Welcome back to our exploration into the power of copy and why it's so important to have strong copy at the foundation of your marketing strategy.
Having already provided an overview of copywriting, this week we're going to delve beneath the surface and discuss how good copy supports your SEO efforts, which in turn supports your acquisition funnel.
What is SEO?
Search engine optimisation is the process of optimising your website so it appears higher on search engine results pages. This is achieved through a combination of 'on-page' (e.g., copy that includes high performing, relevant keywords) and 'off-page' (e.g., backlinks) optimisation.
There are also technical improvements you can make to your site to perform better on search engines, such as providing good mobile support, improving page speed, fixing site errors, and creating a site map. Appearing higher on search rankings improves your organic reach, which means attracting visitors to your website when they search for relevant search terms – without having to pay for promotion.
Copywriting and SEO work in tandem
Copy, as we established, is about persuasion. It's about taking the user on an emotional journey that captures the imagination, helping them connect with your brand, and ultimately take action. SEO, meanwhile, is about ensuring the content is well-structured to be easily indexed by web crawlers (link to A-Z blog) so your website appears higher on search engine results pages.
That said, copywriting still goes hand-in-hand with supporting your SEO efforts. By creating effective copy that uses relevant terms to address the needs of your visitors and includes strong performing keywords, your website will serve as an effective marketing tool that does a lot of the heavy lifting with minimal ongoing intervention. A good copywriter will research keywords to gain a better understanding of what your target audience is searching for, and any associated phrases or terms related to your product or service, and then weave these into your copy.
It's not just a case of throwing lots of relevant search terms onto a page, however. You need to strike the right balance between high-performing keywords and copy that is compelling and user-friendly. If your website is full of dense, impenetrable jargon, users will click straight off your website, which will actually damage your search engine performance. This is because it leads to a high bounce rate; a metric that measures the percentage of visitors that leave a webpage without taking any further action.
It's all about the metagame
This might already sound like a lot of work, but the complexity doesn't end there. Even if you have great content, you need to consider how it's presented on the page. Primarily, you want the information to be clear to your website visitors, as that will reduce your bounce rate, but there are also best practices to consider for the search engine web crawlers.
You will need to effectively deploy meta tags, meta descriptions, and title tags to the various pages on your website. The same will be true for the images you use on social media (although we'll be covering the specifics of social copy in a later article). Having a clear content structure for your website will provide more context to the search engines about the subject of each page, which in turn will help the end users click through with confidence.
Avoiding common SEO and copywriting missteps
Using our SEO experience we’ve pooled together some of the most common mistakes people make when trying to improve their SEO through copy. Take a look at our top tips below, and see what a difference it can make to your click-through rate (CTR).
Don’t succumb to keyword stuffing
While it’s important to ensure your copy is rich with relevant keywords, you can go too far. This is known as keyword stuffing, and is one of the most common mistakes in SEO. If you just fill the page with semi-relevant and even completely irrelevant keywords, it will create a negative user experience and could even harm your ranking on search engine results pages. Search engines view keyword stuffing as spammy, and penalise websites that egregiously abuse keywords.
Don’t neglect meta descriptions and title tags
The meta descriptions and title tags of your pages are important aspects of SEO that can be forgotten in the moment when you upload. However, neglecting them is a mistake. Take the time to create unique (and relevant!) meta descriptions and title tags for each page, as they could significantly improve your CTR. A good length for a meta description is about 160 characters.
Ensure you have quality backlinks in place
If you plan to make content a key part of your marketing strategy, you’re likely going to create a lot of related content over time. By linking to your other articles in your copy, you start to create link authority, showing search engines that you are an expert on your topic. Even if you don’t create a lot of content on your own site, if you are able to get other websites to link back to you, then search engines will still view your content as having domain expertise. Just ensure the websites linking to you are reputable and high quality, otherwise it could do more harm than good.
Put it into practice
It's all well and good reading about the importance of SEO, but to truly appreciate the benefits it can bring to your business, you need to take the plunge and start writing your own SEO optimised copy. For the quickest and easiest solution, we'd (obviously) encourage you to reach out to Brew Digital, who are experts at implementing strong SEO. But, you could always try it out yourself!
Start by deciding what your visitors are going to be interested in, or will likely find value from. This could be an actual breakdown of your services, or you might decide to write blog content and thought pieces that help contextualise the industry more broadly, for example. Put some thought into how long you want the copy to be, decide on a catchy yet informative title, create a short meta description, make sure you know what your call to action (CTA) is, and then get writing! The final part is to link across to any relevant content on the site – this helps with SEO and keeps visitors on your site for longer.
It may seem daunting, but it's easy once you get started. And if you get stuck, reach out to us – we'd be happy to help!
