A Beginner’s Guide to SEO Copywriting
So you’re just getting started in the world of digital marketing looking to see how your writing skills stack up against the rest. The good news is that SEO technology has come a long way since its early days: Usually, you can still craft a well-written, SEO-optimized piece of content without having to think too much about digital marketing tactics. But there are still some factors at play you should keep in mind, especially as a beginner.
What Is SEO?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. In its simplest form, it’s the practice of optimizing your website so it can be found by the largest number of people when they go to a search engine, like Google, to search for what you offer.
Let’s say you’re a plumber based in Philadelphia with a website looking to get more customers organically (in other words, without having to pay for digital advertising). You conduct keyword research, figure out how your target audience is searching for plumbers in your area, and build your website based on that information. The result may or may not be an SEO-optimized website, because SEO has two primary components: on-page and off-page SEO.
The Details of On-Page SEO
On-page SEO is exactly how it sounds: the search engine optimization that takes place on the front end of your website, on the page, and inside the content itself. It involves keyword placement, proper URL slug creation, making your website copy short and scannable, making it easy for the user to visually navigate your website, and more.
In keeping with the plumber example, let’s say that your keyword research revealed that the keyword “experienced plumbers in Philadelphia” is one of the most used in your area. An example of an on-page SEO tactic, then, would be placing that keyword in one of the headers on your website’s homepage. This signals to Google and other major search engines that the keyword is highly relevant to the rest of the content a user might find on your homepage, helping search engines show your website to the right people at the right time.
Going Behind the Scenes With Off-Page SEO
Off-page SEO is also just as it sounds: it involves search engine optimization tactics that usually occur within the website’s infrastructure and code (sometimes referred to as technical SEO) as well as how the rest of the internet is able to see and access your website (otherwise known as your website’s backlink profile). Examples include ensuring each webpage has its own meta information; canonicalization; that each image on the website is compressed, linked, and easy to load; that each webpage has a minimal amount of unused scripting; that each webpage loads over a secure connection (SSL); and more.
SEO teams are usually broken up into on-page and off-page teams, with on-page handling the copywriting and content creation alongside visual optimization and off-page going behind the scenes to optimize code, page load speed, visual assets, and more.
5 Basic On-Page SEO Tactics
Since it’s likely that you’re either a writer yourself looking to break into SEO or a small business owner seeking to educate themselves on what to look for in an SEO-optimized website, we’ll focus on the on-page SEO tactics you should be aware of.
1. Header Hierarchy
You’ll read and hear about this all the time when you first start researching SEO. Header hierarchy refers to not only properly placing headers in sequential order on your webpage starting with H1 and working your way down, but it also refers to ensuring there’s a sequential ordering of important information on the page.
For instance, your H1 tag should contain the primary keyword you’re looking to target on the page as well as give the reader a solid idea of what the rest of the content is about. Great header hierarchy allows the reader to skim only the headers on the page and either answer the question they have, solve the problem they’re dealing with, and get a foundational hold on the information they’re trying to learn.
2. Internal & External Links
Google and other major search engines like to know that everybody is working together. This means properly citing your sources and letting your readers know where you got your information from. This, in turn, helps everybody involved: the sources you mention get links back to their websites and your readers know that you took the time to research the topic properly.
Also referred to as hyperlinks, internal and external links are a must for each and every piece of content you create because they improve trustworthiness and authoritativeness in the eyes of the search engines, two extremely important factors that go into how your content is ranked. An internal link is a link that takes the reader to another page on the same website; an external link is a link that takes the reader off the website and onto another one. Both are necessities.
3. Short, Scannable Copy
This is where the writing really shines. Another important key performance indicator for many websites is bounce rate, or the percentage of users that land on your website and then immediately leave, or bounce. A high bounce rate usually means that your website isn’t loading fast enough or that the user isn’t seeing anything that entices them to stay (and you have about six seconds to do that).
Another reason why a user might bounce is that your copy is too difficult to read. This may sound ridiculous to the SEO layman, but our modern age of technology has severely reduced attention spans. People want to solve their problems and find answers to their questions immediately, and seeing one, long blob of text on your homepage is not going to do that for them.
What you need to do is write copy in a short, scannable way: two to four lines per paragraph max (lines, not sentences) and two to three paragraphs per header. This allows your reader to skim your copy for answers instead of reading anything, keeping them on your website long enough to reduce its bounce rate and improve your rankings.
4. Plenty of Visual Elements
Another solid on-page SEO tactic is including plenty of visual elements on the webpage. These include videos, images, bulleted lists, charts, graphs, and anything else that gives the reader a break from reading and skimming. It refreshes the eyes, provides visual assets that are easier for the brain to process, and keeps the user on the page.
You may want to start your webpage off with a relevant image under its H1 tag, have some text, then another image. You may even want to include a chart or graph of sorts. But besides images, the most common visual element used in SEO copywriting is the bulleted list, either numbered or not.
Here’s an example of a well-formatted and easy-to-read bulleted list:
This is the topic of the bullet. The topic is always bold-faced to help guide the reader’s eyes to the most important information first. Then, you can expound a bit after.
This is another topic. Same thing here, except the reader understands and is used to this formatting now, so we can keep things simpler.
Another topic. Short, sweet, and easy to read.
Try to make it a point to use as many bulleted lists as you possibly can in your writing.
5. A Call-to-Action
Finally, at the end of it all, you need to give your readers the next step and show them what to do next. This comes in the form of a call-to-action or CTA. The CTA is introduced with its own header followed by a short blurb of text and a clickable button underneath. For an example, check out the CTA of this post below.
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