You might have heard the term ‘SEO copywriting’ before, but do you know what it really means?
I always try to avoid jargon when speaking with my clients (in fact, I detest jargon in any walk of life because it excludes people from the conversation), so let me give an unassuming explanation of what SEO copywriting is, and why it’s really important for businesses.
Copywriting, put simply, is the putting together of words to convey a specific message. It’s basically any form of writing you need in your business, whether it’s text for a brochure, a slogan for an advert, technical wording on packaging, the formal information you read in business reports, or even a simple sentence for a social media post. If it needs to be written, that’s copywriting.
SEO copywriting is specifically for text that’s used online in places like websites, blogs or online news articles. The difference is, it’s written with search engine optimisation in mind. The common goal for businesses who write anything that’s published online is to reach more people and grow brand awareness by being discovered by a wider audience. For it to work, it needs to be found.
How do you get found online? Well, the most obvious place people go are search engines like Google. But to make sure you’re one of the companies that’s put in front of the searcher, you need to have online content that matches what the user is specifically searching for – and that’s where keywords come into it.
Google needs keywords to understand what your website pages are about so it can show them for the right search queries. When someone types a search into Google, the search engine is basically looking for a match for that search term used on any of the websites across the big wide web. The more you can show Google that you are relevant to the user’s search, the higher up the search engine results you’ll be placed.
So SEO copywriting involves writing text that incorporates keywords that are relevant to your industry and your target audience so that your website, blog, or online news article is search engine friendly.
Sounds simple, right?
It’s far more complex than just pushing a load of keywords into a paragraph on your webpage. Search engines penalise websites that do this – it’s called keyword stuffing. If they’re overused and repetitive, it’s recognised as being spammy. Search engines favour websites that have well-written and easy-to-read content. They want to direct the user to a page that will provide a good experience and meet their needs.
A good SEO copywriter will understand which keywords to use, where to put them, and how to write with them strategically and naturally – in everything from your website address, the text on your pages, the menu titles, the page descriptions, the image descriptions, and more.
Well written SEO copy, combined with other SEO techniques, can help a website rank higher in search engine results. The majority of search engine users never scroll past the first page of search results, so if you want to be visible, it’s wise to invest in high-quality online copywriting.
Search engine optimisation aside, having great copy on your website is crucial to convert visitors. People will be far more likely to purchase from you if they see a well-written website that’s easy to navigate, quickly and clearly reassures them they’re in the right place, and provides valuable content. Professional SEO copywriting not only builds an excellent reputation with search engines, it builds a great reputation with visitors too.
If you’re not getting a lot of traffic from search engines, struggling to get found online, or have a low conversion rate when you do get website visitors, ask me to take a look at your online copy. I can perform in-depth keyword research and tactical SEO copywriting that will appeal to both customers and search engines.