May 25, 2021
4 minutes
The aims of copywriting can be hard to fuse together. Stories and sales aren’t worlds apart, but mastering the act of combining them can be difficult. Read on and learn NORTH’s top hacks on making your copy fit for SEO purposes, the seamless way.
Great SEO copywriting simply involves telling compelling stories which are tailored around considered keywords, designed to be shared out across digital platforms. SEO copywriting contributes towards increasing overall site visibility and traffic, enhancing search engine rankings by using terms that users are actually interested in.
With this in mind, here are our top tips on how to write for SEO.
By starting here, you’re learning what your audience is interested in, by targeting search volume around keywords and phrases that are relevant to your sector. Your initial keyword research should give you the basics, but carrying out secondary keyword research can be helpful too for pulling out any longer-tail queries related to your topic. This way, you’re simply covering all bases, and making your content more accessible and relevant.
Every keyword demonstrates a customer’s intention. Two key types to note are are:
As you are carrying out keyword research, observe which category the queries you’re gathering fall beneath and structure your content accordingly. Informational keywords work best used in blog content, whereas transactional phrases are best suited to category content or product pages.
You should also match your tone of voice to the nature of the content you’re writing. If you’re writing a blog post, you are aiming to make traffic convert to purchases by developing interest in your topic, so telling a compelling story is key.
Whereas if you are writing for product pages, you need to focus on the product at hand, as your customers’ intent is already clear. You won’t need to use internal linking to direct users elsewhere on the site, instead you’ll want to provide as much detail about the product as possible in order to guarantee a conversion.
Your content should be easy to follow, so make use of clear signposts in the form of headings, creating sections dedicated to a sub-topic within the copy. You can optimise your headings too, aligning them with the keyword research you’ve carried out, adding more value. Sticking to a clear structure will make your content easier to read, showing users where the information they are looking for is, rather than having to find it themselves.
Your headline should draw customers in, and it should make them want to learn more about your brand/product/service. The aim of your content is to boost clicks through to your website, and your headline is essentially the first impression that a customer will have of your brand/product/service. Come across as a thought leader in the topic of your content, and use authoritative, clear language.
Although the goal of SEO copywriting is to sell, the content itself has to be legible to even trigger a customer to consider making a purchase. Often, keywords are ‘stuffed’ into content, but the quality of the links you’re adding takes priority over the quantity, and opting for an over-generous usage of your keywords will have no added ranking value. Use your targeted phrases where they best fit naturally, without taking away from the coherence of the copy.
Ideally, before you’ve started implementing internal links, you’ll have a bigger idea of how this strategy will look on the site as a whole. Keeping your internal links uniform will prevent you from overuse too, so focus on where you want to build authority. When you do add links, make sure they’re relevant enough to the page itself, otherwise they’ll feel misplaced.
Optimise your digital performance with a tailored strategy, and simply contact us to find out more about the elements of this that we offer, including our expert-lead SEO and Digital PR services.
