With online marketing being different from traditional marketing, it is essential to create engaging content for readers and strategically incorporate keywords & search queries that search engines favor. However, with continuously changing search engine ranking algorithms, merely stuffing keywords into your content is no longer sufficient.
With the evolving digital marketing trends, it is essential to master the art of SEO copywriting, which involves understanding user intent, identifying high-traffic relevant keywords, and seamlessly integrating them into high-quality content that captivates your audience & appeals to search engines alike. Whether you're a seasoned content specialist looking to fine-tune your approach or a budding writer eager to conquer the art of SEO, this blog will cover essential SEO copywriting skills, like, conducting keyword research, on-page SEO optimization techniques, having captivating headlines, etc., that transform your website into a magnet for organic traffic and catapult your website to the forefront of relevant search results in the digital marketing world.
What is SEO copywriting?
SEO copywriting is an art that demands the creation of content optimized for specific keywords. The primary objective is to match users' search intent and compel them to take a desired action on the website. The actions may include purchasing products, signing up for services, or subscribing to email lists. With relevant, high-traffic keywords, SEO copywriting can significantly increase website traffic. The ultimate goal is to produce engaging content that boosts the website's conversion rate. This technique requires crafting high-quality content that appeals to both search engines and users, ultimately improving the website's ranking on SERPs and providing sought-after information to the target audience.
SEO copywriting skills for better search engine rankings
1. Perform keyword research - The essential SEO copywriting skill to focus on for better search engine rankings is performing SEO keyword research. All the core of digital marketing efforts rests on keyword research. When running paid ad campaigns, you need to focus on PPC keyword research; with e-commerce PPC campaigns, it is essential to concentrate on e-commerce keyword research, etc. So, it is vital to focus on conducting SEO keyword research.
When you start writing blogs, articles, or any topics related to the web page content, keyword research is the first essential thing to focus on. With this, you get to know which keywords are essential to your business and which need to be excluded. As in PPC advertising, you focus on preparing a keyword list and adding negative keywords to prevent your ads from appearing in irrelevant search queries. Similarly, with SEO campaigns, you can decide whether to choose long-tail keywords or short-tail keywords. You also need to ensure that you choose the high search volume keywords that increase traffic to the website. At times, low search volume keywords also help build brand awareness, generate leads, etc. So, you need to conduct an SEO audit and prepare a data-driven SEO report that helps you choose the essential keywords for your business. You can also avail of offshore SEO services from an offshore digital marketing company and get the work done by SEO professionals.
2. Match users search intent - To enhance your SEO copywriting skill the next essential point you need to focus on is to match the users' search intent. The largest search engine Google wants to rank relevant content that matches the users' search intent. You must ensure that you have relevant and unique content on your webpage so that the Google search engine crawls & indexes your website and quickly displays your webpage for the users' search query.
As you link Google Ads with Google Analytics to determine the performance of the PPC campaign. In the same way, you can use the Google Analytics tool to determine the user intent, prepare an SEO report, and then create the necessary content accordingly. This helps you to write great content in your content marketing strategy, luring the target audience into taking the desired action on the landing page. You may be writing content for your blog posts, product page descriptions, category pages, etc. So, to ensure that your website has a higher ranking on the SERPs, you must focus on matching the users' search intent.
By integrating PPC, SEO and content, you can gain valuable insights into what target audiences are searching for, which keywords perform best, and which lead to more conversions. So, when writing ad copies, ad descriptions, or engaging headlines, you must match the users' intent. This helps to grab the users' attention into choosing your business. With paid ad campaigns, whether Facebook Ads, Google Ads, LinkedIn Ads, Instagram Ads, etc. as you focus on ad relevance so that users' trust in your business increases. Also, when the users are satisfied with the products or services you offer, they may promote it to their near & dear ones, which helps in peer-to-peer marketing.
3. Optimize your meta tags - The next essential point that you need to focus on is optimizing the meta tags. When you focus on enhancing your SEO copywriting skills, there are multiple points that you need to focus on to optimize website content. The essential point here to focus on is optimizing your meta tags.
Though optimizing the meta tags may seem to be a simple on-page SEO factor, it plays a crucial role in search engine rankings. Your meta tags need to be in sync with the latest marketing trends and also in sync with the search engine guidelines. It is vital that the Google ranking algorithm analyses the meta tags and can crawl the web page to display the results for the keywords or search terms entered. Search engines use meta tags and use these pieces of code to determine what the page is about and how relevant it is to the keyword being searched. You need to write click-worthy meta descriptions, engaging headers, and title tags to ensure that the visitor converts to a customer.
4. Refrain from keyword stuffing - The next essential point to focus on in your SEO copywriting strategy is avoiding keyword stuffing. As online marketing is different from traditional marketing so any form of online marketing requires relevant keywords to be used in it. Keywords are the basis of online marketing campaigns that help businesses achieve their desired goals. However, you mustn't fill your webpage with keywords only.
When you use primary keywords in your page content, it is essential to ensure that it is optimized for a certain number of times. Once it is optimized to its best potential, you need to ensure that the same keywords are not stuffed. If you intend to use the same keywords again, adding the secondary keywords is a good practice. It not only avoids keyword repetition but also provides you with the opportunity to use other semantic keywords.
As you focus on avoiding keyword cannibalization so that the search engines do not get confused about which results to show for the users' search query. In the same way, you must ensure that you do not overstuff keywords so that the content does not appear hazy and the same lines are repeated. This would mean that you are pushing a particular point to rank repeatedly. Whether running email marketing campaigns, using search engine optimization techniques, etc., you must avoid keyword stuffing. You should also ensure that you choose ranking keywords so that your website appears on top of search engines. When you use relevant keywords, it helps to generate branded traffic that has a higher chance of getting converted. It also enhances the performance of crucial SEO metrics like click-through rate increases; bounce rate is lowered, number of backlinks increases, etc. which ultimately increases domain authority and lowers the spam score.
5. Optimize for featured snippets - After refraining from keyword stuffing, the next essential point that you need to focus on is optimizing your SEO content for featured snippets. Featured snippets are short snippets of text that appear at the top of Google search results, matching the users' search query. You need to ensure that you optimize website content for appearing in the featured snippets.
As in running paid ad campaigns like Google Ads or Microsoft Ads, the focus is on optimizing the ad to improve the ad rank & position on the SERPs. Google continuously keeps updating its ranking algorithm and online marketers need to have an eye on it to achieve the desired marketing goals. It can be understood with the fact that Google launched competitive metrics like imp. (abs top)%, imp (top)%, Search (abs top) IS and Search (top) IS. So, when running paid ad campaigns, it is essential to optimize the ad that is in sync with these changes so that your PPC ads performance is not affected. Similarly, with SEO campaigns, you must focus on optimizing the website to appear in the featured snippets. To ensure that your website appears at the top position, there are multiple points you need to focus on, like the essential on-page & off-page SEO factors that enhance website performance.
When your website appears for featured snippets, the performance of the crucial SEO metrics related to your business increases, like click-through rate increases, organic traffic increases, the number of backlinks increases, keyword ranking improves, etc. Also, the featured snippet may often appear with the People Also Ask (PAA box). So, you must ensure that you add secondary keywords to your page content so that when the users' search query matches your page content, the search engines display your website. Adding relevant FAQs to your webpage also enhances the chances of the website appearing in featured snippets. Some points you can focus on to optimize the website for featured snippets are listed below.
a. Paying attention to on-page SEO.
b. Identify which keywords or search terms you are already ranking for.
c. Use various phrasings for the same question.
d. Add how-to sections to your website.
6. Include engaging headlines - The next essential point to focus on to enhance SEO copywriting skills is to have engaging headlines. When writing headlines for your page content, you must ensure that they are engaging and entices the visitors to stay more on the page. This helps increase the users' time spent on the page. When the users' time on the page increases, they will likely take the desired action.
Like in Google Ads, Microsoft Ads, etc., the essential point to focus on is optimizing headlines; similarly, you need to focus on optimizing headlines for your web page. You should try to use the primary keywords in headlines to show clarity to users that you have the page content that they are looking for. Like in social media marketing, you work on YouTube Ads optimization, Facebook Ads optimization, LinkedIn Ads optimization, etc. Similarly, you need to ensure that in your marketing strategy, you use engaging headlines and optimize them for Facebook SEO, YouTube SEO, Google SEO, Bing SEO, etc.
7. Target secondary keywords - The next essential point to enhance your SEO copywriting skills is to target secondary keywords. In your SEO plan & strategy, you need to focus on using secondary keywords so that your website also appears for the matching search queries that users enter on the SERPs. Targeting secondary keywords in your web pages helps increase website visibility, leading to increased website traffic. You need to ensure that you have engaging content that lures the visitor into taking the desired action, ultimately increasing the conversion rate.
As in paid ad campaigns, you work audience segmentation and prepare a keyword list split into different categories like broad match, phrase match and exact match keywords. In the same way, you need to segregate the long-tail keywords and short-tail keywords into different categories and target the relevant keywords based on your business goals. Some of the benefits of using secondary keywords are mentioned below:
a. Increased website visibility - When you use secondary keywords for your webpage, it helps in increasing website visibility. When your website starts appearing for related search queries, the website visibility increases. It helps more users to know about your brand and increases brand awareness.
b. Gain audience insights - Secondary keywords help gain audience insights, which can be used for strategic marketing. You can use these insights to offer discounts & offers to users with high chances of taking the desired action.
c. Enhances user experience - The secondary keywords enhance user experience as it helps them as the content on the page covers a wider aspect of the related topic. It is essential for small business SEO, enterprise SEO, e-commerce SEO, etc., as it helps increase conversion rate.
8. Optimize content regularly - To enhance your SEO copywriting skill, you need to optimize content regularly. As there are PPC myths, e-commerce myths, social media myths, similarly, you need to avoid SEO myths of writing content once and forever. The digital marketing trends keep evolving and you need to ensure that your web page content is optimized regularly. You need to have unique content on the webpage that grabs the users' attention to your page.
When you have great content on your website, the users like to navigate through different sections and explore the business opportunities that you provide. You need to analyze the users' time spent on the page and work on strategies to convert window shoppers into customers. You must conduct market research that provides insights into the type of content that brings more traffic and then work on content marketing strategies to achieve the desired goals.
9. Optimize for voice searches - With the rise in technology, there has been a rise in voice searches. Today you have the most impatient users to target, as 53% of mobile users leave a website that takes more than 3 seconds to load. So, to ensure that you do not lose website traffic, optimizing your website for voice searches is essential. Some of the points to note for voice search are listed below.
a. 71% of consumers prefer voice search.
b. It eases users' search queries to be solved with minimum effort.
c. Available 24/7.
d. Beneficial for e-commerce websites.
SEO copywriting tools
SEO copywriting is an essential point that every SEO marketer needs to focus on. The first impression that the users have about your business offerings is conveyed through the webpage content. You need to ensure that your web content is optimized as per the search engine ranking algorithms so that your website ranks higher for the keywords or search terms entered. Any form of online marketing focuses on the use of the latest tools that help in getting the work done more efficiently. For PPC advertising, you should focus on using PPC tools; for search engine optimization, the focus is on using SEO tools and in the same way, you should utilize SEO copywriting tools to get the best results with your content marketing efforts. Though multiple SEO copywriting tools are available, some are discussed below.
a. Ahrefs - For your SEO website, one of the essential SEO copywriting tools that you can use is the Ahrefs tool. It is a vital SEO tool that helps marketer to create content that matches the search engines intent and helps enhance the performance of SEO campaigns. It is an all-in-one SEO tool that helps you research keywords to target, find content ideas, and analyze the website’s link profile and SEO health.
b. Google Search Console - The Google Search Console is another essential SEO copywriting tool that helps businesses know how their website is performing. Using the Google Search Console tool, you get to know which keywords your website is ranking for on the search engine results. You can understand popular web pages, perform backlink analysis of your website and much more. You can maximize the return on your marketing goals by correctly analyzing and performing changes in your marketing strategy.
c. Semrush SEO writing assistant - Another essential SEO copywriting tool that you need to focus on is to use the Semrush tool. With the Semrush SEO writing assistant tool, you can analyze the content score and work on improving its readability and tone of voice in real-time. Some of the points you can dwell upon in the Semrush tool are listed below.
1. Perform topic research.
2. Analyze keywords by keyword difficulty.
3. Generate an SEO content template and outline your content
d. Grammarly - The next essential SEO copywriting tool is using Grammarly tool. It helps in highlighting grammar mistakes. You can frame eye-catching sentences, correct low-level writing errors, and avoid inadvertent plagiarism. It helps to focus on higher-level issues such as critical thinking and creativity, which helps formulate engaging sentences.
Conclusion
To enhance your SEO copywriting strategy, you must focus on inculcating the essential points discussed above that increase website traffic, user engagement, etc. As content plays a crucial role in any form of online marketing, be it content marketing, email marketing, social media marketing, etc., it is vital to have engaging content that engages users on the landing page. With changing Google ranking Algorithm and updates from the largest search engine in different fields like responsive ads becoming the default type for expanded text ads, update from Google E-A-T to Google E-E-A-T in search engine optimization, etc., it is essential to optimize content in sync with the marketing trends. If you find copywriting a tough task when working on content and SEO, you can get in touch with a digital marketing company and outsource SEO copywriting services. When you outsource SEO services to a digital marketing company you hire SEO professionals that have expertise in market research, competition analysis, SEO analytics, video SEO, local SEO, detox & penalty removal, etc. and provide white label SEO services that helps you achieve the desired goals.
References:
• What Is SEO copywriting?
• SEO copywriting: how to write content for people and optimize for Google