Response-Driven Copywriting Written for Humans First, Search Engines Second
Paid advertising is fast, and easily scalable. But you will almost certainly benefit more from being “found” in the organic (not paid-for) Google search results.
For one thing, customers often overlook the paid results, finding the organic results more trust-worthy. So a lot of users scroll past all the sponsored results until they come to a result they believe is there “on its own merits”.
If you rank well on Google, you can expect more visitors – and as a bonus, they’ll likely trust you more than they would if they simply clicked on an advert.
So, what is SEO Copywriting, anyway?
SEO Copywriting is writing that follows the best practices of search engine optimisation. It uses keywords – the search terms that customers use – in a strategic way to make it clear to Google what the page is actually about.
It will include LSI (Latent Semantic Index) keywords – in laymans terms, related words and phrases you’d expect to find in a quality article.
I generally include related queries within the text. An example-
Say we were trying to rank for the search term “is it cheaper to brew your own beer”. Then I would consider adding some of Google’s suggested related queries, such as:
best way to brew your own beer
brewing cost calculator
is home brewing worth it
how much does it cost to brew beer
how much does it cost to brew beer commercially
is it difficult to brew your own beer
where can i go to make my own beer
how long does it take to brew beer
To be clear, none of this guarantees that your site will be found in Google or any of the other search engines. But it does mean that your content will not be actively conspiring against you.
In most industries, you’ll find ranking in Google is very competitive, so be ready to do some outreach, and garner some links to your content to give it its best chance.
SEO Copywriting should also not be confused with SEO content writing, which typically produces low-quality outsourced articles that give even spam a bad name. In contrast, SEO Copywriting follows the principles of direct response writing – its purpose once found on Google, is to get some form of action from the reader, whether it be to buy, sign-up, or download a lead magnet.
You can expect decent SEO copywriting to have strong headlines and an easy, flowing writing style; you can expect it to arouse emotions, and it will always have a call-to-action, however subtle.
SEO copywriting should always be written for humans first, and search engines second. What’s the point, otherwise?
Any good SEO Copywriter will be able to do some rudimentary keyword research, and will be able to tell you if your expectations to rank for a certain search term are reasonable, or insane.
If you work with me, I will help you decide upon sensible keyword strategies, and give you the very best chance of visibility on Google, while writing in such a way as to help turn your readers into customers.
Contact me and see if we’re a good fit.