The Do’s and Don’ts of Competitive SEO Copywriting

SEO copywriting plays a crucial role in virtually every SEO strategy for all types of industries. As search crawlers scour the net to rank web pages, you should fine-tune your content to cater to your readers and in part to the latest search trends.

That said, you may want to dive right into competitive SEO copywriting and develop a strategy right away. However, there are a few points to consider before taking this path, as well as several do’s and don’ts you need to remember.

What is SEO Copywriting?

Unlike traditional writing, SEO copywriting is the art of crafting compelling and engaging content while focusing on the best search engine optimisation practices. Competitive SEO copywriting requires proficiency in keyword research, conversion rate optimisation (CRO), on-page SEO, and basic HTML for some cases.

SEO copywriters aim to write keyword-centric content to rank on relevant keywords, which will then improve organic traffic and conversions.

If you successfully develop technically robust content through SEO copywriting, it can significantly impact both UX (user experience) and your off-site SEO.

How Will SEO Copywriting Benefit My Business?

Google and other search engines’ algorithms are becoming smarter and more sophisticated. Unlike before, search engines can now understand content beyond keyword matching.

Along those lines, you may wonder why competitive SEO copywriting still matters. If so, how would it benefit your business?

The answer is simple.

Search engines prefer optimised web content because people want them. Google clearly states that it focuses on providing the best browsing experience possible

People also tend to lean towards optimised SEO content because it:

In other words, competitive SEO copywriting is better aligned and more relevant than non-optimised web content. As a result, it packs a ton of benefits for your users and your brand, including:

  • Better user engagement
  • Improved Google ranking
  • Gain more traffic and leads on landing pages
  • Reduced bounce rates
  • Increased conversion rates

Before you venture into competitive SEO copywriting (or outsource copywriting to an agency to do it for you), it would help to read our guide on competitive SEO copywriting.

Do’s and Don’ts of Competitive SEO Copywriting

If you want absolute control over your content and learn how to write your SEO content, here are tips from Red Search about the dos and don’ts of copywriting your content.

Don’t Stuff Your Copy with Keywords

Gone are the days of spamming keywords to rank on SERPs. Today, Google sees this as one of black hat SEO practices — and may penalise your website for doing so.

Don’t get us wrong. Your web copy still needs to target keywords for it to rank. However, repeating the same word sentence after sentence would sound ridiculous to your readers, hurting your credibility and search ranking.

Remember, potential consumers won’t respond to poorly written copy, nor does Google.

Don’t Write Unnecessary Copies

You may need to write several web copies to become relevant for your audience, primarily when operating in a broad niche.

While Google values a comprehensive and in-depth copywriting structure (which we’ll deal with later), you still have to keep your visitors in mind.

Keep in mind that readers most likely respond to a compelling and well-written copy that gets straight to the point (see our best word count for SEO guide). Visitors might leave immediately if they see a massive chunk of text without any white space in between.

Because of this, we recommend you to avoid writing unnecessary copies, whether it’s a blog post or a landing page. It’s also a good practice to keep your copy comprehensive, concise, and engaging to read.

Don’t Hide Blocks of Text With SEO Keywords

Don’t get too desperate and hide keywords to try and manipulate search algorithms. Not only is it a waste of time and resources, but cloaking would severely harm your search ranking.

On the other hand, too many links on your homepage can look cluttered and overwhelming. You can utilise drop-down and multiple hierarchy menus to optimise navigation and keep the page from appearing disorganised.

That way, you hide most of your content from your visitors during the initial page load. They can then hover on various page elements to reveal hidden content for your subpages.

Do Take Time to Understand Your Audience

You can apply all sorts of SEO and CRO techniques in any way you like. But if your SEO copy isn’t relevant to your audience (much like writing unnecessary copies), then you won’t get as much traffic or leads as possible.

Crafting winning content that engages with your ideal consumers takes time and research.

Consider what your visitors would want from your product or service. What tone are they expecting in your blog posts? What information would they typically look for before scheduling an appointment or placing an order?

By taking the time to understand and relate with your audience, the less effort, you would make to write future web copies. Besides, the more you know your customers, the more you can satisfy their search queries. Thus, the higher you can rank your website.

Do Include Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI)

LSI keywords are words that are semantically relevant to your primary keywords. Most people mistake LSI keywords as outright synonyms of primary keywords. However, latent semantic keywords are strings of words that share the same context with your topic.

For instance, Apple and iPhone and smartphone are LSI keywords for each other. On the other hand, apples, fruits, and orchards are also semantically related.

What makes two apples different from each other for search engines are smartphones and fruit.

Thus, if you use semantically related keywords in your SEO copywriting, you ensure that your page appears on search queries relevant to your industry and topic. In other words, LSI helps you better engage with user search intent.

However, make sure to keep your LSI keyword count in control. Spamming these words throughout your content will lead to search penalties. So don’t overuse them to avoid interfering with your content quality.

The Ideal SEO Copywriting Structure

SEO copywriting deals with content writing and blog posts (in most cases). You should know how to build around the most effective SEO copywriting structure.

  • Headings bear your product and keywords
  • Sub-headings briefly describe your content and guide readers through the stream of information
  • Content summary wraps essential information relevant to your topic
  • Call-to-action lets your readers take the next step and carry out decisions on your site (usually to make an order or set an appointment)

In general, an excellent web copy is one that can answer your visitors’ questions and provide an out-of-the-box solution through your products/service.

Can I Do SEO Copywriting Myself?

You can ensure that your website is at the pinnacle in your niche by building a well-designed and highly readable web copy.

It is important to note that search algorithms are continually improving — As a result, you should tweak and fine-tune your copy in line with the demands of search engines.

Besides, the process of SEO copywriting isn’t very different from writing other types of quality content. However, not everyone are natural-born writers.

While some can write engaging and attractive articles within minutes, others lack that talent. Where your competition is utilising an agency or writing killer content themselves, you need to bring the same level of quality so utilising outsourced SEO content can be beneficial.

Even so, practice and research can help improve anyone’s writing skill. If you want to learn competitive SEO copywriting seriously, it helps you read a lot of text from books, blogs, magazines, and other resources.

One of the best ways to understand how to start is by reading several articles related to your industry which could then inspire you to write compelling content.

Also, you could learn how other people and direct competitors shape their sentences and develop their paragraphs, as well as entice readers through humour and wordplay.

With consistent practice and reading, you can learn competitive SEO Copywriting and develop a gut feeling about what makes interesting and engaging copy.

Summary

Competitive SEO copywriting is a process that works best when you follow a defined roadmap and ensure readable and compelling web content. It also helps you build content that’s appealing for both search crawlers and online visitors.

Besides, while not everyone is a natural writer, competitive SEO copywriting is something everyone can learn through practice and reading.

During the writing process, you might find that using SEO plugins on your CMS or eCommerce platform is useful for copywriting. Apps like Yoast SEO can help optimise your text for search engines and improves content readability.

At Red Search, our experienced SEO experts will help you craft engaging content to improve your site traffic and develop a robust SEO strategy to secure your spot on the first page of SERPs.

Contact our SEO experts at 1300 101 712 or drop your message in our contact form.



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