This post looks at why compelling and smart copywriting is still important, and the value of focused SEO copywriting for high rankings in search engines.
Ever since the dawn of publicity and marketing, copywriting has become a staple of advertising. Centuries ago, it wasn’t unusual to see illustrated posters with text pasted or pinned to walls. In 2022, we have social media doing the job. The common denominator? A persuasive and sharp copy.
Text is the glue that hangs it all together. Without words to define the point of the social media or blog post or advert, the reader will only have a vague understanding of the advertiser’s message.
Words Deliver The Message
The Benefits Of Storytelling
Give And Take SEO
Fit For Online Purpose
Elements Of Good SEO Copywriting
This is why good copywriting is essential, because pictures aren’t enough to get across what you want to say. You need words to convey your message to the reader in a language they understand.
The synergy between compelling imagery and smart copy fuels successful marketing content. From digital to physical media marketing, the relationship between image and copy is closely linked. Imagery draws the viewer in, and words seal the deal.
The structure of age-old storytelling − a beginning, middle and end – also applies to copywriting. The intro grabs the reader’s attention, the middle keeps them hooked, and the end provides a satisfying or challenging conclusion. Stories well told use paragraphs and headings to structure an entertaining, intriguing slice of content.
Cheerful, vibrant images convey a feeling of upbeat positivity; fixed shapes and darker colours project a professional aura. Ditto for copywriting. Just by using language to marry the tone of the copy to the brand, a writer can define and transform a brand’s personality.
There’s a limit to what images tell you about what makes a brand tick. The detail, the fine print, tells you what a pic can’t. In the attention economy, an advert needs to compel the target audience to take action by quickly telegraphing the benefits of that action. If it doesn’t, they will simply keep scrolling.
Striking the balance between writing content that interests people (readers, clients and prospects) and content also optimised for search engines is key. The job of any good copywriter is to write for people first, while at the same time keeping tabs on SEO appeal.
This is accomplished with content that solves a specific problem and entices the end-user – the reader – to take an action which increases a product/service/company’s engagement with them.
SEO copywriting means choosing words, phrases, sentences, paragraphs and headlines which are optimised for readers and SEO alike. Skilled SEO copywriters create content interesting enough that other people will readily promote it by tweeting, bookmarking and linking to it.
Copywriters target keyword phrases in certain frequencies and densities to match Google’s evolving algorithms and ranking criteria. Criteria which includes the words people use to describe your content and the sway of your domain.
Readability is vital, and your content should be easily understood by a diverse group of readers – avoid content too technical or academic. In a similar vein, badly written content full of typos puts readers off. Stick to simple and accessible language.
Best practice SEO writing automatically increases traffic and pushes up your content in the Google ranking. But there other factors at play here too.
Pre-content writing, keep a strong keyword target goal top of mind which is also realistic and achievable. Keyword research underpins SEO copywriting. Avoid using industry keywords: they have a high search volume, but they are competitive. Keyword difficulty scores serve as a yardstick for your keyword goals. Use SearchAtlas’ keyword researcher tool to decide which keywords to target.
The measure of how often your chosen keywords appear on your site is known as keyword frequency. This remains a factor in organic ranking, but don’t fall into the trap of overusing it. Use SEObook’s keyword density tool to measure it.
By answering the questions users are asking in relation to your target keyword, using Google and a keyword tool, you stand a better chance of increasing your keyword ranking.
Engaging content that comes with boring headline results in a low click-through rate. More netizens read a headline than the body copy. So, spending time on writing the best headline you can is time well spent, because a good headline attracts the most attention. Then organic traffic will be more likely to click through and read further.
Headings that condense your message work best, and headlines with numbers and a long tail are the most click-worthy. Use Yoast SEO as a WordPress plugin to optimise SEO copy and headline strength.
Choose synonyms and keywords in your headings, particularly words that are linked semantically with your primary keyword target. This enhances your relevance without keyword stuffing, which means you are over-optimising your website.
Useful content trumps all, and freshly updated SEO content wins the day. You can do this by targeting keyword phrases. Focus on understanding your reader, narrow down their challenges and provide solutions with your content.
Knowing what it takes to rank highly in search engines means you need to investigate what content ranks at the top. Look at the content on the first page of a SERP (search engine result page) and use it as a template for creating your own content.
Don’t carbon copy what your competitors are doing, but find out what page experience signals, authority and content Google crawlers are best responding to.
You need to write content that speaks to your keyword intent. Pique reader interest with a gripping headline. Stimulate their interest with your introduction, and include a long tail (targeted) keyword.
Deep diving into nuanced content makes for top rankings. The longer the content, the more backlinks and social engagements you get. All-inclusive, detailed content speaks volumes. Keyword tools tell you which subtopics have a relationship with your keyword goal, and help you develop your content.
And use meta descriptions to give search engines an understanding into your use of targeted keywords in your content. A meta description (ideally 150 to 160 characters) gives a short description of your page’s content to search engines, and Google uses it as a snippet for keyword searches relevant to your page.
Content optimisation software, like SEMrush, MarketMuse and Frase, leverages artificial intelligence and natural language processing to boost keyword rankings. Using words and subject matter used in high-ranking content, these tools supply similar terms to include in yours.
Googles no longer just ranks and indexes web pages with its Google Passage Ranking, but also specific passages of content. So writing for passage ranking makes total sense, because your content has more chances to rank for multiple searches.
Page links are the foundation of any web page, letting Google know that you have your own or another author’s content able to be accessed somewhere else. You get rewarded by it (higher rankings) for making quality information more accessible.
Best practice internal and external linking methods include links in your introduction to internal and external pages, links to more detailed content in your site or others, and links to relevant anchor text.
Web surfers expect a web page to load in two seconds or less. So, site speed is a significant ranking and user factor to keep short attention spans and produce a good user experience. Pingdom is a great analyser of website speed, helping you to improve your conversion rates.
Including non-textual elements such as infographics, videos and images keep readers engaged by breaking up long-form sections of text. Called rich media, it is favoured by Google, but ensure it is optimised for quick loading.
Content which is easy to navigate is more user-friendly. Elements like a contents table and jumplinks, particularly for long articles, improve user experience.
After your content is published, confirm that Google understands your content by logging onto your Google Search Console. Here, you will be able to find out which keywords are receiving the most impressions. The closer to your original keyword goal the better. If not, it may be time to revise your content.
Your content will become outdated over time as new information comes to light, links break, and keywords increase in competition. Underperforming content can be revitalised by updating your most important assets.
As algorithms change and the internet evolves, your content needs to be refreshed to keep its top shelf keyword ranking.
Other search engine optimisation criteria are title tags (a meta HTML tag which appears first in a Google search), which is a spot-on description of your web page. Remember to write content that is useful to people which will also drive organic traffic. Keyword classification cannot go without mention.
The use of humour, case studies, engagement measures like bounce and retention rates, and finally, persuasion, all add the finishing touches. Good storytelling isn’t new, and the same tropes used to fuel a good narrative also apply to copywriting. Time to hone those storytelling skills!