Looking for some SEO copywriting tips you can use to improve your content? Copywriting is one of the most important aspects of any online marketing campaign, as it helps attract and retain attention.
If you are not taking the time to write quality copy, you are missing out on a major opportunity to reach and engage your audience. Around 40% of visitors bounce in less than 15 seconds, which may be a sign that your copy isn’t quite hitting the mark.
In this article, you will discover several SEO copywriting tips that’ll help you attract and retain the attention of your visitors. This will ensure people spend more time on your website, discover your products or services, and learn more about your company.
If you want my team at Sachs Marketing Group to help you with your SEO copywriting and content development, click here.
Overview
SEO Copywriting Tips
The difference between traditional copywriting and SEO copywriting is in the name – the goal of SEO copywriting is to work hand-in-hand with search engines in an effort to attract the attention of potential visitors searching Google, Bing, or Duck Duck Go for information.
For the best results, the modern copywriter working within the digital marketing space will combine the basics of traditional copywriting with the techniques proven to work for online publications.
To help you get started, we’ve gathered several SEO copywriting tips you can use with your own content.
1. Use Copywriting Formulas
There are several copywriting formulas that have proven to be successful for traditional copywriting, and they can also work well for SEO copywriting.
These formulas provide a foundation to craft your outline to ensure your content flows smoothly while keeping your visitor’s attention.
Here are a few examples:
- Attention – Interest – Desire – Action (AIDA). This formula is used for various marketing content, including landing pages, sales pages, emails, and more.
- Before – After – Bridge. This is one of the most dependable formulas. With this formula, you introduce a problem, describe a world without that problem, then explain how to get there.
- Problem – Agitate – Solve (PAS). Instead of introducing the world without the problem, you describe a world with the problem persisting (agitate). This is one of the most effective formulas, encouraging your reader to take action before the problem worsens.
- Features – Advantages – Benefits (FAB). This formula helps you overcome one of the most common mistakes while selling your products or services – focusing on the features, not the benefits. The key is introducing the features, describing what your products do, and illustrating the outcome your customers enjoy.
You can use copywriting formulas to plan out the overall flow of your content, structure sections within your content,
It’s important to test different copywriting formulas with your content and audience. You can use these formulas to guide the flow of your content from start to finish or ensure smaller sections within your content flow.
2. Outline Your Content
The outline is one of your most important tools as a copywriter.
Whether you’re creating content for a landing page or a new blog post, it’s important to outline your content. An outline provides a bird’s eye view of how your content will flow. Seeing this before you start writing ensures you won’t waste time writing a section you decide to delete later in the process. It also allows you to move things around in an effort to improve the flow of how your content reads.
The outline helps you hone your content early in the process, saving time during the editing stage. An outline can also help you ensure your content hits all the necessary points for SEO, including keyword usage and links to internal or external content.
3. Create a Compelling Headline
Your headline is the first opportunity to capture attention and attract people to your content. Few people will make it to the rest of your content if it’s not interesting.
When creating your headline, ask yourself: would I click on this if I saw it in a search engine or social media feed? Would it stop me while scrolling through my newsfeed? Does it pique curiosity and offer value that would motivate someone to click?
Every headline has one goal – convince the reader to click and read the next sentence.
- Chris Rice, Senior SEO Specialist
When creating your headline, try to include the following:
- Incorporate keywords (if applicable)
- Use numbers or lists
- Use power words to create intrigue
- Make a promise
Once you have your final headline, consider running it through tools like CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer for feedback and guidance to make it even stronger.
The headline is the cornerstone that makes your content work across all platforms, so be sure to spend time on this step.
Related: The Benefits of Multichannel Marketing (SEO, Social, and PPC)
4. Write a Strong Intro Paragraph
Now that you’ve captured someone’s attention, you need to retain it – that’s where the intro paragraph comes into play.
The intro paragraph of an article or landing page is where you set the tone for the rest of your content and give a preview of what’s to come. It’s important to hook the reader, offer value, and clearly understand what they can expect from your content.
Include any necessary background information or context in this paragraph, but avoid getting too wordy. Your intro should be concise and to the point, leaving the reader wanting more.
When it comes to the intro paragraph, simplicity is key. Don’t use overly complicated language or industry jargon that may confuse your reader. Write in a clear, straightforward manner that’s easy for anyone to understand. Lean on the copywriting formula you’re using for your content and set up the flow and pace of the article.
5. Use Subheadings Strategically
Subheadings are a great way to break up your content and make it easier to read your content. They also help search engines understand what your article is about.
Refer to your outline during this step, and ensure you’re hitting all the key points you want to make within your content.
Subheadings can be used to provide hierarchy within your content. Take a look at this post, for example – you’ll see that we’ve used the <h3> subheadings tags to indicate all of these sections relate to SEO Copywriting Tips. This gives the reader and the search engines an idea of how this content connects from section to section.
Bonus: If you’re using a table of contents, crafting your subheadings can give your reader an easy-to-understand overview of everything the article provides. In addition, the table of contents provides anchor links, which search engines crawl and could result in additional keyword rankings.
6. Use Keywords Naturally
Make sure to include your target keywords throughout your content, but don’t overdo it. You want to sound natural and organic, not like you’re trying too hard. A good rule of thumb is to use them once or twice per paragraph.
As the saying goes: write for humans first.
Search engines are super-smart and capable of detecting if you’re stuffing an article full of keywords in an effort to rank. The key is to write like you talk and let the keywords flow naturally. There will always be opportunities to place keywords – don’t overdo it.
Don’t spam your reader.
7. Break up Your Content with Lists (Bullet or Numbered)
As we all know, people tend to skim an article for highlights before dedicating time to read a full article. Breaking up your content with bullet lists and numbered lists makes this easier for the reader. The more lists you provide, the easier it is for readers to get your content’s main points and takeaways.
This type of structure also makes it easier for search engines to understand what your article is about.
It’s easy on the eyes, provides information clearly, and helps position your content in a good place to rank prominently. Just be sure your lists are relevant and helpful.
A bullet list will something like this:
- Tip one
- Tip two
- Tip three
While a numbered list will look something like this:
- Tip one
- Tip two
- Tip three
The writer will often determine which style to use within the content, depending on the topic. When writing a list post like this, I tend to veer away from including numbered lists. I prefer bulleted lists in most cases unless I’m providing a step-by-step tutorial.
8. Dive Deep (Passage Indexing)
If you’ve ever clicked on a result in the SERP that pointed you to the middle of an article (highlighted purple), you’ve experienced passage indexing.
During its introduction, it was an innovative change Google made to transport searches to the exact passage of content related to their search query.
It’s a powerful innovation, allowing content to rank for more specific queries that align with search intent.
For the best results, spend time compiling related keywords based on search volume and relevance that makes sense to your target search intent, and naturally sprinkle content throughout your content.
9. Answer Questions (Voice Search)
The best way to approach voice search optimization is to identify popular questions related to your target topic and provide simple answers. This will help your content rank for voice search queries and improve overall SEO.
Including questions with your target keywords in the title and throughout your content can also help to boost rankings because it shows search engines that you’re providing high-quality, informative content that answers specific questions.
Consider including an FAQ section at the end of your article, and make sure it utilizes the proper FAQ schema markup.
10. Write a Strong Conclusion (Call Your Reader to Take Action)
The conclusion is just as important, if not more, as the intro paragraph – it should wrap up the content and call the reader to action.
The conclusion is often where copywriters fail to make the most of their opportunity to convert the reader. Whether offering a discount code, signing up for your email list, or following you on social media – have a clear call to action in mind and include it in your conclusion.
This helps with conversions and signals to search engines that your content is useful and worth ranking.
This is a great place to ask your readers a specific question (if you want to encourage discussion within the comments section), provide a special offer, or place a distinct CTA banner to increase conversions.
Whatever you do, don’t let your conclusion fizzle the momentum. Keep it up. Your job as an SEO copywriter is to guide the reader to the next chapter of their journey, whether exploring your products or services, discovering a related article, or sharing their thoughts in the comment section.
11. Use Optimization Tools to Compare and Improve
There are a variety of tools available today that will help you optimize your content. However, Surfer SEO is great at providing insight into how your content stacks up against the top-ranked content related to your topic and keyword.
If possible, use this tool to identify the shortcomings of your content compared to what’s working in the real world. This tool will reveal a plethora of information, including how many internal links, external links, images, and keyword placements you might need to compete with the top-performing content within the same niche.
These tools require time and energy, on an ongoing basis, for the best results, but they’re game-changers.
Conclusion
We hope you found these SEO copywriting tips helpful. The more time you spend crafting solid copy for your website, the more attention you will attract from search engines, social media, and advertising.
It takes time and effort to hone in on what works for your business, so it’s important to experiment and analyze your results.
You may find it difficult to do all the necessary SEO copywriting on your own as a business owner. If that’s the case, consider hiring the Sachs Marketing Group team for your campaign. We handle everything from start to finish to ensure your digital marketing campaign is driven by solid copywriting across all mediums.
