What is an SEO copywriter?
A copywriter persuades. A copywriter speaks the language of your audience – keeping it simple but using sophisticated psychological principles like social proof and scarcity to influence and convince.
Part salesperson, part shrink, part storyteller.
An SEO copywriter takes things a step further. Like an evil robot wordsmith, an SEO copywriter uses powerful software tools to analyse data from search engines. They can find out;
- What people are searching for, in relation to any topic
- The exact key words they use
- How Google and other search engines interpret and answer those searches
Armed with this information, your SEO copywriter creates a framework for whatever they’re building – website, content strategy, blog – that’s going to nail that question, dead centre. They’ll often take a look at the top three ranking search results for that question, and take note of why those web pages are so successfully answering the question.
Then they boot up the old inspiration machine, and use those aforementioned powers of persuasion to build the best piece of content they can.
Normal copywriters can also do keyword research, it’s true. But an SEO copywriter has the tools and the skills to completely dissect a topic in order to build an SEO strategy that’s going to massively improve your chances of ranking highly in the search results.
DISCLAIMER – it’s worth pointing out, before any bread-and-butter SEOs get hot under the collar, that SEO is about more than content creation. There’s the two other departments – technical SEO and off-page SEO/link building – that are also essential for good search performance.
Be wary of an SEO copywriter who claims competency in all three. It’s unlikely. Think of an SEO copywriter as the best choice to boost your results, rather than completely covering all aspects of SEO.
However, here’s still lots to be gained from using a copywriter who specialises in on-page SEO, as I’m about to explain.
Why do I need an SEO copywriter?
SEO copy performs better. On-page SEO is about far more than keywords. When an SEO copywriter sits down with their notes and audio recordings to plan out exactly what your site’s going to look like, they’re looking at how to achieve the best rankings possible for your each of your main pages, as well as how to guide the site visitor from landing page to conversion.
They’ll be looking at site structure too, with the aim of creating a solid set of internal links that will make it clear to the crawl bots and search engines how the different pages relate to each other. This also applies if the project is content marketing – adding strong internal links between related content creates ‘content clusters’ – a set of pages on a given theme that all address that topic from different angles.
The resulting pages are going to perform way better, and will also be a lot easier to optimise further once the site’s up and running.
Better return on your investment – whether you’re already paying for SEO or not.
Sometimes, when I find myself talking to an SEO, there’s a bit of an…edge to the conversation. They like to ask questions, suss me out. If I don’t answer the question correctly (yes, it happens), they look relieved.
I get it. They’re selling an invisible product, only detectable by its results. The vast majority of the population either ignore it, or have a very limited understanding of what it is and how it works. And when it works, it’s by a painstaking process of trial and error.
They’ve got enough problems in the SEO industry with shysters, snake oil sellers and conmen. The last thing they want is writers jumping all over it, too.
Thing is – I don’t claim to provide their services. I’m careful to explain myself – to them, and to clients. Because the benefits to both parties are sizeable.
If you’re already paying for SEO on your site, an SEO copywriter can work as an associate member to that team. They don’t even have to be in contact – an SEO copywriter can analyse the performance of your existing content, and figure out what’s working already. They can work around that content, building supplementary content to create content clusters, or branching out into new keyword areas.
If an SEO copywriter builds the site, any SEO working on the site afterwards is going to arrive at a site that’s built to rank. Half the work’s already done.
This is going to make life easier for your SEO – if everything’s already optimised, they can focus on improving other aspects, giving you more bang for your buck. There’ll still be optimisation opportunities, but you’ll still be a lot further along than if the SEO had to start from scratch.
If you don’t have an SEO package, then an SEO copywriter will provide the best possible kickstart to your SEO potential, by providing copy that is well-optimised to rank. They can set you up with a monthly automated digital report that shows you how your website is performing, how you’re ranking for your most important keywords, and how your site visitors are responding to your content.
This will help you learn more about SEO, and provide you with insights you can respond to through your business decisions. Even a little knowledge about SEO can help improve your digital marketing efforts.
Your SEO copywriter might even be willing to provide ongoing optimisation services and a basic backlinking package, if you ask nicely.
Use your competitor’s SEO strategies to leverage your own.
We’re all learning from each other (cough). And if you’ve got the tools, you can learn A LOT. This is why just picking out some keywords with high search volume and low competition is only going to get you so far.
A good SEO tool (I use SE Ranking) allows to examine the pages and websites of your competitors and market leaders – or anyone who’s ranking for the keywords you want. You can take the strongest pages and articles and really pull them apart. Look at how they’ve;
- structured their content – how long is it? what links have they used? What’s the format? Is it a ‘how-to’, or a case study?
- how they’ve used the keywords
- what other keywords the page is ranking for
- what paid search campaigns they’re running
These are the things that you should be looking for in an SEO copywriter. If you want to know how this could work for you, get in touch.