5 Great SEO Tips for Copy Writers

5 Great SEO Tips for Copy Writers 5 Great SEO Tips for Copy Writers Every modern business has a website. And if you have a website, you need an SEO strategy to help customers find you online. But how exactly does this work in terms of writing website copy? In this post, we run through a few SEO tips that you can use when writing online content. 1. Picking Keywords SEO is all about keywords. These are terms that people search for online to find your website, so it is crucial to use the right keywords in the right places. And this means working out the keywords your target customers are searching for online and building online content around them. A good starting point for this is using a keyword research tool. Alternatively, you can check competitors’ websites to see which terms they use. 2. Integrating Keywords How you work keywords into your copy is also crucial. For instance, you should try to: Use the main keyword(s) in the title of the page Include the main keyword(s) in the first paragraph of the copy Use keywords in subheadings within the copy Highlight keywords with bold or italic formatting where appropriate Include variations of keywords within the copy These may be small touches, but they make a big difference to SEO results. 3. Humans Are More Important Than Computers Keywords are good, but not if they come at the expense of readability. This is because, ultimately, the best way to boost SEO is to write good content that people want to share online. In the old days, you could get away with loading a webpage with keywords and search engines would still find them. This was known as â€Å"keyword stuffing.† But now, if you use too many keywords on a single page (more than 5% of the word count), Google may reduce the ranking of your website. Consequently, you should always focus on writing good content for human readers first. This also means making sure your website is error free, so don’t skip the proofreading! 4. Writing a Good Meta Description Getting your website to rank on search engines is only part of the battle. You also need people to click through to the site when they see the search results. And this is where the meta description is key. The meta description is the text that search engines use to â€Å"preview† a page in a list of results. It should therefore provide a brief summary of what the page is about. To do this: Keep it short (ideally between 155 and 320 characters) Explain how the page will resolve the reader’s problem For example, for this page, we could write: Check out our SEO tips for copy writers to boost your page ranking. Simple solutions for increasing traffic to your website. Perfect for businesses seeking a competitive edge online. In three short statements, we’ve made sure the reader will immediately know what the page is, what following our advice will achieve, and who we’re targeting with the page. 5. Strategic Linking One of the most important SEO tips is to work hyperlinks into your copy, including both internal links to other pages on your website and external links to other sites. Internal links should direct readers towards relevant information on your site. External links, meanwhile, can make your site more authoritative and boost its reputation. And if another site sees that you have linked to them, they might do the same in return, which will boost your SEO results significantly. However, don’t link to sites that rank higher than you for the same keywords, as this will be counterproductive. Focus instead on links to sites that cover related topics. Summary: 5 SEO Tips for Copy Writers When writing website copy, you need to think about SEO. This may include: Researching keywords and picking the right ones for your site Working keywords into the page copy effectively Making sure your work is easy to read for humans as well as computers Writing a strong meta description so people click through to your site Using internal and external links in your copy Applied well, these SEO tips should help boost your website traffic.