Search Engine Optimisation copywriting (SEO copywriting) is as much a key element in every creative content marketing strategy as it is a challenge. Professionals in the creative content marketing line often have trouble maintaining that delicate balance between producing SEO copywriting that holds the reader’s’ interest and yet, is effectively primed for SEO. Even SEO content marketing experts sometimes find it hard to design a great content marketing strategy that marries excellent SEO copywriting with efficient search engine optimisation.
To understand what makes excellent SEO copywriting, you’ll need to first understand what search engines look for when ranking content. Search engine bots examine your copy in search of keywords, meta descriptions, tags and other elements that help bring your content to the fore of search engine results. It also employs certain algorithms that decide which sites should get top billing. Knowing this, the main aim of your SEO content marketing strategy should be to craft content that is highly engaging and edifying to your readers, compelling them to share it with their social network. Subsequently, you’ll need to ensure that your copy meets the various specifications of search engines such as the type of words used, its frequency and the number of links used. You should also endeavor to continuously refine your content to keep on top of the constantly changing algorithms of search engines.
To help you along, here are some basics on SEO copywriting that any self-respecting marketer would include in their store of SEO content marketing strategies. Successful SEO content marketing isn’t hard, it just consists of a few simple steps which, if followed, will lift your rankings and bring authority to your content.
First up, what is SEO?
To put it simply, SEO is a technique of increasing the effectiveness of your content so that it is placed higher up in the search engines’ content rankings compared to other sites that target the same search terms. How do you know when you’re carrying out SEO? Basically, it’s when you explore the internet for keywords, identify a few that have the most hits, and use those keywords to get creative with your content, remembering to give it a liberal sprinkling of the keywords you’ve identified. Once you’ve put your content out there for all and sundry, it’s picked up by the millions of internet users and if they like it, it’s shared around and you get more views and hits for your site, which makes its rankings rise.
What about SEO copywriting?
Before that, let’s look at what copywriting is to better understand why we need SEO copywriting. According to celebrated ad executive and author of The Copy Workshop Workbook, “Copywriting is a job. A skilled craft. Verbal carpentry. Words on paper. Scripts to time. And one more thing. Salesmanship.”. That last word right there – salesmanship – is the perfect introduction to SEO copywriting. SEO copywriting entails generating valuable, convincing and esteemed content that highlights specific keywords and compels readers to share the content and feel proud to be associated with it. This raises the authority and significance of your content and lifts its ranking in Google for the selected keywords. SEO copywriting is about helping to solve your customer’s’ problems with well-curated content.
Elements that make or break SEO copywriting
Keyword search – ALWAYS start with the keywords, everything else can wait! Before even starting to write, you’ll first need to know what to write about – what are the topics that make you stand out from the crowd and get noticed? Once you’ve decided on your topic, start by carrying out research on your targeted keywords and key phrases. List down all the keywords and key phrases that you want your website to have, which will determine what your website will be found for when users key in search terms on their web browser. To guide you on your keyword search, get to know your audience – for whom are you writing? And what would they be looking for? Answering these questions will give you a great base with which to start your keyword list. The results of your keyword research should see you having a list of all the relevant search terms that are high on the list of search engine users. Next, create combinations of keywords and give some sort of order to the keywords by ranking them according to priority. This helps you know which keywords on the list you should focus on first. Finally, create a separate landing page for each of the keywords in your final list. A landing page serves to attract those who ‘landed’ on your page through their search of a specific keyword. Once you’ve covered all these steps, you should already have a clear idea of what to write about, and can start SEO copywriting! It’s important to realise that keyword optimisation isn’t a one-off process, but a continuous one. Ongoing keyword optimisation is essential to uncover and discover new keyword opportunities, and expand outreach to countless keyword verticals. By constantly doing keyword analyses and growing your store of keywords, you automatically increase traffic to your site.
Titles – Being at the top of the web page, titles can determine whether your readers will stick around to read your content, or close the page and never visit again. Make an outstanding first impression by creating titles that are clear, concise and catchy – this not only sets the tone for your site, but it helps to prime the reader for the content that follows. You could also place subheadings under the title to make it easier for readers to determine what each section is referring to. Subheadings also help to describe your content to search engines. Another thing you could do is to include figures in your headlines. Leading conversion optimisation consultant CXL states that “headlines with numbers are always winners so, if it makes sense, include a figure in the headline”.
Content – Before commencing the SEO copywriting process and putting your virtual ‘pen’ to paper, you’ll need to prep your text. Identifying the main messages and key purpose of your content piece is an essential part of SEO content marketing strategies. Covering these key messages and fulfilling the purpose of your article helps to give your readers the answers they’re looking for. Next, start with an outline of the article, then expand on the content progressively. Clearly structured content helps to strengthen your key messages, which transfer to the audience, ultimately raising your conversion rates. Clear and easily-understood content will also help to push up your rankings on search engines. In the body of your text, touch on current and trending issues, keep the information clear, concise, recent and relevant, and lend some uniqueness to it by giving 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. Effective and creative content marketing lies in appealing to your audience and creating a call-to-action through your words, getting them on your side and making them do what you want them to do. Good writers are usually voracious readers, so get cracking on that novel! The first draft of your concluded article is exactly that – the first … of many, many drafts before you reach that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow – your masterpiece. Proofread, rewrite, edit … and repeat – your readers will thank you for it and reward you with high site traffic!
Now that you’re armed with the basics of SEO copywriting, make sure you keep them firmly in your arsenal of SEO content marketing strategies. Creative content marketing can really net you some neat profits if you know where to begin, and knowing where to begin is a good start! Everyone has to start somewhere, so take one step at a time and keep practising – you’ll get there eventually!
We hope that this guide has been helpful for those who are searching to increase their knowledge about SEO copywriting. For related posts as such, come pay a visit to your blog ThunderQuote .
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