Copywriting website content isn’t always easy. Not only do you have to think about the words on the page, but also how to boost SEO. After all, you want your web pages to drive relevant traffic to your site to generate leads.
This may sound daunting to some, but luckily, there are plenty of methods to improve your content marketing skillset. Take a look at our 13 essential tips below that will improve your writing skills and help your website rank in organic searches. If you want to find out more about how your site performance can be improved, you can request a free SEO audit today.
1. Define your reader’s personas
First of all, you need to understand your audience so you know who you are trying to attract. This is the key to writing a successful blog post, especially if you want an impressive conversion rate on your site.
How do you define your target audiences’ personas? Ask yourself a few basic questions, such as:
- What is the age group of your audience?
- What is the professional status of your audience?
- What is the buying habits of your audience?
- What is the interest of your audience?
Once you answer these, you will be ready to identify your audience. This, in turn, will shape how you write.
2. Understand the search intent for your content
Another important factor that you need to consider is your audience’s search intent. Search intent refers to what the user is looking for within their Google search. Use the most popular search queries for your benefit, and shape your content format, key message and the desired call to action that you need to include in your content.
3. Set a clear smart goal
Every page of your website as a rule needs to have a clear call to action. Prior to writing the content, you need to define exactly what this will be. Think about what you want your audience to get out of it, whether it’s clicking on another link, downloading an item or even getting in touch with you directly.
Being clear on this before the writing stage will help you map out your content and consider how you will direct your audience to the desired action.
4. Offer your audience solutions
Websites that offer clear solutions to specific problems typically rank in the top three Google searches. Therefore, web copy should provide answers to key problems that resonate with your audience. This is where research is your best friend. Search for problems that your business will be able to provide solutions to. Ultimately, this is the key to your web page ranking high in a short amount of time.
5. Look for content opportunities and gaps
This goes hand-in-hand with number 4. When doing your research for your specific industry-related issues, you may not find relevant solutions. Good news! This means you have a unique selling point that should be included on the website. Having no competition essentially means that your webpage will rank fast. Especially if you have fast good on-page SEO on organic search results.
6. Analyse your competitors
It’s always good practice to analyse your competitors and identify their selling points. Take a look at what they are doing well, where they can improve and what they are not covering. A good starting point is to analyse their strengths and weaknesses on organic rankings and the search terms they rank for.
7. Map out the structure of your webpage
Your webpage structure is one of the most important things you need to consider prior to writing your copy. Draw out how your content and design sits and structure your copy based on headlines (H1, H2, H3) and bullet points. It’s also key to consider how you can utilise blank spaces to your advantage, as these help with readability.
Fundamentally, your content needs to flow as the user scrolls through your webpage and be easy to read.
8. Use keyword insights for your benefit
When used right, keywords can be the key to success, as these boost SEO. However, it’s important not to overuse them and insert them naturally into your copy. A way of getting around this is to use close matches and synonyms wherever possible.
9. Aim for a featured snippet
If your webpage directly answers questions your audience is searching for, you have a good chance of appearing as a featured snippet on Google search for that questions. When solving a specific problem, structure your web page copy with bullet points or even a step-by-step guide. This will increase your eligibility for becoming a Google search snippet.
10. Make your headline stand out
Firstly, your webpage title (and meta title) should be no more than 10 words. It also needs to clearly indicate what each page is about. The meta title of the webpage should be consistent with the copy on the webpage, as this determines whether the user is going to click on the link and if it appears in organic search results. Create titles with the end-user in mind and think about the copy they would expect to read.
11. Have an on-page SEO checklist
A simple checklist should be followed for every webpage. Typically, it should consist of the following:
- A clear structure of tags (H1, H2, H3)
- Internal links to other webpages
- Keywords related to the web copy in the webpage URL
- Standing out web page title that relates to the copy
- Strong meta title that sums up the content of the webpage
- Stand out meta description with a clear call to action
12. Pick the right image and optimise for SEO
Picking the right images for your website can prove difficult; they must reflect the copy and webpage well while being aesthetically pleasing. To avoid last-minute panic, pick the images while in the planning stage of your copywriting process. This will help ensure they match the flow of your writing and engage with the audience.
When choosing an image, think about how it will appear on each webpage feature snippet so it’s relevant to the page content. It’s also important to optimise image SEO by using the right alt description for each webpage, as this can greatly increase your search rankings.
13. Track performance
Lastly, make sure you are aware of the importance of tracking website performance. This is the key to identifying pages that positively impact organic website traffic, as well as what pages need a little boost through a rewrite.
Writing good website copy is the key to organic success. SEO optimised websites will rise to the top of search results….and, more importantly, remain there. Ultimately, good copy and content marketing may just be the not-so-secret key to a successful business.
