SEO Writing For Newbies: How To Attract Readers And Search Engines

Copywriting is the essence of On-page (On-site) SEO. It means creating helpful content that appeals to the users and fulfills the search engines' keyword and text formatting requirements. The goal is to produce valuable informational pieces that the public likes and shares. Thus, drawing an increase in the organic traffic to your site and indefinitely gaining higher rankings on the search engine results page (SERP).

Even if your site fulfills all technical and design requirements, if your copy is mediocre and lacks depth, the SE will not show it on the front positions. Remember, "Content is king." so put all of your efforts into creating helpful pieces that deserve to be then optimized.

You can post many different types of content on your website, with each having its own specifics.

There are a couple of essential elements that influence content optimization. Some have a bigger impact in the short run, but they are all equally significant if you want to build and develop a stable long-term SEO strategy.

Headers, also called H-tags, are HTML attributes. They can be H1, H2, H3, ... tо H6. The first three are regarded as the most important ones by the SEs, and the others are used to improve the visual layout of the text.

• H1 represents the title of your copy. Every page, regardless of its contents, must have it. The H1 tag needs to be put first, and there can't be more than one per page.
• H2 and H3 are used to mark the beginning of new subtopics within the main theme. A good practice is to have at least two H2 tags in your content.

H-tags give structure to the text and make it easier for the users and crawlers to scan through the copy. The way your H1, H2, and H3 are formatted can influence where your site ranks. More importantly, they are a valuable copywriting tool, as headers can hold long-tailed phrases and guide the users towards the information they are looking for. A smart way to use the H tags is by converting frequently asked questions about a specific topic into heading and subheadings in your copy.

For example, you are writing an article about coffee brands and find out people are searching on the web "How to pick the right brand?" or "What is the difference between Brand X and Brand Y?". You can use those sentences as H2s. This way, you hit two birds with one stone. First, you can directly address the query of your users. Secondly, you are using words and phrases that the SE has already recognized as key.

The more on-point questions and answers you have in your copy, the better chance you will obtain the golden spot on the first results page — the featured snippet. This is a short piece of information that directly answers a given question, located on the top, above all ads and other links.

Every page, regardless of the type of its content, must have H tags. See the following examples. The first image is from a blog post and the second — from a service page.

Keywords are a special set of words used by people when searching for something on the internet. Finding the correct keyword suggestion for website can be tricky, and you must perform thorough research before even attempting to write your copy. Your content needs to have a specific keyword density to attract the attention of both the SE and users. Since search engines nowadays can understand the meaning behind the words, you can also use plenty of synonyms to avoid repetition.

The actual body of your page or article is where the useful information is presented engagingly. It has to be understandable, well-written, and most of all, your content needs to be valuable for your targeted audience. The text needs to flow naturally and contain the right number of keywords, both long-tailed and short. Mentioning your location helps the search engines pinpoint your area of operations. For example, if you work only with clients in the UK, there is no practical use to show your site to people from South America. The content is where you have to concentrate your efforts, as it is directly linked to the needs and desires of your potential clients.

Internal and external page links indicate to the SE that your content is likable, shareable, accessible, and most importantly - useful. Linkbuilding is an SEO art of itself as you can't associate your content with just any type of website. You need to seek reputable creators and professionals in your business branch that can indirectly help you build your site's authority.

With external links, you focus on showcasing your content on other platforms or include reputable sources in your copy.

Internal linking focuses on creating a solid structure of intertwining topics that will benefit your potential clients. For example, now you are reading an article about SEO writing, but you find yourself interested in linkbuilding. Wouldn't you find it helpful if there is a conveniently placed link to an article that can answer your recently formulated questions?

Meta titles and descriptions from different websites are the first things a user sees when searching in the SERP. They are one of the most important pieces of copy as they are responsible for grabbing the audience's attention and perking their curiosity to click on your link. And as we all know, first impressions are important, not only in the business world.

The meta title or title tag is the heading shown on the SERP. In addition, it has to be no more than 60 characters in length to display correctly on the results page.
Meta descriptions are short summaries of what a user (or a crawler) would find on that particular page. They need to be 160 characters at most and have to contain keywords or long-tailed phrases.

These pieces of content are essential for the optimization of your content. If more people click on your page, your CTR (click-through rate) will increase. This is a clear indicator for the SE that you are a valuable source of insight for the public, and your content will be indefinitely shown amongst the top results on the SERP.

So your meta titles and descriptions should be appealing, straight to the point, and accurate. A good writing strategy for both meta titles and descriptions is to use call-to-action words or phrases that create intense emotions like urgency, loss, winning, etc. Another thing you can do is include a question you know people are seeking the answer to. For example, "Do you know what CTA is? Our experts at Company A are here to tell you!"

Meta titles and descriptions are an HTML attribute and should be added to the code of each page of your site. Thankfully, most platforms like WordPress or Wix have special plugins for that, so you don't have to write the code itself. Fill in the necessary information into the tabs.

Now that we covered the different types of content you may have on your page and their most important elements, it's time to get down to business. To create a quality copy, you need to have a solid strategy that will attract both users and search engines.

Creating engaging and valuable content is not easy, as there are many factors you need to take into consideration. But first, you need to ask yourself, why are you doing all of this? What goal do you want to achieve with this strategy? Think about the following questions:

• Do you want more people to read your blog content?
• Do you want to monetize your copy and increase your traffic?
• Are your service and product pages the ones that need to be showcased, whereas your blog is just a side dish?

The way your content should be written and constructed depends solely on your goal. After you got that one figured out, you need to move your attention to creating a strategy that will achieve it.

The most important thing you need to remember is you must write for your audience, not for the search engines. The way people react to your content determines the "behavior" of the machines and programs that process the data. That said, you need to have a clear view of your audience. Everything matters, so consider gathering information about your potential clients' for their:

• Age
• Location
• Occupation
• Preferences
• Problems

You can use different analytics software and surveys to determine what is the general opinion about your products and services. Then research what your clients want and need (what are their Google searches). Once you know what your audience desires, you can attractively present your services/products.

The same goes for your blog content. For example, if you target audience in the 18-25 age group, you can include additional videos, funny or eye-catching images, and short but memorable casual-toned paragraphs. If you want to attract a more business-oriented audience from the 30+ group, focus on infographics, tables, statistical data, detailed explanations, and reputable external sources.

As we mentioned, keywords are an essential part of your copy if you want to get noticed by the SE. The big questions are how to choose the correct words and phrases and then implement them in your content without sounding exaggerated or out of place. So the answer lies in the following 4-step process.

Consistency is key if you want your strategy to be successful. Blog content must be published and optimized regularly. To keep everything on track, create a schedule. For example, you will post two times a month and spend 10 hrs optimizing your new and existing copy. This way, your potential clients will know to expect fresh content, and the search engines will recognize you as a serious source of information. Not to mention it will be easier for you and your team to organize the work tasks.

You've laid out your strategy and have a clear view of how you want everything to be organized. However, this is not enough to gain you the desired results. You still don't know how exactly to grab the attention of your readers and the search engines. So let's figure it out together.

Why do people use search engines? The answer is simple — because they need information. Whether it is to find out the best place to go on vacation in Spain, how to peel a kiwi or what SEO tool to use, everybody is actively searching for some knowledge. Your job as a copywriter is to gather facts, go through countless trustworthy sources and synthesize easy-to-understand answers to the questions your audience has.

Forget about the algorithms and the requirements search engines have. First and foremost, you need to think about the people. Analyze their desires by researching the intent hidden in their questions. You can still land on the first page of the SERP even if you don't have enough keywords or are missing a meta title. Why? Because your content gives on-point, detailed information that is in line with the needs of the audience.

Let's say people are searching for "neck pain," "neck pain after sleeping," and "why does my neck hurt after waking up." The intent is clear — people feel pain in their neck after taking a nap, and they need to find why this is happening and how to prevent it. You can take two different paths when you write.

The first one is to tackle the scientific side of the problem. You can create an informative post about the human body's physiological needs, muscle contraction, and nerve damage. Of course, you would also use the appropriate medical terminology and sprinkle everything with a hefty dose of anatomical terms. Do you think everybody will understand your piece of content?

The second option is to write a guide on how your sleeping posture affects your body and choosing the right type of pillow to prevent it. Your article would be comprehensive without flashy words but informational enough that even a 5-year-old will understand why memory foam is good.

Both posts carry valuable knowledge; however, only the second one is created with the user in mind. Thus, it will land your site farther ahead in the rankings.

Summing up, I would like to note once again that the semantics of competitors is an effective channel for getting leads from organic. The main thing is to use it correctly. Let's repeat 4 types of pages that will help you get organic traffic for the following keywords:

Search engines and Google, in particular, are very demanding when it comes to the quality of your copy. Over the years, there have been various methods and strategies used to please this powerful AI. Sadly most of these hacks don't work nowadays, but they are still used more out of habit than necessity. These are the so-called mistakes in SEO copywriting you should avoid if you don't want to drop out of favor from the search engines.

SEO is a constant, dynamic process, and you need to stay on track with the newest changes if you want to maintain your good rankings. That said, the mistakes we will pinpoint had once been great strategies. However, with the development of search engines from simple programs to intelligent AIs, these SEO practices do not work anymore.

Once upon a time, roughly 8 years ago, it was all about the quantity of the keywords in your content. The more, the better. Texts were cluttered with unnecessary words written more for the crawlers and less with the public in mind. You know what we mean, sentences like: "Your professional rent-a-car agency will provide you with the best rent-a-car services in Bristol, so if you need a great rent-a-car, call us today!". Now, imagine whole paragraphs written in the same style. Thankfully, that was in the past, and nowadays, the SEs are more intuitive and "intelligent". They can easily distinguish this sort of spammy content and misuse of keywords. Remember, it is not about the quantity but the quality. Keywords are a valuable tool; however, you won't rank successfully on the SERP if you rely only on them.

Duplicate content has the same copy across multiple web pages on the same or different domains. For example, if we make a replica of the part from this article about Headers and place it on another post, or website that would constitute a duplicate copy. This is something you must avoid, as you might get penalized by Google. If you have mainly plagiarism content, your page or entire site can be deemed low quality and won't appear in the SERP. Try to write original and fresh content for your site. If you have to quote a particular statement from an external source, always link to that website and/or give credits to the primary owners of that information. Duplicate content is a very controversial topic, and we advise you to dig a little deeper into it to avoid making costly mistakes in the future.

According to recent studies, the ideal length of a blog post should be around 2.500 characters. However, based on what we know about the behavior of Google, the way it collects and ranks data, and the official "Best practices'', the length is actually not that important. The idea is to create value for your audience. A 1 000 piece of how to use a particular brand of screwdrivers can be more beneficial to your potential customer than a lengthy 2300-word post that explains the history and evolution of the different tools of said brand. As with the keywords, avoid focusing solely on one thing. Keep your goal and the audience's desires in mind and create a valuable copy.

Another practice from the past deemed as a mistake today is the filler content. We are talking about those meaningless posts of 600 words that exist solely to promote your service or product. Consider "cleaning" your site from such copy a.s.a.p. It is perceived as clutter that slows down the crawling process and can even get you penalized by Google. If your blog consists of 20 pages of filler content, you are pretty much shooting yourself in the foot. Cut all of the unnecessary copy and focus your efforts on promoting the quality pieces on your blog.

The last two mistakes are focused on the blog portion of your website, whereas this one is pointed more towards your other pages. When writing a copy for your services, products, or company history, you need to include evidence of your superiority. For example, you describe your service as an eco-friendly alternative, so back up your claims with studies and/or certificates from a reputable source. Everybody can claim: "Our plastic is biodegradable", but a trustworthy seller will say: "Our plastic is biodegradable, and here is where you can check if that is true". A great solution is to create a page where you can display the awards and certificates your company owns. Remember to link to it when needed and back up your well-written copy with solid evidence. This way, both your potential clients and the search engines will know you are the real deal.

SEO is an ongoing, dynamic process divided into 3 parts — On-page, Off-page, and Technical. Content optimization is the heart and soul of On-site SEO, and you need to put a lot of effort into the way you write and format your copy. There are various types of content, and it is up to you to choose which will serve your purpose best. Be mindful of their elements and regard them as a whole. Do not prioritize one above the other, but optimize them equally.

Only when you know what your exact goal is, start planning the creation of your copy. To have a successful SEO strategy, you must be aware of the 3 factors that form the skeleton of each piece of content:

1. The scope of your audience.
2. The intent, hidden behind the keywords.
3. A clear time-binding plan that will keep you on track.

To attract the attention of your audience, you must:

1. Discover what people want.
2. Give users a direct answer to their query.
3. Understandably present the information.

To attract the attention of search engines, you must:

1. Fulfill the 3 points from above.
2. Optimize well all elements of content optimization.
3. Stay on track with the latest requirements and avoid the "bad old practices"

Writing well-composed content may take a while, but we promise you it is worth the effort.

Stay positive and continue to create an excellent copy. Remember, nobody is born wise, so keep learning and developing your skills. If you have any questions, feel free to ask them in the comment section below. Let's have a chat and discuss how to become better at copywriting.