SEO copywriting – a totally useful How To guide.

Despite all the confusing acronyms and jargon, writing search optimised web copy isn’t rocket science. It’s about creating clear, targeted and useful copy – something you should be doing anyway.

Let’s start by being clear: there’s only so much you can achieve by just tinkering at the content on your site. Recent studies have shown that 85% of your ranking is down to things that happen off your site. And that comes down to content. With Google’s fancy new algorithm, SEO copywriting these days is all about a fresh stream of relevant, original and useful content that will keep people coming back, and make other sites link to you.

But before you start tearing off to launch your blog, let’s start with the basics – how do you make sure your site is as SEO copywriting-optimised as possible?

SEO copywriting – Just gimme the basics

The bottom line is, search engines help people find sites and information on the internet. It means you don’t have to know the exact web address, (totally handy) – just type in keywords that describe the website or information you’re looking for.

When you put in those words in, search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo use complex algorithms to rank sites for relevancy and credibility against what you’ve typed into the search bar. Search optimisation is the process that helps sites and pages appear higher up a search result – that’s called page ranking.

SEO is not about tricking people or search engines. It’s doing everything you can to help the search engines match your site or page to the people you want to attract.

Organic SEO copywriting is about making your site more credible and relevant to certain keywords, so that it’s ranked highly in those search results. This is distinct from paid SEO aka Search Engine Marketing (SEM), where you pay systems like Adwords to deliver your site to the searcher.

When people talk about “SEO copywriting” they mean that the text has been written to help Google identify the web page as one that’s relevant and credible to a searcher.

So how do you do that?

Here’s the process of creating SEO copywriting text:

1. define targeted keywords or phrases
2. craft copy to ensure these keywords are in strategic positions
3. use the keywords strategically in meta data

What are these keywords then?

Keywords are the foundation of all search optimisation. They’re what people use to search, and what search engines use to match people to relevant and credible content.

Search engines crawl around the net and index the information that’s on each page. Instead of storing the billions of pages in one database, they keep track of everything in smaller databases, each centred around a particular keyword or phrase. This makes it faster for the search engines to come up with your results.

Want more info? Sure you do. That was the basics. To get into the nitty gritty on how to ply your SEO copywriting trade, click on the link below to view the full article.

About the author: Helen Steemson

As the lead writer and creative director of Words for Breakfast, I work with clients in Auckland, Wellington and the Waikato. It’s about more than just words on a page – we write words that create action.

That starts with a true understanding of my clients’ businesses so text really speaks to their prospective customers.

That’s persuasive writing, and that’s what my team and I do best.

Part of my everyday work also encompasses teaching. I run in-house training courses in copywriting and digital communication for business people, tailoring the course content around each group’s particular needs. I also lecture and tutor at AUT’s Communications school, taking the second and third year students in creative advertising and copywriting. It’s challenging and rewarding work – and like most forms of teaching, I walk out of classrooms with new insights and new lessons. By teaching others, I also get to learn.

When I’m not writing stuff, you’ll find me making huge vats of pasta sauce, trying to growing sad tomatoes in pots, walking on hills and watching musical theatre.

This article was first published by Helen Steemson