How to write great SEO copy

Writing any kind of content – web pages, product descriptions, blog posts – to fill a newly designed website is often a difficult task. It can be hard to distil your key messages and create text that is interesting and engaging and pitched just right. When you add in the need for content to be search engine friendly, it becomes harder still. Luckily, we have a few tricks and tips up our sleeve which will help you create great SEO copy that speaks to both the search engine spider and your desired customer.

Tip 1: Know your audience Before you can write great SEO copy, you need to know your audience. Afterall, you not only want to produce content that has keywords in all the right places, you want the traffic that you win from that optimisation to also be engaged by your content. Start by creating audience personas, these are profiles of your customers, listing things like typical hobbies, age, profession, interest, pain points and anything else that you can identify that might be useful.Knowing who you are speaking to will help you nail the right tone and style and also make it easier to determine the direction your content should take. With this information, you can then also start to identify relevant search terms and keywords. Tip 2: Create a useful keyword list Once you know who you’re speaking to and what solution they’re looking for from you, you can begin to shortlist the search phrases they’re likely to use to find said solution. Google Trends is useful here but there are also lots of keyword research tools around to help. You want a good breadth so your content isn’t littered with the same keywords every time but, don’t fall into the trap of having hundreds either and feeling obligated to squeeze them all into your on page content. Tip 3: Test, test, test Great SEO content takes a while to land on and it’s unlikely that you’ll create something perfect straight out of the box. Testing the effectiveness of your SEO copy is just as important as conducting A/B testing of landing pages or email subject lines. Testing helps you to refine and hone your SEO copy so be prepared to test different variations as many times as it takes to get something that works. Even then, you should regularly test updated variations to ensure your SEO copy moves with the times and is reflective of changing search habits and emerging keywords.When testing, focus initially on things like the headline, the opening paragraph and your final paragraph including the call to action. Tip 4: Be loyal to your brand messaging Your brand exists for a reason and likely has a mantra or mission statement that informs much of its activities. It’s important that you convey this value throughout your SEO copy and reinforce it on each page.