With continuous practice and effort, you will gradually master this way of writing and increase the value of your content.
Let’s get to it!
Why is it useful to know SEO copywriting?
The first thing I would like to explain is what exactly we mean by SEO copywriting.
SEO copywriting is the writing of SEO-oriented content, that is, while you are writing you have that goal in mind, apart from the usual ones of offering information, selling a product, promoting a service…
That is why it is also important to distinguish SEO copywriting from Copywriting.
SEO copywriting seeks to position
Copywriting seeks to persuade.
And when you combine both techniques, you get really powerful texts. But we’ll talk about that later.
The main benefit of SEO copywriting is that it allows you to write texts to rank in Google and other search engines, so if you master this technique, you will get a great advantage over your competitors.
This also means that, if you are a professional copywriter or you are on the way to making it your way of life, you will be able to offer a plus in your texts thanks to SEO copywriting and, therefore, charge more.
SEO copywriting is a small step up from regular content writing and that is why it is becoming more and more valued in professional environments and also by webmasters looking for someone to write texts for their website.
However, before you get there, you will have to practice and check that you are really capable of writing texts that rank through SEO copywriting.
What I mean, reader, is that you cannot “become” an SEO copywriter overnight, but you will have to apply different techniques, practice and measure results to be able to present yourself as such.
I myself have been writing and practicing for years to learn everything I know now, because at that time we copywriters did not have information as accessible as it is today.
Let’s see what are the steps you should follow to write texts that rank.
Step by step in SEO copywriting
Before I start explaining which is the way you should follow, I must insist that you don’t need to be an SEO expert to apply these steps.
You just need to understand some basic concepts and apply them to your writing in the way I am going to tell you so that you can orient your content towards SEO and start positioning.
When I started to take my first steps as a copywriter I would have liked to have had a SEO copywriting course to have learned these factors from the very beginning.
Not only would it have allowed me to charge more for my services, but my first texts would have gained in visibility.
Therefore, I want to share with you in this post the main things you should know to get involved in SEO copywriting and help you improve your texts.
Keyword research
Every SEO action should start with a keyword research and in the field of SEO copywriting this is also the case. It consists of doing a keyword search to find out where you are going to target your text.
All you have to do is use your usual keyword research tool, enter the keyword of your interest and take note of the results.
You don’t have to use absolutely all the keywords suggested by the tool: choose the ones that are related to the content you are going to write and also look at the ones that have a certain volume of searches.
Pay special attention to long tail keywords, i.e. keywords made up of at least three words.
Although you will see that they have a lower volume of searches in most cases, they are also easier to position because there is less competition.
For example, if you try to position texts using the keyword “small dogs” you will have more difficulties than if you go for “small short-haired dogs”, for example.
Once you have your list of keywords, you should include them in the text but do not overuse them as this would take away the naturalness of the text, something that the reader will perceive and that could make him leave the page.
Confirm the search intent
This is the point you have to be clear about from the very beginning: what is the user looking for?
Your job is to give them what they want, and to do that you have to be sure of what it is.
Although it may seem obvious, it is easier than you think to deviate from what the user is really demanding.
One way to detect what the user wants is to ask yourself why they are looking for something. Do they want information? Do they need to buy something? Are they looking for something very specific?
Be careful, reader! Searching for information about different types of sunglasses is not the same as searching for where to buy sunglasses.
Although both searches focus on sunglasses, the user’s intent is not the same.
There are five types of search intent:
Informational. The user searches for information about a topic. For example, what do rats eat, what is polyester made of, what year did a war start?
Navigational. The user knows what website he wants to go to but prefers to Google the name instead of typing the URL. For example, he searches for “Zara t-shirts” in Google to click on the URL in the search results.
Commercial. The user is thinking about buying something but needs information about it. For example, which are the best tennis rackets, the best hairdresser in Valladolid, comparisons between brands of moisturizing cream…
Transactional. The user already knows what he wants to buy so he searches directly with that intention in mind. Their searches are “buy turtleneck sweater”, “price of leather shoes”, “cheap soccer balls”…
Local. The user is looking for a specific geographic location. For example, they want to know how to get to a certain place or the street where a restaurant or any business is located.
You should not mix different search intentions in the same content because Google will not know how to catalog it and you will not be able to position that text correctly.
That is why it is so important to learn to distinguish what the user intends to obtain with his search.
For example, if the search intent is “what does the African lion eat”, it doesn’t make much sense to explain the habits of the African lion in that content, even if you talk about what it eats.
You can also find your way around thanks to Google’s search results.
After entering the keyword, you will see which websites the search engine is positioning: those are the ones that, at least in principle, are satisfying the search intention.
Focus on offering the user what he is looking for and he will not have to go elsewhere.
Elaborate the structure of the post
A well-structured text is a text that is well understood and comfortable to read.
In addition, creating a proper structure of your content will help the user to know at a glance what he is going to find and will also be a guide for Google robots.
This will favor the positioning of your content as long as you execute it in the right way.
Generally the structure of a post is elaborated using the titles or headings H1, H2 and H3, although if the text requires it you can place even more levels down.
These titles follow a hierarchy that you must respect as you structure your text.
That is, if you put as H2 “Parts of a car engine”, it would be logical if you place these different parts as H3, for example.
You should include the keyword in H1, since it is the main heading of your content, and for the same reason it should clearly reflect the search intent.
After that, you can add the keyword some more times in the rest of the headings, but without abusing it and always keeping it natural.
Try to include in these headings words with semantic relation to the topic you are writing about and also synonyms of the main keyword.
Check semantics, grammar and spelling.
It is essential that your text has perfect grammar and spelling. You may be wondering what this has to do with SEO.
Well: user experience is directly related to SEO.
If a user comes across sloppy content with spelling mistakes and grammatical errors, he will most likely not come back.
Google will notice this and will gradually lower your rankings because it will interpret that your content is not to the user’s liking.
Being a copywriter, it is very likely that you will not make spelling mistakes and that you will take care of your grammar, but I still recommend you to check your content more than once before finishing it.
Typos are very frequent, especially when you write fast, and some of them are not detected by the proofreaders of word processors, which you can’t trust 100%.
Believe me: a single mistake that you may have missed by rushing or even not proofreading can cost you a client and a dent in your reputation as an SEO copywriter.
As for semantics, use it to be able to offer a text with a rich vocabulary to your users and also so that Google has a context of your content.
The search engine is able to recognize groups of words related to the same subject, so the more varied the semantics of your texts, the better it will understand their meaning.
That is, if you are writing a content around the keyword “chocolate cake recipe”, it is normal that terms related to it appear in it, such as, in this case, chocolate, flour, eggs, sugar, melt the chocolate, decorate the cake, etc…
