“How do SEO copywriting services work?”
If you’ve ever asked that question, you’re probably a business owner searching for the right digital marketing methods, a marketing professional trying to master the craft, or even a blogger trying to make your content stronger. No matter your intention, you’re probably curious about what exactly SEO copywriting is and how you can do it.
Luckily for you, we are the number one small business SEO agency, as ranked on Google, and we’re ready to share our SEO secrets. Here’s a step-by-step guide to SEO copywriting services by professionals in the industry!
What Are SEO Content Writing Services?
SEO copywriting services take excellent professional writing and search engine optimization and combine them. SEO copywriters create compelling content for businesses while following SEO best practices. By creating quality content and using SEO strategies, these pieces have a higher chance of ranking at the top of search results.
Many businesses use SEO copywriting services like those provided by Markitors to produce content that ranks at the top of Google. In turn, these SEO articles or pages will drive organic traffic and generate leads for your business.
Industries That Use SEO Copywriting Services
So what industries use SEO copywriting services? Tons of different industries use SEO copywriting services because they are vital to any business no matter the vertical. Read on to learn about a few different industries that have seen success from using an SEO copywriting service.
E-Commerce
Businesses in the e-commerce industry often use SEO copywriting services for product pages, blog posts, and more. SEO content helps increase click-through rates and conversion rates for online businesses. This, in turn, increases profits by connecting users to products.
Education
Businesses in the education sector are another customer base popular for SEO copywriting services. SEO copywriting services can help schools whether, private or public, elementary or higher education, increase visibility and enrollment.
Staffing Agencies
Staffing agencies use SEO copywriting services to boost brand awareness and attract potential clients. By using keywords relevant to their recruiting business in SEO content, they can cut their investment in PPC (pay-per-click) ads.
Check out the variety of other industries we have provided SEO copywriting services to on our industries page.
So now that you know what SEO copywriting services are, let’s get into the details of how to write SEO copy.
Keyword Research
Keyword research is the first step in the SEO copywriting process. It is when professional SEO copywriters learn what phrases or words users are searching for on Google. We’ll dive deeper into how to conduct keyword research for SEO copywriting below.
What Is Keyword Research?
SEO stands for search engine optimization. Therefore, keyword research is what SEO is all about. Basically, Google associates certain keywords and phrases with your website. For example, Markitors is ranked on Google for the keyword “small business SEO.” When you incorporate those relevant keywords on your site, Google will thus see you as more authoritative and important, ranking you higher in search engine results.
That’s why it’s so important to find keywords relevant to your site and create content structured around them. This will drive organic traffic to your site. But how do you find keywords you rank for on Google or other search engines?
Finding Keywords
One way to find relevant keywords is by using Google Search Console. Simply create an account, enter your website URL, and get a list of keywords Google sees are relevant to your site. Note that there are many ways to create an SEO Content Strategy.
However, it doesn’t stop there. You can’t just use any keyword for your SEO copywriting services. You have to determine which keywords are going to produce sales and leads. Are people entering this keyword in search engines often?
Find Keywords That Produce Results
To figure this out, type a keyword cluster from Google Search Console into Ahrefs Keyword Explorer. Ahrefs will create a list of additional keywords that relate to the one you gave, as well as show you how much volume each keyword gets, how many clicks it generates, and more.
From here, identify which keywords are relevant to your business and will interest the customers you want to attract. Then, determine which keywords will generate the highest search volume. It may be beneficial to create a spreadsheet listing all the keywords, their monthly search volume, value, and difficulty of ranking. The longer the list, the better! Lastly, prioritize content based on its value.
Converting a Keyword to Content
Now that you have a comprehensive list of keywords to incorporate into your content, it’s time to figure out what topics you will write about.
Start by reading competitor pieces of content. Simply take your keyword and enter it into the Google search engine. What articles come up on the first page of search results? What are they about? What angles do they take on the subject?
As an SEO copywriter, it’s important for you to find a unique angle on the topic. While reading these competitor pieces, pinpoint ways to make your piece better than other content pieces. What kind of information, personal experience, or research do you have that you could add to your article to make it better than the competitors’? Could you take a different approach altogether?
The point is to create content that is eye-catching and interesting. Think of creative titles for your article that will catch website visitors’ attention. And make sure your keyword is in your titles and meta descriptions!
Content Research
Now that you know what you are going to write about, it’s time to start creating the actual content. You may want to research competitor pieces of content once again to learn more about the keyword. However, it’s also important to research noncompetitor content, which can add value to your piece. When you have statistics, facts, or other interesting research that can add value to your article, include it as an internal link in your post! These links can also have a hand in helping you rank higher on Google.
In addition to topic research, it’s important to understand the tone and voice of the company you are writing for. Do the articles need to be straightforward, professional, and research-based, or can they be more conversational, laid-back, and creative? Your tone and voice represent the company brand just as much as the content itself, so make sure you keep a consistent tone and voice throughout all the articles posted on one particular site.
Writing
Now it’s time to start the actual copywriting. As a rule of thumb, for Google to see a piece of content as relevant, it needs to be at least 800 to 1,000 words. Additionally, it’s always a good idea to break up the text with headings and subheadings.
Here’s how a copywriter should structure a typical article, whether it be a blog post or landing page:
- All titles are H1s. You will only have one heading as an H1 and that is your page’s title.
- Write an introduction. Immediately after the title, have an introduction with the keyword incorporated somewhere in it. The intro can be as long as many paragraphs or as short as a few lines. However, make sure the length of the intro is appropriate. If it’s too long, for example, readers can get bored.
- Subheadings are H2s, H3s, & H4s. After the intro, incorporate H2 subheadings to identify main topics, H3 subheadings for subtopics, and, if necessary, H4 subheadings to break topics up further. These headings are a great way to break up the text, organize it, and make it easier for people to skim your content.
- Include a call-to-action. Lastly, conclude with a call-to-action. It’s always a good idea to encourage readers to buy your product, visit your facilities, or use your services. As an option, you can also encourage readers to contact you for more information. Include any internal links to relevant landing pages such as your contact page.
- Include your keyword. Most importantly, make sure your keyword is in your article at least 5 times for a 500-word piece. If your content is 1,000 words or more, add the keyword 6-10 times. The longer the piece, the more times the keyword needs to be added. You can read more about keywords in our blog post on keyword density.
Know Your Target Audience
As an SEO copywriter, it’s important for any piece of content to know the audience you are targeting. This will help you decide on what level of language difficulty to use and will affect the tone and voice of your writing.
Is your audience business professionals? Or maybe customers who want the latest tech? Or it could even be students looking to apply to college. Whatever the audience is, make sure you are speaking to it and to Google. Your content should speak to humans but also convey signals to Google through SEO practices.
Tone and Voice
You will learn the voice and tone of your specific brand or clients you work with over time. Keeping a consistent tone and voice will create cohesiveness between all of your pages on a website. This helps customers feel like they know what to expect from a particular brand which builds credibility.
Enough about words; let’s not forget about images! Read on to see how to incorporate images into your SEO copywriting services.
Images
Have you ever clicked on an article with no images? Does it look eye-catching or interesting? Does it make you want to read more?
Probably not.
Likely, it looks pretty boring and very wordy. Not exactly something you want to read for fun, is it?
Images are a great way to make articles more readable and visually interesting. You can find free stock images from websites like Pexels or Unsplash. On the other hand, you can get a monthly subscription to even more stock images from Shutterstock and other similar websites.
Don’t forget about optimizing images for the web! To avoid slow page loading times and high bounce rates you need to ensure the images you use are optimized for SEO. This means compressing it while maintaining the quality and including proper Alt text. Use the keyword in your image’s alt text, that way it can rank for the keyword in image results.
Optimizing and Publishing
Now that you have a piece of content written, read it over several times and edit it. Make sure it is free of grammatical errors, is structured correctly, and is optimized for SEO. If you can, send the article to an editor for review.
Now, you are ready for the last step: publishing it on your website!
We recommend using WordPress with the Ahrefs extension. This allows you to see how you can improve your article’s readability and further optimize it for SEO.
Paste your article into WordPress, upload the featured image, and check everything one more time for errors or formatting issues.
Here are some things to keep in mind when uploading the article:
- Add a meta description. This should be no less than 130 characters and no more than 155. It should be eye-catching, intriguing, and have a call to action for people to check out the article.
- Make sure the URL isn’t too long. If your title isn’t too long, the URL slug can be the title. However, if you happen to have a long title, make the URL slug a shortened version of the title or the keyword itself. In the end, make sure the keyword is included in the URL.
Lastly, preview the article on the website before you publish it. This way, you can make sure everything is formatted correctly before hitting the publish button.
Rinse and Repeat
Remember when we told you to have a long list of keywords ready? That’s because the more SEO copywriting services you complete, the more successful you’ll be at ranking. In addition to this step-by-step process on how SEO copywriting services work, check out these helpful tools that can help you with your content writing.
Once you’ve gone through these steps, do them again for the next article you write. It may take time, but eventually, you’ll see results that last.
Good luck!
SEO Copywriting Services FAQs
How long do my blog posts need to be for SEO?
Unfortunately, there is not a cut-and-dry answer to this. The length of a blog post will depend on different factors such as the type of content, the topic, and more. Read more about this in our article about how long blog posts should be for SEO. High-quality content isn’t necessarily dependent on length, but you should review top-ranking results when writing content to ensure the length is competitive.
How many times should I use a keyword in a piece of content?
We recommend sticking to a keyword density ratio of 0.5% to 4%. Use the ratio to determine how many times to include a keyword in a piece of content. This will be affected by the total word count as well as if alternative keywords are available. Read more about keyword density and keyword stuffing.
Can I outsource SEO copywriting services?
Yes! Loads of small businesses don’t have the budget to hire an in-house SEO copywriting services team. Outsourcing SEO to an SEO copywriting agency is a smart move for many companies because it allows business owners to focus on other core facets of their business.
Outsourcing SEO copywriting services ensures you are continuously improving your website’s SEO and boosting brand awareness in a way that keeps costs low.
Is copywriting part of on-page SEO?
Yes! Copywriting is part of on-page SEO. On-page SEO refers to any optimization that occurs on the web page itself. Since content is the main part of a web page, it is considered on-page SEO.
Need SEO Content Writing?
Interested in hiring an SEO copywriting service for your small business? Trust the SEO experts and experienced copywriters at Markitors! Contact us today!
