Wondering what SEO copywriting is — and if it’s important for your site?
SEO copywriting is a specialized form of online writing that:
- Contains keyphrases — words your target reader types into a search box to find the information she wants.
- Helps online content rank higher in search results (such as Google.)
- Drives qualified traffic.1
SEO copywriting is quality writing. Period. The keyphrases shouldn’t make the writing hard-to-read, sound repetitive, or lose its conversion focus.3
Want to learn more about the definition of SEO copywriting?
How is SEO writing different from traditional copywriting?
The main difference is: SEO writing contains keyphrases. For instance [blue cashmere sweaters] is a keyphrase.
Typing keyphrases into Google is what we do every day, right? We type words into Google’s search box to get answers to our questions.
But the thing is, SEO copywriting is much more than just inserting keyphrases into content: Google also wants to see authoritative content that fully answers your readers’ questions and stands out from competing content.
Some people believe you can shove a bunch of keyphrases into the content and still get a high ranking (commonly known as “keyphrase stuffing.”)
Not anymore.
SEO copywriting serves two masters
Google has gotten smarter, and things have changed. Now your content needs to be high-quality content for Google to position it in the top spots.
So in actuality, your content satisfies two masters.
On the one hand, your readers need to love it. Your content needs to be relevant and a resource your readers enjoy — something that educates, entertains or enlightens them.
On the other hand, Google needs to see the content written in a certain way to understand what the page is about. Understanding how to make this happen helps your content “compete” with other pages for rankings.
This is where SEO copywriting best practices come into play.
What helps content rank in search results?
There are many factors that influence search engine rank (how a page positions in Google’s search results.)
If you look at the periodic table (which you can find on Search Engine Land), you’ll see that most of the elements on the left-hand side focus on the quality of the content.
The research, the words and the freshness of content are all important to your SEO success.
So if you’re concerned that…
- Your pages aren’t showing in Google
- Your pages aren’t converting
- Your content is outdated and you never really liked it, anyway
- Your content was never optimized, and now you think it is time to do so
The good news is that SEO copywriting could represent a huge opportunity for you!
After all, as Seth Godin said, “The best SEO is great content.”
If you can create content that grabs your readers attention, answers their questions and drives incoming links, you can finally start seeing some tasty search engine positions.
And that is a very cool thing.