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A Step-By-Step Guide on SEO Copywriting
SEO Strategy

A Step-By-Step Guide on SEO Copywriting

By Mainak Biswas October 24, 2014 - 1,675 views

As a marketer, you cannot afford to lose the customer who visits your website and does not bother to purchase from it. The obvious reason for this failure is that your website lacks compelling content for the target audience. It does not matter how good the quality of your content is. If it is not valuable and relevant to the target audience, the content posted goes wasted. Market your content in such a manner that it goes well down the throats of your visitors. The whole idea behind SEO copywriting is that the visitors get impressed with the quality of the content on your blog, website or e-store and they are more likely to become your customers in future.

What is SEO Copywriting?

SEO Copywriting is an art of writing quality content with relevant keywords with a dual focus on target audience and search engine friendliness. The basic job of the search engine is to display the best and relevant results. However, one must remember not to stuff keywords unnecessarily as the search engine crawlers discard dubiously written content. SEO Copywriting adeptly presents the product offerings thereby pushing sales and click-through-rate. Write your content with conviction and aim to be on the front page of Google. This article will provide you a step-by-step guide on SEO Copywriting.

Keep your writing focused

Though you have to optimize your content for search engines, do remember that it is actually meant for human beings. Do not digress from the topic. Add valuable content that enlightens the readers. Keep your content tightly focused on the topic and the relevant keywords. Usually, very brief content is not substantiated by the crawlers. Keep the length of your content long enough generally above 300 words to get eminence from search engines.

Keyword Research

Keyword research is pivotal to the SEO Copywriting process as it broadens your horizon to understand customers’ preferences. The right set of keywords will increase conversion rate of your website which is your priority.

What should you do to optimize keyword research?

  1. How valuable is your keyword?As a matter of fact, customers use different words while searching for the same product. You need to find out what keyword is more often used. This will help you to narrow down your keyword list and optimize your content against those keywords.

    How can you achieve that?

    • Take a pen and paper and jot down the keywords which you think are most likely to be used by the visitors
    • Type those keywords/phrases in the search engine and see what results are displayed
    • Use Google Analytics to find out what keywords led the user to your website and improve your keywords based on the test results.
  2. Should you focus more on the long-tail of keywords?The answer is yes. Why? Because 70% search on the engine is headed by unique phrases. This clearly shows how important it is for you to be specific with your content. The content should be such that answers your prospects’ question. For example if they want to know “How to increase the battery life of your phone?” then your mobile-phone oriented e-store should be able to answer that question. Many website designers include FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) in their website to get more traffic on their website. And genuinely written answers drive the target audience to purchase the product from your e-store.
  3. What tools can you use?There are a variety of tools available like Google Adwords keyword tool, Google Insights for search, Google trends keyword demand prediction, Wordtracker’s Free Basic Keyword Demand. To find out how keyword-rich is your article, you can use SEO for WordPress if you are working on WordPress or use SEOmoz. Please note that keyword richness has nothing to do with keyword density.

Appropriate use of keywords

Now that you know the essentials of keyword research, start writing your content. And ensure that you use the keywords naturally. If your focus shifts toward increasing keyword density, then you start losing the quality of your content. Also, leading search engines use Latent Semantic Indexing to search for related keywords, synonyms and grammatical variations in your content. So, you don’t have to sound rhetoric yet appropriate.

Structure your content

Content structuring is important before you start writing your content. It gives a clear direction to the reader where your content is leading them. Avoid writing ostensibly if you want to get higher ranking in the search results. In-depth yet succinct content is not only liked by the visitors, it is SEO-friendly as well.

Optimize title tags

Ideal headlines are the ones that draw the attention of the viewers in SERP and are compelling enough to hit your website. Title tags are necessary to establish the relevance of your keywords. So, your title tags must contain keywords and your content must contain the most important keyword used in the title tag.

What are the requisites for an ideal title tag?

  • Keep it snappy and informative
  • Do not cram keywords in it
  • Use only one title tag on a page
  • Limit it to 70 characters including spaces

Know your competition

You must understand that you are not the only one to get your website visible in the SERP. There are many in the market trying to sell the same product as yours. Search your product by using the appropriate keywords and see what results appear in the front page. These are your competitors. Visit their website and find out how to improve your website. Put your thoughts in and do even better.

Optimize snippets

Snippets also known as meta-description is the vital information displayed below the title tags in the SERP. It is specifically written for every page on your website with relevant keywords so that the viewers get some information about the content on your page. It helps them to decide whether or not to visit your webpage. Snippets are usually limited to 150-160 characters and must contain at least one keyword phrase from the page.

Get your content noticed and shared through social media

Post the links of your website on different blogs and websites frequented by your target audience. Link all your social networking platforms like Google+, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc. Include social media links on all pages of your blog and website to allow the visitors to share content with their friends. Post and share your content in Google+ Circles.

The Author Mark flair added in Google+ not only highlights the website hosting your content but also gives a chance to the author to use copyrighted content to their benefit. They get prominence in the SERP with their name and image being displayed below the title tags. This is in turn is linked to their Google+ profile adding authenticity to the copyrighted content.

Creating a sitemap

Won’t you like a website which is intraconnected? Sitemap is a concept of building internal links between pages. It is a webpage that lists the links to all other pages in a website. It enables the search engine crawlers to navigate smoothly through your website. Another way of enhancing a sitemap is by adding text links to the body content of your home page. This allows the crawlers to catalogue all pages of your website which in turn raises visibility of your website.

Update your website on a regular basis

The frequency of the update depends on the dynamism of your product’s market and the target audience. The visitors need for new and refreshing content is on the rise. The web marketer must look into the interests of the target audience and optimize the content accordingly. Latest information posted on your website qualifies for higher ranking on search engines. Having a blog of your own, a news section on your website or a Twitter account are some of the mediums for posting up-to-the-minute information for your fans and followers.

Conclusion

SEO copywriting strengthens your position among your visitors who feel glad to check-in your website on a regular basis. Writing is a creative task and search engine algorithms are fast evolving to match the caliber of a human brain. Follow the above SEO copywriting guide to get higher ranking and ultimately higher conversion rates for your e-store. Besides that, do not be rigid in your approach. Keep experimenting with your ideas with useful tools like Google Analytics.

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