SEO copywriting is an essential and critical element in any SEO strategy. You must adapt the text content of your site to the ever-changing algorithms of search engines. You should also publish articles so that your audience understands the material and enjoys reading it.
SEO copywriting and SEO in general
Your main goal should be to create and maintain your website. Google rankings will come automatically if your site is very high quality.
Google wants to show only relevant and most helpful information to its customers. Its mission is to index all available information and make it publicly available. In addition, Google wants to make money from contextual advertising. Still, if it intends to make information available globally, the search engine will have to show people the results that best meet customer needs. Otherwise, people will stop using Google. So we can agree that Google wants to show people better results, so if your site is the best in your subject, Google will raise it above others.
Pure SEO is a marketing strategy aimed at creating a unique website on a specific topic. The technical design of your site must be well thought out, the UX of your site impeccable, and all aspects of security complied. The most important thing is that your site’s content should be well written and targeted to the audience that visits your site. This approach requires relatively advanced SEO writing skills.
To make sure your site is unique in your sector, the text on your sites should be clear and easy to read. Without making any concessions to the quality of your content, you need to customize your text to the specific requirements of search engines. The process of SEO copywriting is very similar to writing work or a story, so it is hard work, and inevitably some of us have more talent than others. Unfortunately, we can’t all be Ernest Hemingway, but with the perfecting skills, anyone will write SEO texts.
Keywords
You will need to use the keywords you want to rank for, so the first step in SEO copywriting is keyword research.
Proper keyword research consists of these three steps:
Step 1: Formulate a goal
Before you start researching keywords, you need to think about the goal. It is what will make you stand out from the crowd. When formulating your plan, you should consider questions such as: who are you? What makes it unique? Take the time to develop your goals.
Step 2: Make a list of relevant keywords
Once you’ve set a clear goal, you can begin to list all the keywords you want your site to search. Once your plan is more or less clear, you need to embrace the terms and words. which fall under your subject. These are the keywords that users will also enter in the search bar.
To come up with good clues, you need to put yourself in the place of your audience. How are they most likely to look for you? What are they looking for in Google? At the end of the keyword selection, you should list all relevant search terms that people can use. Also, think about combinations and variations of these terms.
There are several tools to help you collect the keys to your subject. For example, keyword-planner in Google or Wordstat in Yandex.
These services will help you create a keyword table. Try coming up with keyword combinations and then prioritizing keywords – which of these keywords are particularly important for ranking (closest to your topic) and which are less so? In many cases, targeting less popular and less competitive keywords can be a good strategy.
Step 3: Create SEO landing pages
The last step in keyword selection is to create unique landing pages that will search. A landing page is a page designed to attract visitors who have found your site using a specific essential query. It can be a dedicated page or blog post optimized for a particular keyword. Make sure you have a landing page for each relevant keyword you come up with.
Your keyword research will give you a good idea of what to about a blog. You have to create content around a particular word. However, the term is not a topic. Next to the keyword (or keyword phrase), you will need a story.
Three stages of writing an SEO article
Once you have chosen a topic for the article, SEO copywriting starts here! The process of writing SEO consists of three stages: preparation, writing, and editing.
Text preparation
The first step in the fundamental process of SEO copywriting is to plan your work. Before you put a pen on paper (or fingers on the keyboard), take some time and think about what you will write. By now, you should know the topic, but before you start writing, you must have clear answers to the following questions:
What is the purpose of your article? What do you want to achieve? What will be the main message of your post? What main question do you want to answer? Who is your audience? In what order will you present your information? What will be the structure of your article?
The most crucial element of the article is the structure. The structure of the text on your site is vital for SEO copywriting. If the content has a straightforward design, you have a better chance of getting it in the search engine.
So think about the structure of the article before you start writing it. The structure is the skeleton of your text: it will help the reader understand the article’s main points. Pages with a straightforward design will lead to higher conversions on your site.
Writing SEO text
Now you can start the process of writing SEO texts! It takes up only about 20% of the total time you spend on your article.
Just write!
The most important piece of advice for this stage of SEO copywriting is just to write. People often have problems with the first sentence (or the first paragraph). At this point, you can skip the first paragraph entry altogether. Just omit a few words about your first paragraph’s content and start writing right from the second paragraph. The beginning and end are easier to write once you create the central part of your article.
If there are grammatical or lexical errors in the sentence, do not worry and keep writing. You can rewrite these things in the next step, which involves editing. At the writing stage, it is crucial to stay in the flow of writing.
Follow the structure of your text
When writing, use the structure created during the preparation phase. Make sure you write clear paragraphs. Begin each section with the most important sentence, then explain or clarify it. Your readers will be able to understand the actual content of your article simply by reading the first sentences of your paragraphs.
Make sure the text is readable
Reading from the screen is difficult, so if you want your readers to read your entire blog post, you need to make it easy to read. Articles that are enjoyable and easy to read will result in a return of visitors and a higher conversion rate. Most importantly, make sure your text targets the audience for which you are writing.
Use style
Some people are writers and don’t need any SEO copywriting advice – they can write an engaging, fun article in minutes. Others lack this skill. Although the attractive text is a matter of talent, practice helps! If you want to develop an engaging writing style, then you just need to read a lot. Reading (novels, blogs, magazines, etc.) will inspire you to write excellent articles and teach you to form sentences and build paragraphs. The lesson teaches you how to use humor and how to play with language and also allows you to develop an inner feeling that will create a beautiful article.
Take a break from time to time!
SEO copywriting can be quite an intensive process. If you write over a long period, it becomes harder to concentrate. But the time interval for each person will be different. If you find that your mind has started to roughly “swim”, it means that you need to take a break.
If you take the average, a person can not write more than 20 minutes at a time. Then you can take a walk, flip through the tape in social networks or drink a cup of tea. Even a minute break can be enough to return to the letter with a new and updated level of concentration and creativity.
Once you finish writing your article, you will have a draft of your post. A project is something that you will improve in the final stage of writing. The last step will still take a long time.
Editing stage
– This is a stage of the SEO-copywriting process, in which you must “soberly” evaluate your work. Don’t be afraid to throw things away. You should read and re-read and re-read your post and correct any awkward sentences, unclear wording, and messy paragraph structures. Here are four steps you can take to edit your article fully.
Step 1: Read slowly (and aloud)
You can start this phase by reading your work slowly (and even aloud, it can help). Each sentence must be grammatically correct, and the spelling must be perfect. You need to be critical of your work.
Step 2: Focus on the sentences
Start by checking the correctness of each sentence. Focus on writing words and phrases that are awkward. Ensure the sentences are grammatically correct and check for readability: make sure your sentences aren’t too long.
Step 3: Focus on the paragraphs
If you approve the sentences in a paragraph, look at the structure inside the section. Does the first introductory sentence reflect what you wanted to say in this particular paragraph? Suggestions in the paragraph presented in a logical order? Do you use transitive words to make a connection between sentences?
Step 4: Check the text structure
Make sure the structure between the paragraphs followed. Are the topics in your article presented logically, or do you need to make some changes?
You should also check the headings and subheadings. Make sure there is a keyword in one of these headings and subheadings. But it is equally vital that the headlines help readers understand the structure of your text.
SEO copywriting is a whole process. Although not everyone is a writer, writing SEO articles comes with practice. Remember this.