ranking for search terms you want people to find when they search for anything related to your business.
Investing in the future of your business with SEO copywriting will give you evergreen content that you can use over time without having to pay for ads. Healthy, organic website traffic is one of the best ROIs for your business.
Just imagine: every person that visits your web page is looking for your product or service offering. You won't have to imagine it if you incorporate a strong SEO strategy into your website design.
6 SEO Copywriting Tips and Best Practices
This is all great, but how do you know what "language" Google can read, and most importantly, how do you tell Google to push it to the top of SERPs?
1. E.A.T. Your Heart Out with Quality Content
Remember the term E.A.T. - Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. This is how Google determines the quality of your content. Google recently added another "E" for Experience, which encourages content that shares actual experiences, such as visiting a specific location or using a product first-hand.
Your goal should be to have the most helpful, interesting, original content that is authentic and reflects your brand consistently. Keep your content under the same subject umbrella, so Google sees you as an expert in the field and, most importantly, answer people's questions about your expertise.
2. Incorporate Target Keywords into Your Web Pages
Keyword research is an essential element of a solid SEO foundation. This involves identifying the keywords and phrases people use to search for products or services related to your website.
Once you have a list of relevant keywords, you can optimize your website's content, meta title, descriptions, and tags to include them. Using the right keywords and meta descriptions will help search engines understand what your website is about and rank it higher in search results.
Cool. But how do you know what keywords you should use?
Finding the right search terms isn't necessarily difficult, but it does require using an SEO tool such as Semrush, UberSuggest, Mangools, or Ahrefs. You can also use SEO copywriting tools like Surfer SEO and INK. The SEO tool that's right for you will depend on various considerations.
We're not going to deep-dive into SEO tools just yet, but I suggest you take some time to read reviews and take full advantage of free trials if available. It's helped me tremendously to watch YouTube tutorials of the product before trying it, so I'm already somewhat familiar with the platform before activating a trial.
SEO tools will suggest keywords and long-tail keyword phrases and tell you the search volume for each target keyword. This helps you understand how difficult it will be to rank for that keyword or phrase.
Competitive keywords will be harder to rank for, so if your business is in a competitive market, you'll want to focus more on long-tail keywords. This might be the difference between the keyword phrase "dog training" versus the long-tail keyword phrase "behavioral dog training in Seattle."
One important thing to understand about SEO copywriting is that keyword stuffing does not help you rank better for a search term. Keyword density should be strategic; creating high-quality content does not mean repeatedly writing a particular keyword in a row. If it were that easy, everyone would be doing it.
3. On-Page Web Optimization
Everything on your website counts towards SEO optimization. Even the things you don't see when looking at your live web pages. Titles, meta descriptions, headers, photo descriptions, URL slugs... everything must be optimized to ensure they are relevant to the content on your website.
The overall structure of your website needs to be clean and easy to navigate and understand.
This makes it easier for search engines to crawl your website and categorize its content.
Menus must be easy to navigate and clearly outlined. Every web page should have an H1 header to tell Google what it's about, and H2 headers help break up content and supporting keywords.
Your website should also load quickly, or visitors will lose interest and go to the next site. Do you hang around when you see the little loading icon for over a few seconds? Probably not.
4. Backlinks Help Your Website Authority
Internal and external links are two more SEO best practices to include in your SEO copywriting process.
Internal links are just that: a backlink that directs the reader to other existing content on your site. This can be as simple as directing to the next blog post, an item on your ecommerce site, or other valuable content such as a contact form.
The goal is to keep readers on your site as long as possible, thus making Google know the content is intriguing and making your site rank higher.
External links, however, are a whole different ball game. You may have heard people asking to write a "guest blog post" for a website in trade for credit and backlinking your website on theirs. External links are considered off-page optimization and essential to a solid SEO foundation. They are also the most time-consuming to achieve.
Building backlinks to your website from other reputable websites signals to search engines that others consider your website valuable and authoritative.
The more backlinks you have, the higher your website will likely rank in search results.
Link building is not an easy task. It's not like copywriting, where you try to write a great article that people will find valuable. It's a constant task to find websites related to your content and ask permission for backlinks back to your site.
There are entire SEO firms that focus solely on backlinking. If you have the budget, hiring an SEO agency specializing in obtaining backlinks to help you with this portion of your web content is worthwhile.
Some SEO tools suggest websites to target for backlinking, but you still have to do the legwork to get the link.
5. Mobile-Friendly SEO Content is Imperative
Having a mobile-friendly website is crucial for SEO. A report from Statista says over 63% of organic website searches are conducted on mobile devices. Consider how often you use your phone to look up a search term vs. a desktop or laptop computer.
Have you ever been frustrated with how the web page loaded and moved to a website that was easier to navigate?
Your website's layout and design must be responsive and load quickly on mobile devices.
Many web design tools have a "mobile view" option to see how your site will look on most mobile devices.
6. Add Photos and Videos to Your Content
The use of visual content on a website is crucial in today's digital age. Visuals are an excellent way to capture your audience's attention and convey important information in a more engaging way that people will remember.
Research has shown that visual content is processed by the brain much faster than text, making it more effective in conveying messages to the user. Adding photos and videos to your website not only helps to enhance the user experience but also has a positive impact on search engine optimization (SEO).
Including visual content on a website can increase the time users spend on the website.
This reduces the bounce rate and ultimately improves the website's engagement metrics.
When users engage with your content, search engines interpret this user search intent as a signal of relevance and quality, which can lead to higher rankings in search engine results pages (SERPs).
Visual content can also improve the user experience on a website. Visuals break up large blocks of text and make the content more scannable and digestible. This is especially important for websites that contain complex or technical information, where visual aids can help to simplify the information and make it more accessible to the user.
Providing a positive user experience on a website can increase the likelihood of users returning to the site in the future, resulting in increased traffic and engagement.
Google Search Console: The Free Tool to Get You Started on Your SEO Journey
What if I told you there's a free tool that tells you almost everything you need to know about your website, including areas for opportunity? Google Search Console is just that tool. Once you've verified your site ownership and logged in, you'll be able to see all sorts of intriguing data about your website.
From how many pages are indexed (logged into Google's database) to what search queries are bringing up your web page to how many clicks you're getting from what type of device - Google Search Console has it all.
Many tutorials are available to help you understand the reporting provided and what steps to take to fix any issues.
SEO Copywriting is the Best Tool to Help Your Business Grow
A website's ranking on Google largely depends on its SEO foundation. As you have seen in this article, there are a lot of steps to SEO copywriting to ensure your target audience can find your site.
If you're savvy with website design and creating copy and have the time to invest in SEO copywriting, you can get your website to rank higher over time by following these SEO tips.
If this all seems overwhelming or you don't have the bandwidth for another project, hiring a copywriter for SEO may benefit your business. The writing process to provide high-quality content utilizing best practices for SEO copy is not for everyone.
As an SEO copywriter, I can help you get started with a basic SEO audit and then write content that will help you gain more organic traffic to your website. Content creation doesn't have to be overwhelming.
