seo copywriting
SEO guidelines for content writers
Online content writers often have to write “seo content” that can help their clients achieve higher search engine rankings. Is there really some difference between regular content and SEO content? It depends on how you want to define your writing, and what you need to attain as a professional online copywriter or content writer. Almost every (almost every seems contradictory though) website owner wants higher search engine rankings to increase their visibility and get more targeted search engine traffic and they know their content can help them achieve that. So when they approach a content writer they want to know whether they can get SEO content that can help them improve their search engine rankings. You can write “normal” content and you can write seo content based on the kind of competition the website faces on search engines. If there isn’t much competition even regular content can bring your website to the first page of major search engines (I may quickly add that merely adding SEO content doesn’t get you lots of traffic — it depends on many external factors too). More competition means you really have to highlight your message. This is where SEO content writing guidelines become important. Here are a few.
Cover focused topics
Don’t try to cover everything under the sun on a single page. Search engines prefer focused pages, especially talking about a particular topic or phrase. So if you are creating a page on “social media services” then stick to the topic and let it be known to the search engines that you’re really talking on this subject. Similarly, if you are talking about SEO copywriting then deal with only this subject. It also satisfies people crazy about keyword density. When you talk about a topic you use its associated phrases and terms on your own without making an extra effort.
Page title, yes, again
One of the most important parts of your page is the title, the main heading. It must present to the search engines the most compelling reason to crawl and index that page (or blog post). Preferably, use the entire phrase you are targeting, in the title. You don’t have to use the words in the same order, but try to use them. No need to sound esoteric, no need to use puns. Take for example the title of this blog post. It says: SEO guidelines for content writers. It can also be written as “how to improve your search engine writing” or something else, but I want to talk to content writers who are looking for SEO guidelines.
Organize your content using the right tags
The search engines specifically look for the right words at particular locations. They check for you keywords in heading, sub-heading, bullet-ed lists and anchor texts (text that exists as a hyper link). This is because many people simply go through the headings and bullets to get a gist of your page. Keywords in hypertext are a good accessibility policy.
Of course this is not an SEO tips blog post so I’m not going to talk about the changes in the source code; my main focus here is the text — how you can organize the text in order to SEOmize it.
And what about the keyword density?
There is no magical formula actually. Use the keywords wherever they seem appropriate, and wherever their appearance seems unnatural, don’t use them. If you are really hung up on using some sort of percentage, just use your phrase in the first paragraph, in one or two headings, in the bullet list at least once, and if you can manage, as a hyper text. Then use it in the last sentence but it’s not necessary.
SEO copywriting – what it really means
I was just going through this interesting blog post titled SEO Copywriting is dead! Here’s Proof…. I often come across articles and blog posts bashing up terminologies and work-related phrases. For instance recently I came across a report that tried to prove that outsourcing could be disastrous for your work, despite the fact that more and more work is being outsourced to save time and money. Anyway, since I provide SEO copywriting services I thought I should write a quick post on what SEO copywriting actually means and what are its benefits.
So what exactly is SEO copywriting?
It is definitely not repeating keywords and key phrases umpteen times, as many clients mistakenly understand. As I’ve previous explained in a blog post titled SEO tips you should know as an online copywriter, every well-written copy that properly handles the topic can qualify as an SEO copy.
Keywords? Yes, they are important, and if you totally ignore them in your copy, then definitely the search engines are going to find it difficult to rank it well for those keywords. For example, if I want to optimize this blog post for SEO copywriting, but I write about SEO content writing and SEO writing, then definitely the search engines will not show this blog post when people search for SEO copywriting. That is why it is very important that when you’re writing about a subject on a particular page or blog post, stick to it. If I want to get traffic for SEO copywriting, then I should better focus on this particular phrase, rather than trying to be esoteric and cryptic.
SEO copywriting involves writing the copy in such a manner that it judiciously talks about the subject, while taking care that the keyword or the key phrase appears sufficient number of times, at appropriate places, without sounding silly or repetitive. There is no point getting the first position on Google by creating content that means nothing to your visitors.
Does SEO copywriting improve your search engine rankings?
It definitely should. Even if you don’t immediately improve your search engine rankings (it depends on lots of factors, not just the copy), it is a step in the right direction. It’s like, if you require n steps to reach B from A, then a well-written page by an experienced SEO copywriter definitely makes the number of needed steps n-1.
Does SEO copywriting improve your conversion rate?
The underlying rationale behind every copywriting exercise, ultimately, is to improve your conversion rate. Your search engine rankings shouldn’t be improved at the cost of your conversion rate. In fact this is why good SEO copywriters are in such a great demand: they are copywriters in the conventional sense, and they also create you copy that improves your search engine rankings.
SEO copywriting may not bring you instant results, but it is indisputably the focal point of your SEO effort. Nothing precedes it. No amount of tweaking and hacking is going to give you lasting results. Once you obtain decent rankings through proper, legitimate SEO copywriting, no amount of search engine algorithmic changes are going to be able to take that away from you.
