SEO copywriting: to whip up organic visitors

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is a flexible and highly effective marketing solution. More and more companies are realising the potential of content marketing, which means that the battle for the top positions in Google's search engine results pages (SERPs) is growing. However, SEO copywriting is not an easy task, as you need to write copy that both Google and your target audience like. In this blog post, we have gathered the most important information about SEO and SEO copywriting.

What is search engine optimisation and why is it important?

Search engine optimisation is all about driving organic traffic to the landing page from searches. The most effective way to achieve this is to ensure that your content appears in the highest possible position on the search page. Google uses around 200 ranking factors to determine where content ranks in the search results. However, these factors are not known, and search engines keep the ranking factors secret, precisely to prevent them from being circumvented.

The robots' job is to crawl web pages and online documents, and they play an important role in indexing them by learning about the content of the pages and what they are about. The website is indexed by search engines and then regularly checked and updated by the robots.

Search engine optimisation is built on three main pillars, let's explore what they are.

Technical SEO

Technical SEO is one of the most important bulwarks. If this is not in order, all other efforts are ineffective. Most of all, the site's settings and structure fall under technical SEO, such as whether the site is mobile-friendly and how fast the page loads.

Off-page SEO

Off-page, also known as off-site SEO, refers to factors external to the website. Search engines are trying to gauge how authoritative and expert a site is, how relevant it is to visitors. The best way to improve off-page SEO is through link building, whereby we get sites that are trusted to link to our own site.

On-page SEO

On-page, or if you prefer, on-site SEO refers to the placement of search- and visitor-friendly text on a website. The focus here is on the content of the page, which is produced during the SEO copywriting process.

Let's find out what SEO copywriting is!

What is SEO copywriting and how is it different from traditional web copywriting?

SEO copywriting is all about creating content that is desirable enough to be seen by readers and search engines. It's not enough just to serve the visitor, because what's the point of the text if no one reads it? The reverse is also true: SEO is not valid if the content is not a good source of information, is not relevant, is not substantial enough. These two aspects have to be harmonised, which is not easy at all.

Visitors use search engines to get some information. If we know what they are looking for, we can create content that will be of real value to them. It's essential to be aware of the purpose of the keywords users are entering into the search engine, what they are actually looking for. It is also important to know how much time the visitor spends on the website. If you can keep the reader on the site as long as possible, you're doing well. This is an indicator that the content you have produced is really useful to them. There are the so-called bastion posts. They are very strong, detailed content, which are valuable for the readers, and rewarded with long reading time and clicks.

You need to find a balance between SEO and content. Too many keywords can significantly degrade the user experience, so it is more useful to aim for the right keyword in the right place. In addition, keyword stacking is undesirable from Google's point of view and will be penalised.

What is the importance of search engine optimised text?

Search engine optimisation is a complex process, but it is worth the time and effort. It can help you get huge traffic for far less money than running ads. Search engine optimisation works when done consistently, and results can sometimes take weeks or months. However, when a search engine optimised text is put on the site, it has no expiry date like an ad, it will always be there and 'work' in the background.

What to look out for when writing SEO copy?

As we've already mentioned, there are many aspects to consider when it comes to search engine optimisation, not to mention the fact that the Google algorithm changes from time to time. But when it comes to content writing, there are some principles and rules that apply at all times. Let's look at them!

Length of the text

From a content point of view, you could say that you should write as much as you think is relevant to the topic. However, from an SEO point of view, you should write at least 300-500 words, which is the minimum, but in most cases you will need more. The length of the text is determined by how long your competitors have written.

Titles and structuring

Google really likes clear, well structured texts with head tags, titles, subheadings, lists. It is a good idea to use attention-grabbing words in titles and to place keywords in the right places. From an SEO point of view, it is important that the text is airy, sentences are short and there are no more than five sentences in a paragraph.

The language

As we have already mentioned, Google puts the needs of the users first. And users are happy when they get content that is easy to read and understand. This means avoiding overly complex sentence structures and foreign words, which make it difficult to understand.

The links

Google specifically likes and rewards texts that fit into the site's system. Internal links help to do this, and external links help to embed content in the environment.

Pictures and illustrations

Images, videos, visuals and illustrations make it much easier to understand the content, not to mention helping to structure the text. There are many stock sites where you can download high quality and relevant images, some of which are free. It is important to ensure that the image size is not too large, as this will slow down the loading time. Alt and Title tags should be used to indicate what the image is about so that it is easier for Google to identify.

SEO copywriting process

SEO copywriting is a multi-step process. First you need to do keyword research, which means finding out what keywords visitors are searching for. You can use various software tools to do this, but it can also help to look at related terms at the bottom of the Google results page.

Once you have the keyword, it is worth defining exactly what the text will be about and what topics you want to cover. This is followed by writing the text, taking into account SEO aspects, the target group, and the needs of the audience. Once the text is ready, it needs to be further refined and polished to meet the SEO criteria as much as possible. It is fortunate if the text ends with some kind of call to action to further direct the visitor.

Once the text is ready, you need to make the upload and technical settings. An important part of the SEO text is the meta title, which is the same as the headline but can be changed, and the meta description, which is located below the URL and is an attention-grabbing summary of about 150 characters. Structured data helps search engines to map what the website is about more easily, so it is worth providing this.

Search engine optimisation is a complex process that requires a variety of skills: you need to understand SEO, copywriting, interpreting data and results. SEO can bear fruit with consistent work, but it is worth doing because it can produce very nice results.

At Meraki, we cover all areas of SEO, providing a full range of services. Ready to get on the first page?

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