Getting to the top of Google's results page is a fight, and you fight it with several weapons.
Knowing how to write for SEO is one of them.
It is a basic requirement if you want any chance of reaching the top of the SERP.
Without this groundwork you can still produce and share high-quality content, but ranking for a given keyword and getting people to see it will be an uphill struggle.
You can also use our copywriting services to save time and get pages and articles written and optimised with SEO writing techniques.
To help you, we have put together a guide to writing and optimising content for SEO.
You won't find tricks or magic formulas here for becoming an SEO copywriting guru in 10 minutes. It is more of a handbook covering the basics of writing copy that search engines can rank.
Who is this article for?
- Copywriters and web writers
- Publishers
- Bloggers
- E-commerce managers
- Online business owners
- SEO and CRO specialists
Ready? Let's start by clarifying what SEO copywriting is.
What is SEO writing?
SEO writing is a copywriting technique that aims to produce content that meets the needs of both the search engine and the reader.
The goal is to write copy that meets Google's requirements (or those of another search engine), so that it is recognised as the best result for a keyword and ranks in the top ten on page one.
SEO copywriting is not a magic formula. It is a process with a fairly precise method.
First of all, to produce content that can rank on Google and reach your audience, you need to start with the research phase and only then move on to writing the copy.
Every stage of producing the copy has to be done carefully and with skill. It is not quick or easy work, but if you apply the advice below properly, the time you spend on your copy will be time well spent.
Copywriting for the web is more than writing persuasive text: before you write a single line, you need to do thorough research.
Preliminary SEO analysis
SEO copywriting combines your best writing and storytelling techniques with the core SEO skills needed to improve the ranking of your site or of one of its pages.
That is why writing about a specific topic should always start with research and preliminary analysis.
So before you let the writer in you loose, you need to go through a research phase.
When people talk about SEO, one of the main topics is keyword research. In fact, before you choose the keywords for a topic, and even before you open a keyword research tool, you need to understand what people are actually looking for when they type a query into Google.
Search intent analysis
Valuable content rests on two basic requirements:
- it must meet the brand's needs (promoting a product, raising brand awareness, attracting new customers, etc.);
- it must meet the user's needs (finding information, buying a product, getting buying advice, etc.).
At the start of this article we said we wouldn't give you a magic formula. Think of this instead as a mathematical certainty:
quality content = brand needs + user needs
If, for example, you sell party supplies and want to write a page promoting Halloween party accessories, you first need to find out which related searches exist around the broad topic "Halloween".
Without a preliminary analysis of the user's search intent, you risk producing content that is well optimised for SEO but does not give people what they need.
To write useful, valuable copy that actually helps your rankings, keep the search intent you are writing for firmly in mind.
That is the only way to write copy that is useful to readers and, as a result, valued by Google.
Choose the keyword you want to rank for
Before you start writing, you need to identify the keyword you want to rank for.
Pick one main keyword to focus on, but also identify at least one secondary keyword, looking at long-tail keywords.
Which tools should you use to find keywords? For the UK and most other markets we recommend Semrush; if you also work on the Italian market, SEOZoom has the more complete Italian database.
Also pay attention to the semantics used to talk about the topic: optimisation based on keywords alone is clearly becoming outdated.
Google's algorithm is learning to recognise synonyms and interpret words in context. Choosing a keyword is not wrong, but its weight is often overestimated.
Understand the search intent behind the keyword
Once you have chosen the keyword you will focus on, you need to work out the type of search behind it and, above all, decide which users your content is going to answer.
Queries are usually split into 3 groups by search intent:
- Navigational queries: the user is looking for a specific website, e.g. "heathrow airport".
- Informational queries: the user wants information on the topic, e.g. "how to get to heathrow airport".
- Transactional queries: the user wants to buy a product or service, e.g. "heathrow airport parking".
Why does analysing search intent matter?
People may click on your result, but if they don't find the answers they were looking for, they will leave the page straight away.
The bounce rate is one of the many signals associated with how a site performs in search. Failing to fully meet the user's needs can therefore hurt your rankings.
How do you find the search intent behind a keyword?
The simplest method, and the one copywriters use most, is to search for the keyword on Google and analyse the top 10 results.
Are they blog posts? Or sales pages?
Don't just look at the title tag and meta description: open each result and analyse the content.
This will give you ideas for the page structure and for the vocabulary used to build the copy.
You will get a full picture of the results Google considers relevant for that query, and from there you can set the guidelines for writing your own copy.
What kind of content are users looking for?
Writing for the web means writing for the reader, and writing for the reader means knowing exactly who you are talking to.
SEO and content type are closely linked. To write copy that can reach the first page of the SERP, you need to know which type of content is the best answer to a query.
From the type of search you can tell which stage of the sales funnel users are at, and so decide which content type fits best.
- TOFU - Top Of The Funnel: users looking for general information about a topic or product.
- MOFU - Middle Of The Funnel: users looking for specific information about your product or service that helps them decide whether to buy.
- BOFU - Bottom Of The Funnel: the user already knows your product or service. They are looking for extra information, such as how to get the most out of it, updated versions, comparisons with similar products, etc.
Once you understand what users are actually looking for, create content tailored to each type of search.
How to write SEO content
With the preliminary SEO analysis done, it is time to let the writer in you loose and start writing the copy for your site.
Where to place the keyword
As we said, search engines increasingly assess the content as a whole rather than individual keywords.
Even so, a few "evergreen" keyword habits still help rankings:
- put the keyword in the meta title
- mention the keyword in the main heading
- try to include the keyword in the first and last paragraphs
- repeat the keyword 3 or 4 times in the body copy, naturally and without forcing it
How many times should you repeat a keyword?
There are plenty of theories and very few certainties. What we do know is that overdoing keyword repetition (keyword stuffing) is heavily penalised.
In Google's eyes the best content is content written with the user in mind, so writing for SEO means writing for the reader first.
Don't obsess over how many keywords a text contains. Focus on the content instead, writing naturally, covering the topic in depth and using the keywords and their synonyms.
Optimising the body for SEO
One SEO aspect not everyone pays attention to is text formatting, another factor that affects how a search engine assesses a web page overall.
In the page's HTML, your copy sits between the <body> </body> tags. The search engine analyses the whole code to understand how the text is structured and what it is about.
For the search engine to like your page, structure the body properly: split the text into paragraphs and keep sentences short.
Formatting
There are a few usability rules you should always follow when publishing content online. They are simple adjustments that make the copy easier to read:
- use a body font size of 16 px or more;
- the text colour must contrast with the background;
- don't use more than two fonts on the same page;
- choose a font that is easy to read.
Meta title
We have covered the role of the meta title in SEO at length in another article.
So here we will stick to the key points, which you can read up on later.
The meta title tag needs to be well optimised because it gives the search engine key information about what the page contains.
The meta title is the headline usually shown on the results page. Besides telling Google what the page is mainly about, it is what catches people's attention and persuades them to click on your result.
Meta description
The meta description tag is another HTML attribute. It is not shown on the page itself, but it is very useful in the SERP.
In an earlier article we pointed out that the meta description is not a direct ranking factor.
Still, it is worth optimising, to give users more detail about what the page contains and to stop the search engine from generating one automatically.
A handy tool for optimising meta tags is Yoast SEO, a WordPress plugin. It lets you keep an eye on keyword density and copy length, and fill in the meta title, meta description and many other elements that affect ranking.
Heading tags
Headings and subheadings are essential to give the page a proper structure, improve its accessibility and make it SEO friendly. They are also what allows Google to pull a featured snippet from it.
Here are some tips for writing SEO-optimised heading tags:
- don't spam the keyword in every single heading: put it in the H1 and use synonyms and related terms in the most important headings;
- give every page one H1 and only one; lower levels can repeat, as long as they follow the hierarchy;
- keep an eye on the length of your headings;
- duplicate headings hurt SEO badly, so write original ones.
Optimising image alt tags
Image optimisation is another important part of SEO that less experienced people often underestimate.
Images play a real role and Google takes them into account when it assesses a page's content.
- Choose relevant images
- Pay attention to the format (JPG or PNG)
- Put keywords in the image file name
- Fill in the alt and title fields with a description of the image
- Upload images under 100 KB.
The alt tag matters because its text is shown when the user cannot see the image. It should be descriptive and give an idea of what the image shows.
Table of contents
According to Google, writing for SEO means creating quality content that is well organised and accessible for the reader.
A table of contents improves the user experience, helping readers move around the page and find the information they need without getting lost.
The best option is a table of contents with jump links, pointing directly to sections within the page.
Google handles this kind of table of contents well and treats it as something that makes the page easier to navigate. It can also reward it in the SERP with sitelinks, clickable links that point to sections within the page.
Internal linking for SEO
Headings matter a great deal for SEO. Yet people talk a lot about backlinks (external links) and very little about internal links.
Links between pages on the same domain are what give the site its structure and suggest a path to follow, for users and for Googlebot, which crawls and indexes the pages on your site.
SEO-friendly URLs
The page URL can be optimised for search engines too: it should be clear, readable and short.
Avoid numbers or other special characters after the domain.
Try to include your chosen keyword and make the URL informative for the user at the same time.
Call to action
Calls to action are what get users to do the exact thing we created the page for.
That might be buying a product, downloading an ebook, signing up to a newsletter, etc.
Whatever it is, remember to add a CTA to the copy, as a link or a button.
How important is updating your content?
Publishing fresh, up-to-date content matters a lot for SEO.
The more often we update the pages on our site, the more often Googlebot crawls them.
Many tests on this subject have shown that recent or simply updated content tends to rank better.
Should I delete underperforming content on my site?
Low-quality content has a negative impact on your site's rankings, so you need to keep monitoring how each page performs. This applies above all to copy produced in bulk: the decay curve is documented in our analysis of AI content and SEO.
Before taking drastic action and deleting a piece of content for good, think about why it is not getting results.
The content may simply be weaker than the competition's, or you may be using black hat SEO techniques, which are heavily penalised.
Here are three things to do when a piece of content is underperforming:
- if the content matters to visitors on your site, you can noindex it so it no longer appears in search results but can still be viewed by your users;
- delete pages that have no important content and are performing poorly;
- redirect the URLs of deleted pages to avoid broken links.
To deindex a page, add a robots meta tag with the value "noindex" (<meta name="robots" content="noindex">), which removes it from the SERP.
In our view, the best strategy is to reuse and repurpose content, improving and updating it regularly.
Editorial calendar
If you are trying to optimise your blog, one of the first steps is to create an editorial calendar.
Keeping an up-to-date calendar of the content you plan to publish gives you a clear overview of your goals, so you can think more carefully about the keywords you choose and the links you add.
What is an SEO copywriter and what do they do?
The SEO copywriter is a key role in any serious digital marketing team.
Even so, there is still a fair amount of confusion about what exactly the role involves.
The problem is that there is no settled definition. Broadly, an SEO copywriter is someone skilled in both persuasive writing and search engine optimisation.
In short, an SEO copywriter worth the name can write sales-oriented copy that captures what a brand really stands for, and write it all with SEO in mind.
