SEO copywriting is the practice of writing web copy that answers a search engine user's query. SEO writers use keyword and user research to do this and to help ensure the content gets found online. Like traditional copywriting, it aims to be informative and entertaining for readers.

Search Engine Optimisation is a huge topic. There are more than 200 factors that determine where a web page will appear in the search engine results pages (SERPs).

Some of these factors are technical, like the speed of your website. Others look at the words on the page and how they're structured. This is where SEO copywriting comes in.

Let's look at some of the most important things to remember when writing for SEO:

• Why you need your technical SEO sorted first

• The essential structural elements of SEO

• Keyword research and user intent

• The golden rule of SEO copywriting

Technical SEO is different to SEO copywriting

Putting great SEO web copy on a poorly-built website is like filling a ’88 Toyota Corolla with high-octane fuel. It won’t get you any further or faster.

Technical SEO is your backend stuff. It’s about tuning up the nuts and bolts of your website’s “engine” to ensure it runs as efficiently as possible.

Your website should be fast to load and respond. It needs to be easy to use on a mobile. It should be secure.

These elements (and many more) are part of technical SEO.

SEO copywriting is the stuff you can (mostly) see. It’s the words on the page, as well as elements like how the content is structured, the page title, meta description and headers.

Technical SEO and SEO copywriting are different skill sets. I might cop some flak from web developers here, but I think technical SEO is more logic-based, more black and white, than copywriting. You either have it right or you don't.

Writing is a creative endeavour. It’s a balance of language, culture, creativity and psychology. While there are some logical aspects, a lot of it is on a tricky-to-define scale of Meh to Wow!

Essential structural elements of SEO copywriting

Structure is paramount in writing for SEO. Your content needs to be easy for humans and search engine bots to read and understand.

One way to do this is by using the different elements of a web page efficiently.

Some of these important elements are:

Title

The title of the webpage. Ideally, this is a short and sweet title that sums up what the page is about, using a focus keyword.

Meta description

A (roughly) 155 character description that appears beneath the title in the SERPs. It’s not actually a ranking factor, but this is often a Google user’s first glimpse of your website. Entice people to click through to your site with this copy.

H1

Your first heading. Some people get their H1 and title mixed up or leave them the same. Your H1 can be a bit longer and more fun than your page title. That said, it should still clearly indicate what the content is about. There should only be one H1 per page.

H2 – H6

The other headings. You can have multiple H2s, H3s etc. They’re often styled differently, so you can use these to have fun with how your content appears on the page. It’s also an indication to bots (and readers) of what’s important. H1 is your most important, H2 less so… and so on. I rarely go beyond H4.

Image Alt

Images should have an appropriate file name and alt description (sometimes called an alt tag). Screen reading tools use this text to describe images to visually impaired readers. It can also be crawled by search engines. This is not an opportunity to keyword stuff. Let me repeat that: don’t fill your image alts with keywords. Keep it logical and if a keyword naturally fits, add it in.

Keywords

Keywords have long been a hot topic in SEO copywriting. But you shouldn’t obsess over them.

Keywords are the words and phrases that searchers type into search engines. ‘Search queries’ are another common term for this.

Through keyword research, you can discover what people are searching for. SEO specialists, including copywriters, might use tools like Moz and Ahrefs to help them do this. But you can also discover valuable information by playing around on Google.

Think of it as market research. You want to find out what your potential customers are searching for. What do they want? What words are they using to find what they want?

Use keywords to focus your content on a topic that’s interesting to your target audience.

Choosing which keywords to target depends on:

• The level of competition

• How relevant it is to you

• The search volume

A good keyword or search query to target has:

• Low competition

• High relevancy to your business

• High search volume

Don’t stuff your copy with keywords. Writing ‘locally roasted coffee beans’ over and over and over makes for ugly, unreadable copy.

Remember those 200+ SEO ranking factors I mentioned earlier? Several of them are related to how readable and engaging your content is. This brings me nicely to…

The golden rule of writing for search engine optimisation

Write for humans.

Yep, that’s it. I really believe it is this simple.

The whole purpose of SEO copywriting is to get found online and to share whatever it is you have to say.

The algorithms that people so often worry about are designed by humans to serve humans.

Things that irritate humans (slow websites, irrelevant and spammy content) are bad for SEO.

Things that serve us (webpages that are easy to use and relevant content that answers the user’s search query) are good for SEO.

If you get a lot of this right, your website should be easy for your potential customers to find. The figures vary, but some say websites on the first page of results garner more than 90% of the click-throughs. That’s why some SEOers joke that the best place to hide is on the second page of Google.

Great SEO copywriting will help you get on that first page and turn readers into customers.

Need a hand with that?

Get in touch.