What is SEO?

SEO is a marketing technique that utilizes the content of your webpages to effectively enhance your online presence.

You need to research the keywords that are being searched for most often, narrow down the ones you want to use and implement them into your content. When Google is ranking websites for search results, they’ll rank your content depending on your keyword usage and the relevance of your content.

Understanding Copywriting

Proper copywriting is designed to engage the reader enough to take up a call to action, whether it’s buying something, registering for an email list, or any other action.

Copywriters have a deep understanding of the topic and the audience they’re writing to, and are able to create a connection that drives readers to act. They should also have a good grasp on the things Google will be looking for in their content.

6 SEO Copywriting Techniques

There are six different elements of SEO copywriting that, when properly executed, can help you move up higher in the Google rankings while also increasing your conversion rate.

1. Cater to Short Attention Spans

People generally have terribly short attention spans. Catering to this short attention span can help you increase your conversion rates, simply by ensuring your site speed is as fast as possible, and your copy is easy to read. Nearly half of people will leave your website if it takes just 3 seconds to fully load.

Do a quick check of how long your page is taking to load, and if it’s more than 2 seconds, take steps to improve that time. Also, check to make sure that every word in your copy is doing a job, and that it’s not bloated.

Just this simple step can help increase your conversions, because you aren’t having people abandon your website before they even get started with it.

2. Spend More Time Writing Headlines

It’s been shown that readers are five times more likely to read the headline than to read the body of text. For this reason, you’ve got to put a tremendous amount of thought, consideration and effort into the creation of your headline.

If you’ve got amazing copy, but your headline is lacking, you could be letting that copy go to waste without readers actually clicking on it and reading it.

Bloggers generally spend more than half of their time and effort on content marketing–that is, creating content, tracking analytics and monitoring customer reactions.

So, if you’re spending that much time on one aspect of your business, you want to get the biggest return on your investment as possible.

Determine which keywords your audience is searching for using this Free Keyword Tool and incorporate those words into your headline.

One great way to attract attention with your headline is to use a number in it. Whether it’s the ‘Top 10′ or ’20 ways to…’, numbers in a headline imply that there’s some sort of comprehensive list involved, which readers inherently love.

If you think you’re doing a great job, but your competition still manages to out-rank you, Ahrefs can provide you with some insight into why this is happening.

Another great tool for writing headlines is the headline analyzer from CoSchedule. It’s free, and it helps you choose the right words to garner interest in your topic.

3. Consistently Create Useful Content

The reason content is so important, both to the reader and to Google, is that both are looking for fresh, new and informative content.

This means you’ve got to constantly be updating and adding new content. And, your content has to be optimized with the keywords you’ve selected and synonyms throughout, as well as in the headline.

A blog post should be about 1000 words in length, but it needs to have more than just the right number of words. It’s got to be useful to readers and answer a question or solve a problem.

If you’re using WordPress, and we highly suggest it for its flexibility in situations like this, you can install an SEO plugin that will help you keep track of keywords, post length, and other SEO markup attributes in your content. Try the Yoast SEO plugin—it’s free and very effective.

Once you get past the headline, you’ve got to have great content in order to keep your readers interested.

You won’t want to go through all of the trouble of putting together a killer headline, only to have them disappointed with what they’re reading and leave. Ensure your content is useful as well as engaging for your readers, and for Google, make sure you’re keeping things constantly updated.

If you’re too busy with other aspects of your business to be constantly staying on top of content creation, you can look for freelancer writers for professionally written, original, and engaging content through MOJO Marketplace Professional Services or Academized.

You’ll also want to ensure your content sounds like it’s coming from a knowledgeable and reliable source, by making sure it’s free of spelling, grammar and other written errors. A comprehensive list of helpful writing resources can be found over at State of Writing.

4. Answer Questions with Your Meta Descriptions

Meta descriptions are the words used to provide Google with a detailed explanation about the content of your page, and help with rankings.

Within the HTML code, meta descriptions are enclosed within the <head> section of your website and will ultimately determine your click-through rate from a search engine results page, or SERP, regardless of your ranking in Google. Keep your meta descriptions between 150 and 160 characters for best results. (Yoast SEO also lets you define meta descriptions and telld you know when they’re too long).

Understanding keyword intent is the first step towards creating meta descriptions that make Google and your readers happy. When it comes to your readers, you need to be aware of what they’re actually looking for when they type in their searches.

When you’re writing your meta descriptions, you either want to ask a question or state the obvious. Here is an example of each for the same subject:

Question: Looking for a quick method to train your dog? Have him listening to you by the weekend.

Obvious: Many dog owners give up training their dog because of ineffective and difficult methods. All you need is three days and this easy to follow course.

5. Keyword Frequency

Depending on how long your content is, you’ll be using keywords with varying levels of frequency.

Throughout your content, you’re going to want to include keywords that allow Google to recognize and rank your content, making it easier for readers to find you. There’s a tendency to want to go overboard with keyword usage, but that will only send up red flags over at Google, and it will likely make your content sound unnatural.

If something doesn’t flow well and isn’t an easy read, you’ll quickly have readers dropping off. A Keyword Density Checker is the best way to make sure you’re staying within a reasonable limit of keyword usage.

Generally, a keyword density rate higher than about 5.5% is considered keyword stuffing, so you will want to stay below this number.

6. Provide Useful Links in Your Content

For someone who is curious about a certain topic, and wants to learn more, links to more resources are a welcome find on your website.

It can quickly help them connect to other relevant sources of information, without having to do any additional searching. And, for Google, links are held in high regard, because they show your willingness to connect information to readers and make it more readily available. It makes you look professional and gives your readers the resource information they need to find what they’re looking for.

Get backlinks auditing and analytics, as well as the other components of a complete workflow, through SEMrush, which acts as your all-in-one marketing toolkit.

Let Your Voice Be Heard through Your Writing

Although you may have many great things to say, if you sound like everyone else you’ll just blend into the crowd. Make yourself and your brand voice heard by differentiating your voice from the rest.

There’s a reason why your readers come to you–because they like what you’re saying and how you say it. Whether it’s approaching a subject from a no-nonsense perspective, or taking aim at it through a more comedic approach, your readers will keep coming back if they see you as different from the rest.

Find your brand voice and then let it be heard. All of your content should be written and delivered in the same, consistent tone so that readers will know it’s from you, without even having to look.

But, no matter what you’ve got to say or the voice you use, it can’t be rambling and lengthy, because readers won’t stick around. They want to be told in a straightforward way what they want to hear. Easy Word Count will help you stay within those word limitations, so you don’t end up rambling on endlessly.

You need to find the balance in your SEO copywriting that satisfies both your readers and Google. Both will be looking for different things from your writing, so you have to incorporate what both need to keep your readers happy and coming back for more.

Bookmark this page and use these tips to help get your SEO copywriting on track, and watch your rankings and visitors continue to rise.