17 Simple SEO Copywriting Tips to Help You Rank Higher
Updated April 14, 2022
Why SEO Copywriting Is Important
Let’s face it; no one is going to come to your website because you use a cool font or have a slick home page animation. If you don’t have fresh, relevant, and engaging content on your website, you are losing the content marketing battle before you get started.
And that’s why SEO copywriting skills are essential for content or search marketing in 2022! These simple SEO copywriting tips will help you create engaging content for your target audience.
SEO Copywriting is essential for creating the content you need for both the human visitors as well as the search bots and spiders that crawl your website. You need SEO-optimized content to get noticed and ranked by search engines.
But writing content that ranks involves more than simply writing a quick blog post. Our SEO copywriting tips show you how you can implement your own SEO copywriting strategy.
17 Simple SEO Copywriting Tips
1. Write for Humans – Optimize for Robots
Nobody wants to read SEO content, not even search engines! Google keeps reminding us that the search engine prefers original content to obvious SEO stuff. Moreover, there is no point in high rankings if your content does not convert. The best SEO copywriting strategy is to focus on your target audience and help the robots find your content.
2. Research Keywords Before You Write
SEO copywriting is all about keywords, and you need to research the best ones before drafting a web page or blog. In many cases, keywords determine writing projects.
Start by using a keyword research tool. This could be a free one like Google Keyword Planner, or you could invest a few dollars in more sophisticated software like SEMrush or Moz. These tools offer keyword suggestions based on your industry and topic list. They’ll also tell you how many people are searching for it, what ranking it gets, and how competitive it would be to use.
3. Forget About Keyword Density
Keyword density is one of the most persistent SEO myths. There is nothing to indicate that Google favors a specific keyword density over another. Of course, it is essential to use relevant keywords as part of your SEO copywriting strategy, but use them naturally. Keyword stuffing not only is a Black Hat SEO practice, but it also makes your content impossible to read.
4. Use Related Keywords, Synonyms + Grammatical Variations
Google and other search engines use Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) to match search results to the intentions of the searcher. Using synonyms, related keywords, and grammatical variations is an easy way to make your content more relevant to your end-user, and without stuffing the exact keyword into your copy!
5. Use Google Tilde to Find Related Keywords
If you are not yet using this, you are missing out on a critical SEO copywriting technique! Add ~ before a keyword and perform a search. Google will show you several related keywords at the bottom of the page that Google finds relevant to your search query. Use these keywords to increase the relevance of your content.
6. Keep an Eye on Your Competitors
It’s always a good idea to see what your competition is doing—whether it’s keywords, content, special offers, or new products being launched. You never want to be blindsided by something that could potentially take your business away.
With a keyword research tool, you can generate a list of your top online competitors. From that point, you can run an analysis to see what keywords they rank for.
Keywords from a competitive gap analysis can be used for new SEO strategies, depending on your goals. This analysis will show you what keywords they rank for that you don’t. You may want to consider using some of those yourself.
7. Start with Your Title
Research shows that while 80% of people will read your blog title, only 20% will click to view the rest of the article. Therefore, having a catchy blog title that interests the reader is essential. There are several ways to achieve this, but keeping it as short as possible and using adjectives will help to encourage searchers to click on it. You can also make it more relevant by including the year to show readers that the information is current.
The blog title is also essential for SEO: it is important for the keyword to appear in the title and preferably at the start. For example, the keyword of this post is ‘SEO Copywriting’ and it appears in this exact form, right at the start of the title.
8. Write Long, In-Depth, Quality Content
The average web page ranking on the first page of Google has over 2,000 words. Moreover, evidence points to the fact that in-depth articles get more shares and links than short, superficial ones. Your SEO copywriting should aim for content that delves deep into the subject matter and provides real insight.
But do not write lengthy content to please search engines. Do it because you have knowledge and insight to share with your audience.
9. Pay Attention to Keyword Frequency
Your keyword should appear in the title, introductory paragraph, meta description, and one of the subheadings as a minimum. It is important to include your keyword so that Google knows what topic you are writing about and want to rank for, but you must avoid keyword stuffing as this can be significantly detrimental to your SEO.
Keyword stuffing refers to the overuse of a keyword in the hopes of ranking higher. However, Google’s algorithm will detect this and will deem the web page irrelevant. Experts recommend a keyword density of 2%, which means the target keyword should appear 1 to 2 times per 100 words.
10. Take Advantage of The Long Tail
The problem with the “big,” “fat,” keywords is that they usually are super competitive, and ranking for them will require considerable effort. But in many cases, there are lots of related searches that are much easier to rank for, such as “landing page” versus “how long should a landing page be?” Long-tail phrases have a smaller search volume, but the search volume will be much higher as visitors are more motivated and likely to convert.
11. Answer Your Prospect’s Questions
Answering key questions should be a no-brainer for your SEO copywriting. If your prospects have questions about your product or service, they will most likely type these questions into Google.
Provide your potential customers with content that delivers credible answers, and they will visit your site. Provide them with better solutions than your competitors, and they will buy from you. Additionally, answering questions is a great way to take advantage of the long tail.
12. Insert External Outbound Links
Internal linking is a common SEO practice, which involves linking from one page to another on the same website. External outbound links refer to links that direct people away from your website and to another. This can be fantastic for your SEO, as it shows Google that the content you have written is well-sourced and therefore trustworthy.
Providing backlinks to high authority pages will improve the search engine’s trust in your website and increase your relevance in turn. By associating yourself with these reputable pages, you are increasing your own reputation.
13. Include Calls-to-Action (CTAs)
The purpose of SEO copywriting is to create sales and leads. This is why it’s crucial that you incorporate a call to action inside your text. (You might need multiple CTAs!) The call-to-action will assist readers in taking follow-up, which is to be an affiliate or purchase some product from you.
The text for the call-to-action must be clear, specific, and actionable to ensure that the user knows what you want them to do in the next step. For example, instead of the typical “contact us for more information” CTA, you might include, “Let’s talk about your web design project.”
It is also important to include a link that leads users to the next stage of the CTA. HubSpot discovered the anchor text CTAs or CTAs which were linked to a different website, increased conversion rates by 121%. If you make it simple for your customers to move on to the next step of the funnel, they’ll be more inclined to follow through with it.
14. Title Tags and Snippets are Still King
Do you include title tags in your SEO copywriting? You should! Your title tag is one of the first things Google looks at when categorizing individual web pages. And the combination of the title tag and “snippet” (meta description) is what searchers looking for your content will see in the SERPs (search engine results pages).
So include keywords, but make your titles and snippets sound natural and focus on motivating prospects to click and convert.
15. Optimize URLs for SEO
URLs are important for providing information to search engines about the content of the page, as well as its context and target. Your URL must be readable by everyone, and if possible should contain your desired keyword. For example:
https://pixolabo.com/essential-seo-copywriting-tips is much better than https://pixolabo.com/index.php?=4737396=345=?p=3187
Do not use capital letters and aim for the URL to be as short as possible – as this makes it easier for the searcher to read and process. Google will use the URL when determining if a particular page is relevant to a search query. The more simple and relevant a URL is to the keyword, the more likely the web page is to rank higher on the SERP.
16. Write Unique Meta Descriptions
The meta description is a small blurb that appears underneath your website on the SERP and includes information about that page. Google deems meta descriptions as good practice “in case Google cannot find a good selection of text to use in the snippet.
A strong meta description can help you to stand out too, which can boost the organic click-through rate. Plugins such as Rank Math make meta descriptions easy to add, with the ideal length being between 150 and 160 characters.
Sharing gets you links and traffic, and the more “shares” your content gets, the more relevant and essential it will seem to Google. Getting your content out there and shared via appropriate forums, blogs, influencers, and newsletters is vital. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other relevant social platforms need to be part of your SEO copywriting efforts as well. And don’t underestimate the incredible power of guest blogging!
Getting Started with SEO Copywriting
All things considered, SEO copywriting is essential to ensuring your content and your website can be found by people searching for products and services online. While Google is constantly tweaking its search algorithm, the fundamentals of SEO copywriting haven’t changed. Using these essential SEO copywriting tips will help you attract more — and more relevant — search traffic to your website.
Now that you know these simple SEO copywriting tips, you are ready to get started creating the content your consumers expect. If you already keep a journal or write a blog you most likely feel comfortable getting started and creating your own content. But what if SEO copywriting, or any writing for that matter, are not your strong suit? Here are some suggestions for you:
- Maybe you have a writer or blogger in your circle of friends or business associates. Ask around and see what you can find.
- Ask your professional network if they can recommend a copywriter, or know someone who can.
- Most universities and colleges offer writing programs, and students need practice and internships.
- Most temp staffing agencies like Vitamin T or Creative Circle can provide temp or full-time copywriters.
Writing content that ranks is only the beginning. To keep your business website ranking high, you need to keep creating new and relevant content on an ongoing basis. For many of you, this will become second nature.
But if content creation is something you would rather not think about, you may be better off engaging professional help. Hopefully, our simple SEO copywriting tips will get you started.
How Did SEO Copywriting Work for You?
Do you have any SEO copywriting tips you would like to share? Feel free to add your comments below so our audience can benefit as well, and grab our feed, so you don’t miss our next post! And feel free to share our SEO copywriting tips with your audience!
Thank you! We appreciate your help to end bad business websites, one pixel at a time!
By Gregor Saita
Co-Founder / CXO
@gregorsaita
