Effective search engine optimisation copywriting (SEO copywriting) is a rare skill that if mastered, can really boost your content marketing strategies. Its main focus is to curate content that is highly engaging and so informative that readers feel compelled to share it with others or be associated with it.
This adds to the mileage of your content, consequently increasing traffic to your site and giving it authority. In content marketing, good content writing for SEO is a prized commodity and a key determinant of whether your content marketing strategies will sink or swim.
SEO copywriting seeks to optimise online content by highlighting keywords or phrases as many times as possible. If you’re a blogger looking to monetise your content, you’ll need to direct as much traffic to your blog, get more people to sign up for your emailing list, and generate more leads. This is where SEO copywriting comes in handy. Below, we look at some techniques that you can use in your content writing and also other content marketing strategies that are guaranteed to make your blog conversion rates go through the roof!
Know your audience
Of course, before delving into the content, be sure to understand your audience – who are they? Knowing who you are writing for will help you angle your content writing directly towards your target audience. Next, do your research and find out their interests – what are they looking for? A big part of good SEO copywriting is being able to write content that appeals to your target audience, which then generates leads for your blog. You need to be a good writer to become a good SEO specialist as well. It goes hand in hand
Title it right
Once you’ve got your audience and their interests down pat, start by crafting blog titles that capture the attention of your readers. Being at the top of the web page, titles can really interest readers if they are catchy. Make an outstanding first impression by creating titles that are clear, concise and catchy – this not only sets the tone for your blog post, it helps to prime the reader for the content that follows. You don’t have to crack your head trying to think up catchy titles – just look online!
There are some tried-and-tested SEO copywriting headline formulas that you can use: staples like ‘What Everyone Ought to Know about Compound Interest’ and ‘Top 10 Tips for Hassle Free Cooking’ are some examples that should come in handy when you’re coming up with titles. You could also place subheadings under the title to guide readers through the text. Subheadings also function as descriptions of your content to search engines.
Flesh out your thoughts
Following that, think about the key messages that you want to put forward in your blog post and transform your thoughts into well-structured content. Know the purpose of your content and illicit a call-to-action – what is it that you want your readers to do after reading your content? Cover trending and new topics, keep the information recent and relevant, throw in some current statistics and figures, inject some fresh ideas or give your perspective on the topic. Add more substance to the content by delving deeper into the topic and giving your readers the answers they’re looking for.
This may result in longer posts, but if you choose your words carefully, break the content down into shorter paragraphs and slot in some ‘power words’, it will make for a very insightful and engaging read that holds the attention of your readers, draws them in and makes it worth their while. As much as possible, try to use active voice when writing as it speaks directly to your reader, make a connection. It also helps to keep the blog post from being too dull and wordy. If you’re sharing content from another source, remember to credit the source and cite the authors correctly, and avoid plagiarism, as failing to do so may result in search engine penalties. Last but not least, proofread … and proofread again! A well-written blog post will still fall short of expectations if it is riddled with spelling mistakes and grammatical errors. A big part of good SEO copywriting entails producing copy that is error-free. Remember, errors kill credibility!
Use more than words
Sometimes, words can only tell so much. Modern society is such that people are always pressed for time, and most people are known to have short attention spans. You don’t want to bore your readers with pages and pages of text – how very droll! Photos (high-resolution ones, if possible), infographics and other visuals give life to your blog posts and make them more interesting and entertaining, giving it up to 94% more views, and subsequently, more leads. They also contribute to SEO, if done correctly.
You could also throw in some videos to take the fun factor up a notch. Just like pictures, videos are a great for keeping your audience glued to your blog for longer. It is worthy to note that the use of videos in content marketing is fast gaining ground as key marketing strategy. It is a well-known fact that videos demand more consumer attention compared to any other medium, and that itself is a good reason for you to put up a video to bolster your content marketing efforts.
Link up
So, all your content is up and you think you’ve put in some pretty solid effort on your SEO copywriting. You may have, but there’s still one more thing you could do to give your content more authority. Adding links to resources related to your content and references in the body of your copy serve to strengthen your key messages and add value for your readers. Interlinking the pages on your blog also adds value to your content and improves user experience.
Behind-the-scenes stuff
Now that you’ve covered all the front-line bases, it’s time to focus on the parts that your readers do not see, but are equally important, nonetheless. And by this, I’m referring to the meta descriptions of your blog posts. The meta description is a summary of a web page’s content, usually kept to 160 words or less. Most people do not bother with meta descriptions as they take time to write, but if you don’t, you would be missing out on quite a lot of traffic for your posts. Search engines sometimes use these descriptions in search results to let visitors know what a page is about before they click on it, so it’s definitely worth your while to spend some time on it!
Paying more attention to SEO content writing is extremely important especially when everyone is working on content marketing today. The one way for you to be better than the rest is to increase your Google ranking and thus SEO marketing is super important.
At ThunderQuote, we want the best for your content marketing team. So if you need more help, head on over to ThunderQuote to ensure that you find the best professional to improve your marketing team!
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