5 Point Plan for SEO Copywriting

As an SEO Copywriter I thought it would be worth writing about how to write good content for both the human audience and for the benefit of Search Engines.

We’ll look at the process of writing SEO content and what we need to do to make it readable by both parties and also make it worthy of remembering.

Before we start looking through each element of writing good copy I firstly want to reiterate the fact that “content is king!” you can optimize and market your content to within an inch of its life, but if your content is weak or spam, people are not going to read it, it is that simple.

Lesson 1: People buy products not Search Engines.

Many copywriters assume that all they have to do is produce optimized content with the relevant links and have a common keyword flowing through the article, the search engines will love it and in no time your article will be ranking bringing in more traffic than the M25. Sadly this is a common mistake and the copywriters have forgotten one small element, the reader! If it’s not worth reading people won’t!

Lesson 2: People are more important than positions.

Keyword Lists

Before we start we need a keyword list. Keyword lists are the go to point for any copywriter, you have a list of words that the client and yourselves have agreed to optimize for, and you should focus your writing on these words by doing the following: -

• Include the KW in Meta data relating to the article.
• Use the KW as anchor text (if necessary).
• Use the KW in Title or Headers.
• Use Google KW search tool to find KW suggestions or similarities.

Including your KW in relevant places allows search engines the opportunity to understand what the article is about, and what term the article is worth ranking for. Secondly the anchor text is a piece of information that search engines carry through to the linked site again further suggesting to search engines what the page/target page is all about.

Content Structure

If you have a good structure to your articles, people will want to read it and will be intrigued to find out what you are trying to say. If you keep your readers interested they are more likely to finish reading your article with a desire to act on the information you’ve just given them, more often than not to click on a relevant link on the page (one of yours!).

4 steps to article success!

1. Introduction
2. Body
3. Conclusion
4. Resource Box

The resource box is an increasingly valuable asset in article marketing. Some article submission sites allow little to no HTML within the article giving you the chance to place any HTML in the resource box at the end. Not only is this annoying to using article marketing as a form of link building, but secondly it highlights the importance of getting people to finish reading what you’ve written.

Lesson 3: Get people to read the next sentence

Headers

This for me is the most fascinating element of writing copy, and to be honest if you get this right, you’re already in a winning position. Many social bookmarking sites and article sites just show your title and a small and brief description of the article and what it’s all about.

Your Header needs to evoke action, it is the first opportunity to get people to look at your article, and you need something that gets people clicking. The title needs to be worthy of finding out more information otherwise you’re on the heap with the majority of other articles.

Lesson 4: Write a Compelling Title

Do research – use analytics and research to see what responses you get from your articles, what headlines have the most clicks? What anchor text works well? Which links do people click on?

You have the ability to track clicks and user activity, make the most of it and do your research!

The final lesson is an obvious one but still one I’d highly recommend!

Lesson 5: Keep Reading!