5 Easy and SEO-Friendly Copywriting Best Practices

What is copywriting? If you don’t know, just look in front of you. You are reading copy right now. Copywriting is the act of producing text in an informative and entertaining way to advertise and market.

Can anyone be a copywriter? That’s like asking if anyone is an accountant? Like any other profession, copywriting takes repetitive training to develop a particular skill set to become competent and in demand.

Copywriting aims to inform readers and convert them to leads and sales. Adding SEO is using keywords with high traffic and inserting them into your copy to attract those who search those keywords. They are specific to the type of business the copy is written for and align with their products and services.

If you are an aspiring copywriter and want to know how to implement SEO or a company that wants their writers to include SEO, how do you best go about that? You can accomplish a lot by using SEO-friendly copywriting best practices. Here are five easy, SEO-friendly copywriting best practices:

1. Research SEO keywords

SEO starts with research. You need to know what people seek and how they look for information. Pay attention to what questions people ask when looking for information about your niche. Are they searching for a recipe for pizza or a place that delivers it? Maybe they want to know the origins of that tasty Italian pie or stats on which country eats the most.

Mastering SEO Toronto is knowing what people are searching for will guide you to what you should write about. Once you have a good subject, research relevant keywords that rank high. These are the ones you will sprinkle through your copy for the search engine bots to pick up and rank your article on a web page.

2. Create original copy through data

Lots of copywriters just recycle information from other articles without doing independent research. They may not be able to get any inside data from a company either. With this insider info, they can create new copy that hasn’t been written before and add valuable content to establish the business as an industry leader or expert.

Internal business copywriters or those with access can obtain this data through:

• Customer feedback
• Sales data
• Social media comments
• Customer polls

Providing original content can spread through different chains by multiple people and create more links back to the business.

3. Use compelling SEO-optimized titles

This is a way to attract immediate attention and drive people to follow the article link. When your page comes up on a search engine, you are not the only option for people to click. You need to have an attention-grabbing title or headline that can’t be resisted.

You can’t post something like “Jennifer Aniston Nudes” and then it links to your article about finding the best moving company in Ohio. This is clickbait, and it is the fastest way to damage a brand and negatively affect your SEO. And it will tick people off. You can use enticing words that attract people but make sure it is on point with your article and includes high-ranking keywords relevant to your content.

4. Use general and focused SEO keywords in your copy

Your goal is to attract the most eyes to your page, including general and specific keywords and phrases.

A general keyword relates to the industry or product as a whole. While you want to rank with these keywords, they are extremely competitive and hard to make headway. You should still include them because as your article-specific keywords rank, so will these general ones and may combine in your overall successful ranking.

Focused keywords speak to the linked article and give people what they came for. Your article should be written around a subject that the keyword pinpoints and then deliver on the content. Don’t overuse the keywords so they stand out, and your article loses its flow. Work them in naturally to inform and entertain your reading audience. Include short and long-tail keywords and phrases as well.

5. Choose SEO keywords based on the audience

Some keywords work better than others, and it all depends on the type of copy written. Blog posts and articles are different from landing pages and sales copy.

When researching keywords, match them to your content and audience so you can attract and keep readers to the page, so they stay and navigate around the site. See what people are searching for, and then construct your copy. It is like a cat chasing its tail because you need the keywords to attract buyers, but you need the buyer’s keywords to write the best copy.

Above all, SEO-friendly copywriting best practices understand your audience and who you want to attract. Everything is a people business, no matter how much digital technology we use. The window display is now SEO online, and those cute puppies behind the glass have become targeted keywords. Type anything on Google and study the top 5 titles and linked articles. These are masters of the copywriting trade, and it is a real online education reading their content.