Content is the driving engine of any search engine optimization or SEO campaign, as it defines the success of a website in numerous ways. SEO copywriting is one form of content marketing which deals with the technique of crafting your site’s content in such a manner that it entices both humans and the search engine crawlers and algorithms. The process incorporates the implementation of keywords in a natural manner with the intention of making it highly readable and appealing to the readers so that they spend some time on your website by scrolling down further.
Although it might sound an easy operation, one of the important aspects of SEO copywriting is to follow certain guidelines and ethics laid out by Google so that it does not earn you a penalty. With that being said, here are some of the universal and best SEO copywriting practices that work almost for every business website:
Know Your Audience First
Starting copywriting means that you should understand the theme of the content, which can be only deciphered once you acknowledge your niche. Now, in order to understand your niche, you will have to learn and be mindful of the buyer persona. You can learn about the buyer persona by conducting a secondary market research. With a good knowledge of buyer persona, you can utilize a handful of information while copywriting such as the age, gender, pain points, hobbies and interests of your target audience. Knowing your audience is crucially important because it helps in learning the needs and wants of people you are addressing to while driving them to take the desired action.
Use Catchy Headlines
Crafting quirky pieces of headlines is extremely critical while copywriting for website. It helps you in driving higher user engagement with more clicks, likes, and shares, all of which leads to greater sales and higher ROI. When it comes to creating compelling headlines, the first thing that you need to consider is including a number in your headline. Phrases with numbers are known to get more clicks in the search engine results pages or SERPs. Secondly, consider keeping the word limit of your headline within twelve to eighteen words in order to receive the highest number of engagement possible.
Proffer an Appealing Introduction
As per an online survey, around eighty percent of the audience will read the headline that you have provided, but only twenty percent of the people will carry on reading the rest of the content. Hence, if you have provided an enticing headline that catches the attention of the masses, there is still a lot to do in order to make the viewers read the whole article. This is where outlining a compelling intro comes in handy which will leave the readers wanting more and ensuring that they do not skip the article simply after reading the headline. Avoid writing a vague, unclear or long intro that will force the readers to skip the content. Make sure that the intro you craft should end with a preview of the rest of the article so that the readers keep on scrolling down and reading further.
Outline Your Content with Compelling Headlines
In case you are not aware of the importance of section titles or sub-headlines, they serve as the effective tool to break your long pieces of content. Section headings are well known for keeping the readers engaged on the page that results in the increase in your rankings ultimately. Another thing that you should be mindful of while crafting and breaking your content is to make the subheadings quirky and catchy.
Leverage Compelling Phrases
Using compelling and attention-grabbing phrases are really necessary in order to make the copywriting highly readable and shareable. These phrases are often termed as “bucket brigades” by professional content marketers, which mean advertising your content in a form of hierarchy that will keep your audience looking for more. With such compelling phrases and sentences, you can ensure turning your page into a slippery slide that will persuade the viewer to keep on reading the next line of your content in order to get more context of your post. These kinds of phrases or bucket brigades help in increasing the time that readers spend on your page, which helps the major search engines such as Google to rank your website better on the SERPs.
Integrate Visuals to Draw the Eye
Even though providing media in your content is not exactly a part of the copywriting process, it is still very important when it comes to search engine optimization copywriting. The reason behind such demand of media in SEO is that visuals are known for drawing your audience’s eye to the takeaways and key points much better than the text format while keeping them engaged with the post for a longer period of time. Apart from that, inserting high-quality visuals in your copywriting can also aid you in ranking better on the Google image search. However, be thoughtful of the fact that you are inserting a proper file name using primary keywords along with proper alt text and heading on your images. Finally, keep the page loading speed of your site in mind and compress the images accordingly. You can take help of certain free online tools for that and ensure that your page does not lag due to high-resolution images.
Work on Your Site’s Design
Likewise, images, the overall design of your site should be lag-free which means that you should work on making your site highly responsive in order to earn the trust of your content readers. When it comes to focusing on design keeping SEO copywriting in mind, it means emphasizing on a well-formatted content with the minimally sized font for easy reading on screens. Furthermore, make sure that there is no stuffing with adequate white space, and use a font that promotes good readability.
Conclusion
Finally, these are the crucial nooks and crannies of SEO copywriting that can be of great help to your overall online marketing. Adhere to these guidelines and experience the improvement in user engagement and overall web rankings.
