How To Deploy SEO When Writing Copy
Times have changed. Nowhere is this change as evident as it is in the global business space. A few years back, an excellent business environment, basic (read passive) advertising, and exceptional products and services were enough to run a successful business.
But all that seems to be light years ago. Way before the internet revolutionized the business landscape and changed all aspects of life in that space.
Today modern businesses need a healthy online presence to stay competitive. This need for a robust online presence was brought about by the emergence of a concept known as Search Engine Optimization (SEO).To leverage the potential of SEO, businesses have had to contract the services of skilled copywriters.
SEO Meets Copywriting
Some bright minds had a lightbulb moment and came up with the concept of blending excellent copy with suitable SEO practices. The product of this blend is what is generally known in the content marketing space as “SEO copywriting."
What is SEO Copywriting?
You probably already know that copywriting involves melding words, ideas, concepts, and visuals in a way that markets a brand, product or service. The idea behind effective copywriting is to get the target audience to become a customer. Copywriting is pretty effective, but when combined with SEO…you get a game-changer.
So, what’s SEO copywriting?
Let’s keep it simple.
SEO copywriting is the art and science of using specific keywords that meet the search intent of your target audience. At its best, it leads to online content that humans and search engines love so much that they can't help but share it with others.
?SEO-generated leads have a 15% closing rate, so with the right SEO strategy, small businesses can increase the number and class (for want of a better word) of their site’s web traffic.
In my opinion, SEO copywriting is both appealing and informative. And it is a great way to draw traffic to your website since the copy ranks well on SERPs (search engine results pages).
SEO copywriting involves creating copy that improves a website's search engine rankings while keeping the readers as happy as a kid at a candy shop. It combines the art of creating an instructive, entertaining, reliable, and original copy with the science of effortlessly blending the right keywords and phrases into the copy.
It is more than just padding a piece of copy with random keywords.
And that’s because Google and other search engines are much smarter than that. Sloppy copy sprinkled with random keywords always sticks out like a sore thumb on Google. And over time, the websites with such copy keep getting relegated until they die off.
How to Write Great SEO-optimized Copy
Stick to these tips if you are looking to write copy that has great SERP rankings:
Brainstorm
Copywriting is not rocket science. Neither is it policy-making.
Now, while copywriting might seem easy to some folks, it requires a lot of conceptualizations to turn out great copy.
That’s where brainstorming comes in.
Brainstorming the right way, creates customer-oriented copy that resonates with the right people. With that in mind, here are some tips that you should try.
Take A Good Look At The Creative Brief
Creative briefs are to copy what blueprints are to buildings. So it’s a great place to start your brainstorming process. Pay close attention to details like the benefits, audience, and objectives spelled out there.
Be sure to understand the concept of the copy and the deliverables expected of you. Once this is done, you’d have formed a mental image of what you need and can proceed to the next step.
Outline The Personas
As much as you want your copy to be as SEO-optimized as possible, the core of the copy is not for search engines.
It is for humans like you with varying needs and desires.
And to be able to create copy that caters to these, you need to create fictional personas that help you tailor your copy.You can outline personas by reviewing demographic and “pyschograhic” criteria like:
?The trick behind outlining personas is to give you an idea of who needs your copy. Once you achieve this, crafting copy that resonates with them becomes easier.
Use Listing
By listing, I mean a process where you generate extensive ideas, after which you build on the ideas using a bullet-point list.
I do this by jotting down as many terms as I can from the general topic of the copy. I then group the items I have listed according to themes (you could use any association that works for you).
?Once that’s done, I label each group. Then I write a sentence about each label. This label helps me manage the group and doubles as a topic sentence I use later in the copy.
Clustering
Clustering is another popular brainstorming practice that you should try. Start by putting the central idea of the copy at the center of a page.
Circle it.
As you begin thinking about the idea, write your thoughts on the page surrounding the circled idea. Use lines to link these thoughts to the circle.
?The new thoughts will generate ideas. Keep linking them to the thoughts that generated them. For example:
Main idea-----new idea----another idea-----another idea.
If you do this right, you will get something that looks like a spider's web. Try to locate clusters of ideas and the attached terms as a framework for the copy.
Ask The Right Questions
The right questions in this context are Who?, What?, Where?, When?, Why?, and How? The answers to these questions will help you generate loads of relevant information in a short while.
The information generated then offers you a better grasp of the concept of the copy and allows you to convey your ideas well.
Talk To Your Clients
It is a great idea to get first-hand information from your clients. Ask for their opinions. Find out how they want their audience to receive. Try to get as much information about the product or service's benefits. You might even ask if there are specific words, or phrases that they want to be used in the copy.
Armed with such information, you’d be better positioned to approach the writing process.
Conduct Advanced Research
Advanced research is the difference between compelling copy and copy that waste’s the reader’s time.
After all, if you are trying to convince someone to get a product or service, you need to know everything there is to know about the person and the product/service you are selling.
Right?
So, here’s how you can go about that:
Implement Market Research
What are the trends in the market that your client's products and services operate in? What do customers in that market require? What edge(s) do your client's products and services have over others?
When implementing market research for your copywriting projects, these questions should be at the top of your mind. The answers to these questions will provide key insights you can develop to create SEO-optimized copy.
Do Your Due Diligence
You must get as much background information about the company you are writing for as possible. To be able to sell products and services you need to as much as possible about the company producing them. You should learn about the company's story, achievements, and business goals.
But that’s not all.
Your due diligence should cover your client's competition too. Find out their strengths and weaknesses. This helps you craft your copy in a manner that sets your client's offerings apart and makes them more attractive to people.
Use these tips:
Product/Service Research
How can you effectively sell a product or service if you don’t know enough about it?
You just can’t!
IMHO, you’d be shooting yourself in the foot if you attempt to sell a product or service without understanding everything about it. So you need to do your research.
Try to find out the following:
With such first-hand knowledge, convincing people (even yourself) to get the product/service will be easier.
If you are to craft authentic, compelling copy, I recommend testing the product/service yourself. If you can’t, get your client to give you a second-hand version of that experience.
Research The Target Audience
Researching your target audience is about understanding who you are writing copy for. Your research should tell you:
Here are some ways that you could research your client’s target audience:
Get The Right Keywords
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Any copywriter that is worth their salt knows and understands the importance of keywords. The right keywords are the difference between copy that is lost in the internet's multiverse and copy that users get to see.
So how do you get the right keywords?
Do these things:
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Take A Hard Look At The Product/Service Niche
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Products and services come in niches. And with these niches come specific keywords or phrases. Your job as a copywriter is to find and use these keywords appropriately.
Start by talking with your client’s current customers. The idea is to discover the words/expressions they use when discussing your client’s product or service.
One other thing you could do would be to get on online communities where people talk about the product or service in question. If you pay enough attention to the discussions there, you can discover some pain points people need help with.
Get Your Focus Keywords
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Here's where you use the information gotten from interacting with people interested in your client's offerings (offline and offline) to generate focus keywords.
These are expressions people use when searching for your client's offering online.
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Deploy Keyword Research Tools
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Keyword tools can help finetune your keyword research. Some of them are even designed to offer ideas that will ultimately improve your search for the right keywords. You can never go wrong when you correctly deploy reputable keyword research tools like:
If you want a keyword research tool on steroids, try ChatGPT. Type in the focus keyword you want to rank for. You can even ask it for secondary keywords too. You can then review the results to determine what works and what doesn’t.
Whatever you do, it is important to determine the search intent of each keyword. This way it becomes easy to work with keywords that align with the users’ needs.
Make The Copy User-Centric
What is the point of writing copy if it is not about users?
As a professional copywriter, you should understand better than anyone that copy has to be about the users’ wants, goals, dreams, and desires if it is to convert.
You might have everything else correct: ideas, keywords, and details.
But, if you don’t present all of these things correctly, your copy will not resonate with your client's target audience.So how do you make your copy user-centric?
Here’s how:
Put The User First
Your client's target audience is selfish in a sense. They care about brands less than what they can get from the brands. So your copy has to be all about them.
Try to write in a way that makes the reader feel like they are the center of the universe. Deploy as many first-person pronouns as you can while writing. Let them feel like they are sitting across the table from you and are about to get something that would positively change their lives forever.
Use The Right Expressions
You should use the kind of language that your target audience uses. You would have figured out how they speak if you researched them right. Try to tailor the diction and tone of your copy to match that of the target audience. For instance, Baby Boomers speak differently to Millennials or Gen Z.
So use the right expressions.
And be sure to use them the same way across all channels of communication-emails, website copy, and blogs.
Show That You Understand Their Problems And You Have The Solutions
Each user your client is trying to reach has one issue or the other they are trying to solve. Your job as a copywriter is to recognize these issues and show them that your client does too.
Once you have established this, find ways to relay to the users that your client's offerings have the perfect solution to this issue(s). When doing this, try as much as possible to show the benefits they will get from the product/service.
Exploit Social Proof
Humans are social animals. So they love social proof. That’s why your copy should do more than praise your client or their offerings.
You need to show the users evidence that the subject of your copy does all that you say.
Here’s how you can do that:
Pictures, they say are worth a thousand words. Social proof is worth way more!
Always Finish with A Great Call to Action
A call to action can galvanize the reader to do something that benefits your client. So always conclude your copy with a call to action that does just that.
The trick is to give your reader some sense of control(if you did your homework right, this shouldn't be a problem). Writing in an active voice and positive language is the key to leaving your reader feeling this way.
Avoid passive, needy, or negative words and expressions at all costs.
Use Keywords In The Right Places
You must use your SEO keywords the right way. After all, SEO copywriting aims to get as many people as possible to read content that sells a brand, product, or service.
?So after getting the right keywords and crafting compelling copy, how do merge both?
Well, just do these:
Avoid Keyword Stuffing
Resist the urge to flood your copy with too many keywords. Search engines know when you do that and your copy runs the risk of being penalized when you are caught.
So, try as much as you can maintain the right keyword density (it should be about 2%). You can do this by using the keywords(primary and secondary) sparingly in only places where they are relevant. It is also important to fit them naturally into the text.
Optimize Your Headings
Your copy should have relevant and compelling H1-H6 heading tags. They offer structure and help search engines prioritize the information you are trying to provide.
Beyond all that, including SEO keywords within headings allows them to be easily identified by search engine crawlers.
Ultimately, more people will find your work.
Use SEO Keywords in Your Meta Descriptions
Meta descriptions show users what the copy is about. Try to keep it short but appropriate-say around 200 characters.
That said, your meta description should contain some primary keywords that are consistent with the copy. That way, the copy becomes easily identified by your client’s target audience.
Include Keywords In The Alt Text
The alt text appears instead of an image that does not load on a user's screen. Alt texts allow search engines to rank your client’s website better.
Alt texts should be less than 125 characters.So you have to be creative when including keywords. However, you must avoid cramming alt texts with keywords.
Edit, Edit, and Edit
Words can be magical when used properly. But like with most magic potions, disaster occurs when the ingredients are not mixed in the right measure.
All the best copywriters understand this.
?This is why they all agree that you need to edit your work thoroughly to be effective. Never underestimate the ability of wrongly placed (or omitted) words to change the meanings of sentences and paragraphs.
Please try to invest just as much time used in writing your copy to edit it. Look out for semantics, spelling, and syntax errors. There is no point in putting in all that effort and having avoidable errors mar your work.
So edit, edit, and edit some more!
Here are some editing tools that I think could make your job easier:?
Even after using these tools, I recommend that you go over the work before publishing.
Now That You Know
?It would be best if you deployed SEO practices to your copywriting tasks. That’s because it can help you reach and influence a larger target audience.
You don’t need to be an SEO expert, though. All you need is a firm grasp of the basics and you are good to go.
Do you use SEO when creating copy?
?If yes, what results have you noticed?
If you don’t use SEO, what are you waiting for?