Creating high-quality content that's relevant, engaging, and persuades readers to convert isn't always enough—you also have to take search engine algorithms into account.
That's where SEO copywriting comes in.
In short, this is the process of writing content that appeals to both search engines and website visitors. SEO copywriting should play an essential role in your content strategy.
For one, it helps your content occupy the top spots in the Search Engine Results Page (SERP), attracting more visitors. Secondly, well-crafted content that appeals to the reader's needs prompts these visitors to convert.
That said, we'll cover an in-depth guide to SEO copywriting. We'll see what this practice involves and share a few tips on how to get started.
What is SEO copywriting?
SEO copywriting involves keyword-optimized content easily understood by search engines and users. Its main purpose is to achieve high rankings for target keywords and simultaneously provide relevant content for a specific target audience.
As such, SEO copywriting strikes a perfect balance between reader and search engine appeal.
For instance, content that's strictly built for search engine optimization will likely be bland and cause visitors to not read through it. In contrast, content that's engaging and relevant but not optimized from an SEO perspective won't rank high in the SERP. Consequently, it won't bring more traffic to your website.
9 SEO Copywriting Tips
Now that we've seen what this process entails, let's go through a few SEO best practices for SEO copy. Although writing copy for SEO isn't hugely different from marketing copy, some approaches are essential for an SEO copywriter.
Here are 9 tips for SEO copywriting.
1. Write for search intent
Search intent is the cornerstone of effective SEO content.
It represents the users' reasoning behind their search queries—whether they're looking to purchase a product, find more information about it, or search for a specific website, for instance.
Search intent can be divided into four categories:
Informational intent: When users want to find information about a specific topic (e.g., "What is SEO copywriting?").
Navigational intent: When users search for a specific website or a particular page within a website (e.g., "Shopify blog").
Commercial intent: When users research a particular product category before making a purchase decision (e.g., "AI copywriting tools").
Transactional intent: When users search for a certain product to purchase it (e.g., "Slack discount").
The main purpose of search engines is to provide users with answers relevant to their search queries.
As such, understanding your target audience's search intent and creating high-quality content around it is crucial for occupying the top search engine listings.
The good news is that identifying search intent isn't that difficult.
Since search engines prioritize answers relevant to users' queries, you can use that to your advantage and determine your target audience's intent by analyzing top-ranking pages.
This also gives you an insight into your competitors' content and SEO strategy.
You can also review your website visitors for what they search for.
Key phrases with question-based words, like "who" or "what" typically signify informational intent. That brings us to our next point.
2. Identify relevant keywords
Keyword research is crucial for creating content that appeals to both search engines and readers.
For one, keywords represent the phrases users type in the search engine bar when looking for something on the internet.
Creating content that revolves around these keywords means that you'll appeal to the users' needs.
Secondly, search engine algorithms use the keywords within your content to identify what your blog post is about and match it with the user's search queries, pushing it up the search engine listings.
Using a tool like Surfer Keyword Research can help you generate a ton of relevant keywords for your website without being an SEO expert.
To find keywords, head to Surfer Keyword Research and follow these steps.
- Enter your main topic and country
- Click Create Keyword Research
You'll be presented with a list of relevant keywords along with information like their search volume, keyword difficulty and customer intent.
This research for "website design", for example has 87 blog post ideas. Here's a snippet.
You can explore any keyword by clicking on a keyword tile.
You can also use community forums like Quora and Reddit to find seed keywords.
For instance, after typing the keyword "Content marketing" in Quora, various questions regarding the topic popped up.
This is an excellent way to identify keywords and content topics users are most interested in.
However, keep in mind that some keywords encounter high traffic volumes while others are less sought after.
The problem is that high-traffic keywords also typically experience high competition—multiple websites will try to rank for the same keyword. Consequently, ranking for highly competitive keywords will be more difficult.
Long-tail keywords might be the answer to striking a fine balance between keyword difficulty and search volume.
These are longer (above three words), more specific search terms.
For instance, the long-tail keyword variation for "handbags" would be "leather handmade handbags."
Although long-tail keywords are less popular, they usually indicate a high conversion intent. Since users are searching for a specific product, targeting long-tail keywords will attract qualified traffic to your website.
3. Answer questions People Also Ask
Google's People Also Ask feature is an excellent resource for keyword research.
This SERP snippet provides additional questions and answers related to a user's original target keyword.
For instance, the original search query here is simply "how to avoid AI detection."
Google offers additional questions, that are related to the main search query.
Like with Quora, the People Also Ask feature helps you identify what your target audience is most interested in—perfect for topic ideation.
AnswerThePublic is another useful tool that displays phrases linked to your target keyword.
For instance, after typing in "SEO copywriting," the tool offered numerous long-tail versions of the said keyword, like "SEO copywriting for beginners" or "SEO copywriting best practices."
It also offers additional information, like the keywords' cost-per-click and search volumes—especially handy for PPC ad campaigns.
4. Optimize On-Page SEO
On-page SEO refers to all the optimization practices that take place on your web pages.
This includes optimizing a blog post, image, meta description, and page title. SEO copywriting requires specific attention to the title tags, meta descriptions, and header.
Search engines use these elements to understand what your content is about and rank it. That said, let's get into more details.
Title tags
Title tags (also known as meta tags) make up the clickable text shown in the SERP and represent the name of the web page they link to, but they also appear in browser tabs.
You should optimize your title tag both for the search engine and the potential visitor.
For one, your title tag should include your target keyword. Google uses title tags to understand what the web content is about.
As such, including a specific search term in the title tag will help your content rank for that particular keyword.
Secondly, if your content ranks for multiple keywords, make sure your title tag represents a combination of them via modifiers.
This helps optimize your title tags for multiple specific keywords simultaneously.
Using the example above, we could target the following keyword phrases:
- Primary keyword: "Dodge cars"
- First long-tail keyword variation: "Used Dodge cars for sale"
- Second long-tail keyword variation: "Used Dodge cars in Detroit"
- Title tag: "Used Dodge cars for sale in Detroit"
There's also the Click-Through Rate (CTR) you need to take into account.
This represents the percentage of people who saw your search engine listing and clicked on it.
Make sure your title tag accurately represents the content of your webpage and compels visitors to click. Additionally, the title tag should be under 60 characters long.
Otherwise, it won't fully display in the SERP.
A high CTR also tells Google that your page is relevant. Consequently, it will push it further up the rankings.
Meta descriptions
Meta descriptions represent the text under the title tag.
Your meta description should also include your page's target keyword and precisely describe its content in an engaging manner. This helps both visitors and search engine algorithms understand the page's topic, leading to higher rankings and CTRs.
Avoid keyword stuffing.
Ideally, your meta description should be up to 155 characters long.
Headers
Header tags structure your webpage's content.
They can either be H2, H3, etc. In terms of SEO, header tags help search engine crawlers get additional context regarding a blog post's content.
Meanwhile, headers help visitors scan the content more easily.
The H1 tag (not to be confused with the title) is highly important.
Crawlers use it to understand the main topic of your page. Consequently, make sure to include your primary keyword in it. The subtags should structure the content for enhanced scannability and establish hierarchy.
5. Use copywriting techniques
As mentioned, having search engines in mind is just one part of SEO copywriting.
You also need to create compelling content that hooks visitors and keeps them engaged. Let's go through a few copywriting techniques you can't go wrong with.
The Problem-Agitate-Solution (PAS)
The PAS formula evokes powerful emotions by adding a sense of empathy, followed by a scare factor and then a sentiment of relief.
This makes readers invested in the content as soon as they start reading.
As such, the PAS formula should first identify the reader's pain point, aggravate its effects, and provide a solution.
Here's an example:
- Problem: "Having trouble with slow and unreliable internet connections at home?"
- Agitate: "Slow internet interferes with work, leads to endless buffering on streaming services, and causes dropped video calls during important meetings. It's not just inconvenient; it harms your productivity, free time, and communication".
- Solution: "The good news is there's a solution. Upgrade to our high-speed fiber optic internet service today. With us, slow internet is a thing of the past."
Notice the power words in the Agitate section, like "endless," "important," and "harms."
They help evoke stronger emotions and engage readers.
To make this method work, make sure you thoroughly understand your target audience, its pain points, and how your products/services help solve their issues.
The Bottom Line Up Front (BLUF) Technique
As the name suggests, this technique places the most vital information (usually found at or near the end of a blog post) right at the start.
Consequently, readers have quick access to all the details they require.
If they want to get into more details, they can simply keep on reading—no need to add teasers or hooks in the introduction to get them to go through your content.
This practice helps visitors quickly understand the contents and value of your blog post, making them more engaged as they read.
Here's an example from Search Engine Journal:
Search Engine Journal's blog post is straight to the point.
Its core message is shown at the beginning—quality content is Google's top ranking factor.
It then highlights key details like the impact content has on the Google search results page and how you can improve your rankings.
Consider the inverted pyramid structure when organizing your content to make this technique work.
In short, this practice puts the fundamental information (the base of the pyramid) at the top of a blog post, while other details are placed below based on their importance.
The Annotations, Short sentences, Multimedia, Reading out loud (ASMR) formula
The ASMR formula revolves around short sentences and the inclusion of various content formats within a blog post to boost readability, engagement, and information retention.
That said, let's go over each aspect of this formula.
- Annotations: Include sidenotes or quotes. It backs up your statements and reduces monotony.
- Short sentences: Use short sentences and paragraphs. It reduces fluff and makes content easy to read.
- Multimedia: Embed videos, GIFs, or images. It adds variety to your content and helps illustrate your points. Consequently, content is more engaging and memorable.
- Reading out loud: Read your content out loud. It helps determine whether your content is easy to read, flows smoothly, or needs further edits.
Here's an example from our blog.
The sentences are short and straight to the point.
The content is also broken down into several paragraphs and formatted differently.
Meanwhile, the X embed offers readers additional context. This adds extra value to the content and makes it more fun to read.
The rest of the blog post is filled with screenshots and illustrations.
This adds visual support, helping readers to understand better and retain the details discussed throughout the post.
6. Make your content easy to scan
Scannablitliy is crucial in SEO copywriting.
The use of white spaces, formatting, media and design can elevate the reading experience of your blog.
Greeting users with a huge block of text will do nothing but discourage readers from reading through it.
Not to mention that it's also tiring, so the chances of a visitor consuming your content are close to zero.
This will cause an increase in bounce rates and a decrease in dwell times.
Since Google potentially uses these factors to decide whether your website offers a good user experience, hard-to-scan content will also affect search engine rankings.
That said, make sure to use the copywriting techniques mentioned above.
The ASMR formula ensures your content is easy to read and scan.
Meanwhile, the BLUF and PAS methods grab the readers' attention and encourage them to continue reading your content.
And again, use header tags to structure your content properly—it makes your content easy to scan.
Since search engines also use headers to identify the blog post's topic, a proper content structure also leads to more organic traffic.
7. Use a conversational tone
The tone of voice also influences your reader's engagement. Your content should follow a friendly, conversational tone.
This helps humanize your business, add a dash of personality, and make you appear more relatable in your audience's eyes.
Avoid using robotic language and sophisticated terms—your content needs to be fun to read and easy to understand.
Using a conversational tone will also help your SEO efforts.
Speaking with the same words as your audience will improve engagement and lower bounce rates.
It will also help your pages rank for the same keywords readers type in the search bar.
Make sure your content strikes a balance between friendliness and value. You should emphasize offering valuable information in a friendly and engaging manner.
Use plain language, contractions, personal pronouns, and an active voice.
Some other tips include throwing in a little slang and using questions throughout your content, to mix it up a bit and show emotion.
8. Optimize for featured snippets
Featured Snippets are short fragments of text that appear at the top of the search results.
They answer the user's queries, typically through tables, definitions, lists, or concise explanations.
Since featured snippets occupy the topmost section of the search results and take up more real estate than regular listings, they are excellent for driving more traffic to your website and improving CTRs.
Featured snippets pull content directly from your page and display it on the search results page.
So, how can your content rank for a featured snippet?
You can create sections of content that are particularly designed for it and add them anywhere within your blog post.
More specifically, address common questions your target audience may have concisely but in a detailed manner—just like the example above.
The answers should be around 40-60 words in length.
Ideally, include your answer within an html div tag for featured snippet optimization.
Again, the People Also Ask section in the SERP is an excellent resource for identifying topics your audience is most interested in.
Also, content for featured snippets should target keywords commonly used by search users. In this case, it's "average CTR for Google Ads."
9. Use images and graphs
I've made this point before under scannability but am elaborating here because of how essential it is.
Including relevant images and graphs throughout your copy helps improve the reading experience and user engagement.
For one, they add visual support, allowing readers to understand your content easily.
Secondly, it breaks up monotony, especially for lengthier blog posts.
A text-only page will likely get tiring after a while. This may cause users to not go through the content in its entirety.
Images are also important for SEO.
Although search crawlers can't see the image itself, they instead rely on an image's alt text to understand the context and purpose it provides on a specific webpage.
Alt text is a piece of HTML code that describes an image's contents. You can see it whenever a visual fails to load.
Aside from contributing to a webpage's ranking, alt text can help place your images higher in Google Image results.
Image alt text also complies with Google's accessibility guidelines—it helps screen reader users understand an image's context. Your image alt text must be concise and descriptive.
In this case, an alt text that simply says "A French Bulldog" wouldn't work.
It's too vague. Alt text needs to accurately describe the content of an image so it can easily be understood by search crawlers and screen reader users.
The following alt text is more descriptive: "A French Bulldog wearing a green jacket and a golden chain posing for the camera."
The same thing goes for image file names.
Like with alt texts, search engines may look at an image's filename to understand its context.
Avoid using default names, like "IMG0001.jpg." Again, they need to be descriptive and preferably under five words.
In this case, "dog-with-jacket-and-chain" would work.
Placing hyphens between words helps search bots understand your image file name more easily.
Make sure to use image compressors, like TinyJPG or Smush (for WordPress), to reduce image file sizes without compromising on quality.
Visuals are heavy in terms of website loading speed, which is a potential ranking factor.
6 tools for SEO copywriting
Writing for SEO can be intimidating if you're new to it and have been primarily dealing with general copy for marketing. Although these tips will help you bridge gaps, you can reduce the effort and time to create SEO content using SEO copywriting tools.
1. Surfy
Surfy is an AI-assisted copywriter within Surfer AI's platform.
It can help you with several copywriting tasks such as:
- Writing new text
- Rephrasing content in a different manner
- Adding examples and research
- Expanding or summarizing content
- Linking to other articles
If you want to add new content, just add a prompt that fits your piece.
For example, here's a prompt for an article about document management systems.
And here's the generated text.
Here's an example of rephrasing existing content using Surfy.
And a prompt asking for supporting examples, and internal or external links.
Your writing prompts' level of detail will affect how specifically Surfy will generate your content.
Surfy is notably useful for long-form copywriters, but it can also write captions and create material for social media.
Meanwhile, Surfer Content Editor's Content Score evaluates your blog post's search engine appeal based on the use of targeted keywords, headings, images, and paragraphs they include.
The higher the score, the better optimized your content will be for its target keyword in the SERPs.
2. Semrush
Semrush is a digital marketing platform that covers SEO, PPC, and content marketing features.
There is also a social media marketing tool which is available as an extra add-on. In other words, Semrush is excellent for boosting your overall online presence.
In terms of SEO, Semhrush covers in-depth keyword research and competitor analysis features.
Its Keyword Magic tool uncovers thousands of keyword variations based on your desired primary term.
You’ll get insights regarding each keyword’s difficulty, search volume, cost-per-click, and more.
As for competitor analysis, the platform takes a deep dive into your competition’s SEO practices. It reveals their most valuable keywords and helps identify gaps via historical performance data.
Semrush’s SEO copywriting tools analyze your existing content and offer suggestions for boosting rankings.
It also offers SEO-optimized content templates to create content faster. Other notable SEO features include site audits, business listing management for local SEO, and backlink analysis.
Pricing starts at $108.33/month (billed annually).
3. Quillbot
QuillBot is a free writing assistant that handles grammar checking and paraphrasing. The platform’s paraphraser rewrites existing content to make it more readable and sound academic or formal.
The platform’s premium version can also automatically expand or shorten content.
Additionally, the Custom Mode rewrites content to fit your desired tone of voice.
QuillBot’s summarizer is another noteworthy feature.
It automatically summarizes blog posts of up to 1,200 words in length (free version) or 6,000 words (premium version)—ideal for quickly generating blog descriptions or repurposing long-form content for social media platforms.
The summarizer gives you two options:
You can extract key sentences from a bullet list or paragraph format. You are then free to adjust the summary's length via a slider.
QuillBot’s translator can also help localize webpage copy and blogs in 45 languages. You can simultaneously edit the text via the platform’s other available tools.
The platform's premium plan costs $4.17/month (billed annually). You also option to pay bi-annually or monthly.
4. Wordtune
Wordtune is a free AI-powered writing assistant that spices up your content with jokes, statistical facts, and even analogies.
It can help boost productivity by automatically expanding on a specific topic—simply write a sentence, and Wordtune will generate a detailed explanation to back up your statements and make your content easier to understand.
Most noteworthy, the platform’s summarizer can quickly condense YouTube videos and PDF files, besides regular blog posts.
Again, that’s perfect for re-purposing content for various platforms.
Wordtune can also create content from scratch, while its paraphraser rewrites existing blog posts to make them sound more formal or casual.
Other notable features include a built-in grammar and spelling checker, translations for up to ten languages, and the option to automatically generate counterarguments or integrate quotes to make your content more nuanced.
The platform’s free version includes all the features mentioned above. Paid plans start at $9.99 and offer text clarity, fluency suggestions, and premium support.
5. Grammarly
Grammarly is a straightforward grammar, spelling, and punctuation checker.
The platform delivers personalized writing suggestions based on the following criteria:
- Tone of voice: Informal, formal, or neutral.
- Audience: Expert, knowledgeable, or general.
- Intent: Story-telling, convincing, informative, or descriptive.
- Domain: Academic, business, email, etc. (premium only).
Grammarly then uses this criteria to evaluate your content’s readability and give it a score—the higher the score, the better.
Additionally, Grammarly evaluates your content clarity and suggests where to cut out fluff or make sentences more comprehensible.
The platform can also adjust your writing to adhere to American, British, Australian or Canadian English standards. A free AI assistant also helps you brainstorm content ideas, generate drafts, and reply to emails.
Grammarly’s premium tools suggest how to make your content more engaging or adjust word choice to fit your desired tone of voice.
Lastly, the platform’s Business plan allows you to set up style guides and brand tones.
This makes it easier for your team to create content compliant with your brand’s guidelines.
The Premium plan costs $12/month, while the Business package will set you back $15/user/month.
6. AnswerThePublic
AnswerThePublic enhances your SEO content strategy by identifying exact keyword phrases your target consumers commonly use—just enter a topic, product, or brand, and the platform will deliver a visual graph with numerous question-based long-tail keywords related to it.
The keywords are split into specific categories, like phrases starting with “who,” “why,” or “how”, for instance.
You can also sort through keywords in an alphabetical order, and identify keywords containing prepositions or phrases with comparison intent.
AnswerThePublic also displays relevant keyword data, like search volume, cost-per-click, or the number of daily searches.
In other words, this tool is perfect for content ideation and pinpointing common questions among your target audience.
You can then provide relevant answers and increase the chances of ranking in featured snippets.
You can use AnswerThePublic for free. Paid plans start at $5/month, while you have the option to purchase the entry-level package via a $50 one-time payment.
Key takeaways
- SEO copywriting involves combining SEO tactics with copywriting techniques to create content that appeals to both search engines and visitors.
- Keyword research, on-page SEO, and image optimization are crucial for attracting more organic traffic.
- Meanwhile, the ASMR, PAS, and BLUF techniques get new visitors engaged with your content.
- Prioritizing scannability, imagery, and a friendly tone keeps visitors on the webpage, lowering bounce rates.
- A catchy, SEO-optimized meta description and title tag help boost search rankings and simultaneously increase CTR.
Conclusion
There, you have nine SEO copywriting tips that will help you write awesome content and hit the top search results.
Don’t forget about the tools we talked about. They can make the SEO content writing and keyword research process a whole lot easier.
Also, SEO is ever-changing—search engines constantly update their algorithms to provide users with the best possible results.
You’ve got to be on your toes. That said, be sure to check back on your blog to stay up-to-date with your content, and provide a memorable user experience.
