You’ve probably heard that getting to the top of online search results is good for business. But how the heck do you do it? The quickest route is to start with expert SEO copywriting services from an agency like Tailored Ink.
Read on to learn more about SEO copywriting, its benefits, and the services and support you can expect from seasoned pros.
What is SEO copywriting?
Effective SEO copywriting is the marriage of two expert skillsets:
SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is optimizing a website’s technical configuration, content, and link popularity so people searching for that company’s products/services can organically discover that company in search results. SEO done right means that search engines will rank these sites higher, which attracts more traffic and can improve business performance.
Copywriting is writing text (or ‘copy’) typically used for marketing. According to LinkedIn, the goal of a professional copywriter is to inspire business leads to take the actions needed to become clients. They add that the best copywriters take readers on journeys that educate while they persuade – a skill that requires them to write creatively while thinking strategically.
SEO copywriting services merge a copywriter’s writing and marketing skills together with an in-depth understanding of SEO to write online content that is both enticing and more likely to rank higher in online search results.
Effective SEO copy is most useful for content like:
- Website content
- Blog posts
- Landing pages
- Product write-ups
- Press releases
- Sales pages
- Whitepapers*
NOTE: For whitepapers, eBooks, sales slicks, or any other types of content that may be turned into PDFs for email distribution, SEO is less important since this type of content isn’t publicly available or crawlable by search engine ‘spiders.’
Why use SEO copywriting services?
The obvious benefit of using SEO copywriting services is that they give you the best of both worlds: copy that persuades online visitors to do what you want them to do and SEO to boost the number of visitors who will discover your site. Other great (and related) benefits include:
- Increases the chances of others linking to your site (aka backlinks), which can improve your search ranking
- Reduces bounce rates, which also improves your search ranking
- Can save you money on paid ads, as more of your target audience will find you organically
- Can help you remain competitive in your niche and position you as a thought leader
Top SEO copywriting services
These are some of the SEO copywriting services an agency like Tailored Ink provides:
SEO keyword research & analysis
Before an SEO copywriter starts writing anything, they need to find keywords that:
- Align to your business goals and services
- Enough people in your target audience are searching for
- Allow people to discover you organically via search
- Are competitive (i.e., fewer competitors are ranking for those keywords)
Finding effective SEO keywords is sort of like the ‘ikigai’ of content marketing.
[It’d be cool if we could design a Venn diagram with the four bullets above, to pop in here]
Online SEO tools, like SEMrush or Ahrefs, enable agencies like Tailored Ink to explore how keywords related to your business currently rank in search engines like Google. These solutions help us find those ‘unicorn’ keywords that will help your site jump to the top of search results.
SEO content research & strategy
Once we’ve uncovered great keywords for your goals and your target audience, it’s time to flesh out a content plan. This usually involves finding other related keywords, checking out what the competition is doing, and plotting content that’s actually interesting (and doesn’t read like a robot wrote it).
This is also where planning an SEO content hub can be invaluable. Because it’s very hard to get to the first page of any search engine with a single piece of content. But if your site has several content pieces ranking for the same keyword or closely related keywords? Your odds of jumping to the top of page 1 are much higher.
Writing & structuring on-page SEO
Ultimately, every word of content you write and publish contributes to your site’s SEO value. That includes the overarching narrative as well as specific on-page SEO elements, like:
- Your page URL: This should include your keywords and be short and to the point.
- Keyword ratio: You can’t just say a web page is about a specific keyword and hope for the best. The page itself has to include the keyword in a specific manner. This doesn’t mean stuffing the keyword in as many times as you can (keyword stuffing can actually harm your SEO). Instead, your job is to find a natural ratio that shows your content is both relevant to the target keyword and is written for actual humans.
- Internal links: These should link to related pages on your site that can provide more information on a topic. But don’t overdo it with the crosslinking, as Google and other search engines could ding you for that.
- External links: These link to relevant, high-quality pages on trustworthy, reputable websites you’d like to reference as valuable sources of related information.
- Image alt text: A copywriter won’t always have access to your images before you load them onto your site…but if they do, adding valuable alt text and an image description can also boost SEO.
- Headings and sub-headings: If it makes sense, these should include your primary and/or secondary target keywords and give context to what you’re writing about in the piece.
All of these SEO elements support your page ranking because they help search engines understand what your page is all about. The more context you can provide, and the more it aligns with what your target audience wants, the higher your page will show up in search results.
Compiling your SEO metadata
Metadata is information about your web page that you can give search engines to display to users when your page comes up in their search results, and it includes:
- The title of your web page
- The keyword/s you’re targeting
- A description of what’s on the page
For best results, include your keyword/s in your page’s meta title and description. Add a call-to-action in your meta description too, so you entice people to click through from the search results.
Building your content marketing calendar
Once you’ve got the hang of creating and publishing SEO web content, Tailored Ink can get you into a routine by helping you build an SEO content marketing calendar. After all, content marketing can generate 3X as many leads as other marketing methods, and plotting it strategically to a calendar gives you a system to get consistent results.
The best-performing content calendars go beyond just creating content for the sake of bolstering SEO. They also work hand-in-hand with broader business goals when they’re:
- Aligned with departments like Sales, Customer Support, and Account Management
- Consistently executed to boost traffic exponentially over time
- Built by professional teams, so they’re easier and faster to manage and maintain
- Tracked against core inputs, like word count, publishing date, keyword use, CTAs, and the writer
- Monitored for SEO performance using platforms like Google Analytics and SEMrush
Look for SEO copywriting services that can help you plan a content strategy that integrates intelligently with your long-term business goals.
Other factors that improve SEO
SEO copywriting services are strategic and incorporate all the technical tools mentioned above. But for your SEO to be truly effective, it isn’t enough for a visitor just to click through to your page. They need to stay there for long enough to prove that your page gives them what they’re looking for. The content itself needs to be relevant and easy for visitors to read, and your site must help them do it without struggle.
To do this, the SEO copywriting services you use must account for factors like:
High-quality content
The best way to keep visitors on your page is to share content that speaks to their interests using language that they relate to and enjoy reading. So, professional writers make a substantial difference. SEO’s need for high-quality content also means that superior writing must be a core part of any SEO strategy.
Content readability
Ever heard of ‘plain language’? It’s a writing principle based on the knowledge that when content is easy to read, it’s more accessible. This is why it’s so important for SEO. Because wordy, poorly structured, formal, and ineffectively written content sends most visitors back to search results to find simpler alternatives. It’s also why SEO copywriting services like writing for and monitoring content readability can be critical to increasing reading time.
Writing simply may sound easy enough…but it isn’t always. Using plain language to write about complex topics can be particularly challenging (consider law, tech, medicine, or finance, for instance). It pays to hire SEO copywriting experts who are trained in ‘translating’ advanced information into consumable messaging that gets results.
Page speed
It can be tempting to put a lot of flashy media elements on a page to get attention from your visitors. But often, heavy graphics can make a page much slower to load – another drop-off risk. In fact, if it takes any longer than 3 seconds to load, your bounce rate nearly triples. Make sure your page is light enough to load in less.
Mobile optimization
In a mobile-dominated world, a site that forces you to pinch to zoom, scroll from side to side, or aim very carefully to click one tiny button (and not the other tiny button right next to it) is not a site people want to spend time on. Your competitor’s site is probably easier to use.
Don’t fall into the outdated belief that most people visit your site from desktops. As of Feb 2023, more than half of all online traffic in the US is on mobile.
We see your thinking, though… Page speed and mobile optimization? What do they have to do with SEO copywriting services? It’s true – they aren’t factors SEO copywriters typically control, but they are factors that SEO writers can advise on, providing site-wide benefits that amplify long-term business performance.
Benefits of using an expert
It’s tempting to write content yourself. After all, if you’re reading this, you can probably write in English too. This is fine if you’re just starting out, but there comes a time when outsourcing your content to a professional SEO copywriting service makes better business sense. For instance, hiring a professional will help you:
- Optimize your time so you can focus on the specialist, income-generating tasks that only you can do and that are core to your business.
- Get better results from your online content because it’s search-engine optimized with attention to details that take years to master.
- Reduce bigger-impact business costs because the cumulative opportunity and efficiency costs of not leveraging the benefits above are substantially higher.
What to consider when hiring a professional
If you’ve never paid for SEO copywriting services before (or even if you have), here are a few things to consider before you get started:
- Your content goals
Depending on your business goals, an SEO copywriting agency may recommend one or a combination of content types like:
- Website pages
- Blog posts
- Landing pages
- Social media posts
- Search ads
- Product write-ups
- Press releases
- Sales pages
SEO copywriting services can include stand-alone content pieces or integrated, cross-channel assets and content hubs that work towards a broader lead-nurturing strategy.
- Your long-term needs
In the likely event that your business will need SEO copywriting services again in the future, it’s worth starting on the right foot with a provider that:
- Understands what your business does and how it works
- Can adopt your brand’s style and tone
- Learns and adapts with you as your business grows
- Integrates seamlessly into your existing team
With a well-positioned SEO copywriting partner like this, you can call on them at any stage because they function as an extension of your business.
- Your copywriting budget
You shouldn’t need to blow the bank on SEO copywriting services, but on the other hand, the ‘cheaper option’ isn’t always cheaper in the long run either. With the extra time and effort needed to spoon-feed a less-experienced writer, you may as well do it yourself – adding to those opportunity and efficiency costs mentioned in the benefits section above.
If you need help figuring out how much to budget, the current average that most marketers allocate to content marketing is 25% of their marketing spend. And this figure is growing – especially since the ROI on content marketing is $7 for every $1 spent.
Top brands go beyond just creating once-off SEO content too…they align every piece to a content marketing strategy that’s targeted, measured, and in line with their goals. Not there yet? Don’t worry. This is big-picture stuff we recommend aiming for in the long run. There’s always a step-by-step way to get there using your current budget.
SEO copywriting services for you
Tailored Ink’s expert SEO copywriters and marketing consultants have spent years writing for virtually every content type, across many brands, industries, and countries. Partner with us to maximize your SEO results quickly and with less effort.
Want to see if our SEO copywriting services are a good fit for you? Reach out, and let’s chat.
