Mark Hardgrove is Hossis a white label SEO firm located in St. Petersburg, Florida. INC 5000 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 & 2021.
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The marketing world talks a lot about building attractive websites, optimizing for SEO, and ordering PPC ads to attract new leads. But what about copies? Web copy is often the last step, and many companies outsource it to unqualified freelancers. Little do they know that the quality of their copywriting can make or break a conversion.
My SEO company has created copies of thousands of successful online businesses. In the meantime, we’ve shared that anyone can create great copy by following these 6 simple SEO copywriting tips.
1. Good SEO copywriting is about understanding your audience.
Understanding your target audience is fundamental to marketing. As a business owner, you’ve probably created buyer personas. These describe your customers and list details such as how they found you, their problems, and what they want.
Your buyer persona should be at the heart of your copywriting. Who exactly are you dealing with? For example, copy for a stay-at-home mom won’t work for a finance person, and vice versa.
You also need to understand what they want in that moment. It’s just informational at first, but in a few months you might be ready to sign up for the service.
2. Research high-performing keywords before writing an article.
SEO copywriting is all about keywords, and before drafting your webpage or blog, you should research the best keywords. Keywords often determine a writing project.
Start with a keyword research tool. This could be something free like Google Keyword Planner, or invest a few bucks in more sophisticated software like SEMrush or Moz. These tools provide keyword suggestions based on your industry and topic list. It also tells you how many people are searching for it, what rankings it gets, and how competitive it is when you use it.
Once you have a list of high-performing keywords, use them in titles, subtitles, headlines, body paragraphs, and meta descriptions.
3. Observe what your competitors are doing.
Now is a good time to mention your competitors. Paid keyword research tools allow you to build a list of your top online competitors. From that point on, you can run analytics to see which keywords are ranking.
Keywords from the Competitive Gap Analysis can be used in new SEO strategies, depending on your goals. This analysis will show you the keywords that are not ranking. You may want to consider using some of them yourself.
We recommend that you always check what your competitors are doing, including keywords, content, special offers, and new products on sale. You don’t want to be caught off guard by something that could steal your business.
4. Add links to your copy.
New to SEO? If so, you should know that links are one of Google’s top ranking factors. Whenever you write copy, consider adding internal links.
There are two reasons for this. First, it allows visitors to easily navigate through your site, and second, it counts as a link to your site. Of course, you don’t want to overdo internal linking. Add as a matter of course.
Backlinks are the real driving force. This is when an external site inserts a link to your girlfriend’s web page in their content. A few of these from reputable sites can boost your ranking. It’s all about relationship building.
5. Think like a customer.
Search intent refers to what people are actually looking for, and it’s not always obvious. Think of it this way. Two customers can perform searches for “women’s shoes”, but one is looking for high heels and another is looking for her sneakers while jogging. The same search will produce very different results, especially if the search is not specific enough.
A copywriter must try to understand the intent. What exactly are visitors searching for? More importantly, what are they looking for at this point in their journey?
Search intent can be informational, navigational, commercial, or transactional. To create high-converting copy, you need to know the difference. But how do you discover intent without losing business?
Check how to write keywords. For example, searching for information is often presented as a question about how something works. A navigational search is usually a brand name to find her website for a particular seller. Commercial searches are all about research where users compare specific products or companies like “Nike vs. Reebok”. Finally, when users are ready to make a purchase, they conduct a transactional search using keywords such as “buy a flat screen TV” or “2020 Honda Civic for sale”.
6. Close the deal with a call to action.
The final step is the grand finale, the call to action (CTA). Without strong closers, all other steps are wasted. A CTA is a short copy displayed on a web page that prompts the user to do something, such as purchase, sign up, or download.
Before you start writing your CTA, clarify your target audience, their intentions for your web page, and the benefits of your product or service. All three elements are part of good copywriting.
An effective CTA should be low-risk (think “free trial”), accurate, concise, and show potential customers a direct benefit. Finding the perfect CTA may take some trial and error, but don’t give up.
And that’s the ball game!
I’m not saying SEO copywriting is easy, but most companies can do it if you follow the 6 tips above. Professional copywriters use these techniques every day.
Copywriting is both an art and a science. Anyone who does that needs to be a good writer and write compelling, error-free and consistent writing. But there’s also science behind getting more conversions on your copy I have. This involves extensive research and tailoring every word to potential customers.
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