5 Copy Writing Tips to Increase Your SEO
Write great content that both readers and search engines will love.
You’ve taken the time to write a blog (great job!), but will it really help your online visibility and SEO? Will search engines think it’s as a great as you do?
Here are the top 5 tricks for writing content to improve your SEO.
SEO copy writing is the art form of creating content that is easily recognized by search engines and ranks well with them. It is fairly easy to do with a little practice and knowing the do’s and don’ts.
Content creation is an excellent way to generate valuable online web traffic without spending a small fortune on paid advertising. Plus, it engages your audience much more effectively and consistently than paid ads will.
You see, it’s not all about just high rankings and traffic. It is a common mistake to only be after higher rankings. Writing SEO content is about engaging your audience, building trust, establishing your authority on the subject and having readers take the next step (buying your product, signing up for your email list, scheduling an appointment or whatever call to action is the next step).
After all, what is the purpose of driving reads to your articles if they don’t serve a purpose?
With a little skill, you can please both your readers and the search engines. Here are 5 of the top copy writing tips to include in everything you publish.
1) Pick Your Audience
Knowing exactly whom you are writing for is paramount. Your article won’t be effective if you’re saying the wrong thing to the readers. Think about if I walked into a car show and started talking about cooking.
Your content will never create engagement or rank well if it isn’t interesting to your audience. It must appeal to a particular audience or consumer. Your articles are essentially conversations with your readers. They need to be about what those readers care about, and interested in enough to cause a reaction.
Take the time to do your research. Keyword research is a great place to start and combine that with demographic research. Pick out popular search words that apply to your product or article, as well as your audience.
When you start writing, keep that image in mind for who your reader will be. If you were standing in front of them, what would you say? How would you say it? This is the same writing style you need to put into that article.
If you have multiple demographics and audience (hint: you do), then write multiple articles that speak to each one. The topic can be similar, but make sure it’s personalized for everyone.
2) Create Irresistible Headlines
Magnetic, well-thought-out headlines get your article read; simple as that. They are critical for attracting attention and creating the right introduction for your content. A well written headline stands out and makes an irresistible first impression, readers can’t pass up.
Search engines are on the lookout for click bait, and can find it by the short page visit duration and high bounce rate. People click on this ad expecting one story, and get a completely different one. They click off the page within seconds, and that effort and money is wasted.
Write personalized, specific, accurate and creative headlines. It’s great to create a curiosity with your readers, but make sure your article supports the headline.
The more specific you can make it the better. This comes back to knowing your audience. Address who you’re writing it for in the headline.
You clicked on our headline wanting to know 5 ways to write content that will improve your SEO. It’s specific, clear, focused and we give you exactly what you’re expecting.
3) More or Less Content May Work Better
Experiment with the length of your articles. Your audience may prefer shorter posts, or they may prefer longer content. Play around with what works better for your audience.
Does longer content rank better with search engines? It sure does! So make sure to consistently mix in longer articles (1,500+) into your arsenal. Longer posts also allow you to provide more valuable information to readers, and helps further establish your authority.
Monitor your content analytics (open rate, CTR, time on page) and see what your audience responds too better. With a little split testing you’ll have the perfect content combination dialed in.
4) Use Power Words
Great copywriters know how to effectively use “power words” in their content in order to evoke emotion from the readers. These are bold action words that stand out your audience.
You can find a list of the 317 best power words here.
Power words will connect more effectively with your reader, and create a deeper engagement. Once you’ve made those emotional connections, readers are much more likely to 1) remember your content, 2) remember your brand, and 3) take action after reading your article.
Power words also compliment key words very nicely, and stand out to search engines. Always pepper your articles with power words.
5) Forget Keyword Density, Speak LSI
Huh? The days of cramming as many keywords into your content for SEO results are gone. Search engines are past that game and it doesn’t help you get ranked any higher.
All it will do is make it completely obvious to readers the real purpose of your article, versus actually providing something valuable to them.
Rather than focusing on keyword density, your goal should be writing in LSI. LSI stands for Latent Semantic Indexing; we’ll stick to calling it LSI.
Your brain is about to check out, so forget all the technical implications. LSI is quickly becoming one of the most important factors in SEO.
Essentially, search engines determine what they think your content means in order to deliver the best search results. Search engines are looking for meaning in your content (scary!).
They look way beyond simple keywords now, and will establish synonyms or even full paragraph meanings. Use related keywords, synonyms, and grammatical variations.
Not only will it make your content more interesting to us human readers, but will also greatly improve your appeal to search engines.
The good news is that it’s not difficult to start using these 5 tips. They’re actually pretty easy. With a little practice you’ll be incorporating each of these into your articles, and starting to see increased engagement with readers. You’ll also start to notice increased search rankings and improved SEO results.
Good luck and keep the great content flowing!
To learn more of the latest SEO and digital marketing tips, check out the rest of our blogs at Uproar Group.
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About The Author:
Chad Reinertson is CEO and co-founder of Uproar Group, a digital marketing firm located in Portland, OR. Specializing in online marketing, he leads a team of professional email, social, web and content marketers. He is a graduate of Westminster College, where he received his MBA in 2012.
He has published two business guides 5-Hour MBA and Don’t Start Your Own Business to help entrepreneurs and small business owners build profitable companies.
Chad is an avid outdoors man and enjoys skiing, mountain biking, surfing, hiking and camping throughout the American west.