If you said “great content”, you’re 100% right. People and Google – both are getting smarter. The ONLY way to build a successful business online is to create smart content. Here’s where SEO copywriting comes into play. SEO copywriting is all about creating content that converts and ranks well in search engines. In this detailed guide, you’ll learn;

What is SEO copywriting and its importance How to create content that ranks and converts SEO copywriting examples (real-life) All the essential SEO copywriting tools you need

So are you ready to learn? Let’s get started without much ado.

SEO Copywriting: The Ultimate Guide for Beginners

What is SEO Copywriting?

SEO copywriting is the art of creating content for people and optimising it for search engines like Google. SEO copywriting = Copywriting (content that converts) + Search Engine Optimization (content that generates organic traffic) Here’s a simple difference between copywriting and SEO copywriting along with examples.

Copywriting involves in creating content that sells itself (best example is “Copyblogger” that uses content to convert people into customers) SEO copywriting involves in creating content that converts and also drives more organic traffic (best example is “Backlinko” as Brian Dean’s content drives HUGE search traffic and also converts into profits)

If you want to create SEO-friendly content faster, try Jasper AI free trial today.  Jasper is an AI-based writing assistant that creates blog content automatically. It’s like having your own personal assistant that will write blog articles on any topic imaginable in just seconds! Read Jasper review 2023 and discover pricing plans from Jasper to find more details about the tool.

Why is SEO Copywriting Important?

SEO copywriting is all about serving two masters – one is: your target audience and the other is: Google. You’re creating content for people and optimizing for search bots. Google is evolving everyday. It’s getting smarter. People are also getting smarter. They have too many choices out there. If your content sucks, they will visit your competitors’ websites. It’s as simple as that. That’s why you need to use the best SEO copywriting practices to satisfy both people and search engines. Here are some of the biggest benefits of SEO copywriting.

Great copywriting is all about persuading people with your words. You’re indirectly selling your products/services with your copywriting skills. So ultimately it helps you with more profits. SEO copywriting helps you with higher search rankings because you’ll be mostly targeting those search terms that people are already looking for. It helps you with better conversions and improves your online brand awareness. With SEO copywriting, you can communicate and engage with a wider range of people worldwide.

SEO Copywriting Best Practices

We’ll now talk about the best practices for SEO copywriting where you’ll learn how to write for people and optimise for Google.

Learn the 4-Step SEO Process for Effective SEO Copywriting

Here’s a 4-step SEO process to master SEO copywriting.

Step 1: Start With Keyword Research

If you want to get better at SEO copywriting, you need to learn the art of finding better keywords. Keyword research is the FIRST step to SEO success. What is keyword research anyway? Keyword research is the process of finding words and phrases that people type into Google to find what they are looking for. For example, if you search “pay per click affiliate programs”, we appear at the top of Google search results. Have a look; The above keyword has around 500 monthly searches. So showing up at the top of Google search sends the majority of those visitors our way. As per Semrush Organic Research report, we’re generating 4% of our monthly traffic from the above search term. Have a look; So if you want to get better at SEO copywriting, you need to understand the keywords first. You need to target those keywords that people are actually searching for. How can you get started? Here’s a quick tutorial on finding better keywords so you can create content that generates more organic traffic. We’ll use Semrush for the keyword research (the same SEO tool we’ve been using at BloggersPassion for more than 5 years now). If you don’t have access to it, you can visit this link to get a 30-day FREE trial. Once you’re on the Semrush dashboard, visit Keyword Magic Tool under Keyword Research. Enter any topic or keyword of your choice and hit enter. It instantly generates you a ton of keyword ideas. Have a look; As you can see above, Semrush keyword tool is generating us over 36,000 keywords for the term “copywriting”. That’s a lot of keyword ideas, right? You can filter out those keywords by;

Broad match Questions Phrase match Exact match Related

Or you can filter the keywords by using various keyword metrics. As you can see, you’ll find various keyword metrics like;

Volume (keyword monthly searches) Trend (popularity of the keyword, you can see whether a topic is getting more searches or less searches overtime) KD % (tells you how easy/hard it would be to rank your website for this keyword ) CPC (shows you the cost per click ad advertiser pays Google for a click on their PPC ad for the keyword) Competitive Density (the level of competition advertisers bidding on this keyword, 1 indicates the highest level of competition and a score of 0 indicates no competition) SF (refers to SERP Features such as Featured Snippets, People Also Ask for etc that are present on the results page for this keyword)

If you’re looking for less competitive keywords, choose keyword phrases with less than 500 monthly searches. Quick tip: You can use “Searches Related to” to find LSI keywords. Here’s how it looks like; As you can see above, when you search for “copywriting tips” on Google, at the bottom of the search results page, you’ll find various related searches which can be used as LSI keywords. Want to know more about keyword research? You can refer to our helpful guide on using Semrush for finding ultimate keywords in any niche.

Step 2: Optimize your content for Google

On-page optimization is the process of optimizing your content for specific keywords to attract more organic traffic from search engines like Google. On-page optimization happens only after keyword research. Once you find better keywords, you should be placing your keywords in certain places of your blog posts for better rankings. Here are some of the important places where your primary and secondary keywords should appear in your blog posts.

Title tags (as they are extremely important and make sure to use at least one keyword) Meta description (try to use primary and secondary keywords naturally) URL (keep it short and simple and try include your primary keyword) Image alt tags (use your primary keyword in your featured image) Subheads (use LSI relevant keywords to naturally optimize your content)

We’re currently using Rank Math plugin for on-page optimization of our blog posts. It’s completely free to use and offers excellent features.

There are hundreds of factors Google considers while ranking a web page. Out of them all, backlinks play a crucial role. Do you know why most of the authority websites often get higher rankings even with ordinary content? Due to the huge number of backlinks. Building relevant backlinks can help you with higher rankings in search results even if you’re running a brand new blog or website. Here are some of the easy link building strategies you can use in 2023.

Reach out to other bloggers. This is by far the most effective strategy to build relevant links naturally. The key here is to engage with other bloggers regularly through blog commenting, email outreach, social media shares and so on. Write guest posts for others. It’s the evergreen link building strategy. Use tools like Semrush to find link building opportunities. Analyze your competitors backlink sources and find ways to attract those links to your site in various ways such as broken link building, skyscraper technique and so on

You can refer to this guide on building high quality backlinks for your site.

Step 4: Keep Improving Your Blog’s Content

Most people don’t update their existing content. They create blog posts and forget about them. If you’re also doing the same, you’re making a huge mistake. What’s the point of creating new content if you’re not generating any results with your old content? So always keep an eye on your existing blog posts, analyse their rankings, analyse the competition and keep improving your content for better results. Track & Analyze Keyword Rankings: Make sure to always track and analyse your keyword rankings using tools like Semrush. That way you can improve your content if their rankings are declining.

Learn to Create Content that Sells Itself [Here’s How]

So far we talked about how to find better keywords, optimize your pages and rank for those terms. Let’s now talk about the most important element which is “Copywriting”. Here are some of the PROVEN ways to create content that sells and converts.

Learn the art of storytelling

Storytelling is powerful. Did you know that people remember stories 22x more than facts and figures? The SEO guru Neil Patel states, “62% of B2B marketers rated storytelling as an effective content marketing tactic”. So yes, storytelling is the future of online marketing. Storytelling has so many benefits including;

It helps you build a strong connection with your audience It increases your brand recognition and helps you stand out from the crowd Connecting stories often go viral online

Above all, storytelling is what helps you turn your website visitors into customers without selling hard.

Write irresistible headlines

On average, 8 out of 10 people will read headline copy, but only 2 out of 10 will read the rest. Headlines are EXTREMELY important. Even if you’re ranking #1 for any keyword, if your headline sucks, most people won’t click on it. Confused? Let us show you a simple example so you’ll understand the importance of creating better headlines. When you Google “SEO tools”, here’s what we get; As you can see above, although Moz is ranking #1 for the term “SEO tools” but it’s NOT click-worthy as it looks like an ad copy whereas Ahrefs headline is much more convincing and compelling enough to click on it. That’s why compelling headlines matter a lot. If you want to create a better copy that gets more traffic, create clickable headlines.

Learn how to write for online readers

Online writing and offline writing is completely different. Long paragraphs and complex sentences work well in offline writing (such as novels, stories etc) but online people love short paragraphs and simple sentences. Here are some of the powerful tips to write for online readers.

Use simple words and sentences. Don’t use jargon. Even a fifth grade student should be able to understand your words. Use plain English. It always works like a charm. Use bullet points. Lots of them. They help your audience easily consume your stuff without spending a lot of time. Use lots of subheadings to break your content. We often write more than 4000 word articles at BloggersPassion and we use a ton of subheadings (h2, h3 tags) to make it easy for people to consume our content.

Create problem-solving content (answer questions)

“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” – Albert Einstein You need to keep it clear and simple. Create problem-solving content. Your content should provide massive value to your target audience. They should take away some insights from each one of your blog posts. That’s how you generate better results. That’s how you’re going to get more social shares, comments, backlinks and so on. The key here is to answer your audience questions. Use platforms like Quora to find burning questions in your industry and try to provide useful solutions with your content.

Top 4 SEO Copywriting Tools You Must Need

SEO copywriting is a skill. It takes time to master. That’s why having access to the right tools help you master the art of copywriting. Here are some of the ESSENTIAL SEO copywriting tools that you can use.

1. Tools like Semrush or Ubersuggest (for Topic Research)

No matter what industry you are in, you need to pick the better topics (or keyword ideas). SEO copywriting is incomplete without targeting the right keyword terms. Here’s where keyword tools like Semrush or Ubersuggest come into play. Semrush is a paid SEO toolkit used by more than 6 million people and it’s also the same tool we’ve been using for more than five years now. How much does Semrush cost? Semrush is a premium SEO toolkit which currently has the following pricing packages.

Pro plan: Costs you $119.95 per month ($99.95 per month when billed annually) where you’ll get up to 10K results per report, upto 3000 reports per day, create up to 5 projects, track up to 500 keywords, up to 100K pages to crawl, up to 50 profiles for monitoring and 10 profiles for posting along with 5 scheduled PDF reports. Guru plan: Costs you $229.95 per month ($191.62 per month when billed annually) where you’ll get up to 30K results per report, upto 5000 reports per day, create up to 50 projects, track up to 1500 keywords, up to 300K pages to crawl, up to 100 profiles for monitoring. Business plan: Costs you $449.95 per month ($374.95 per month when billed annually) where you’ll get up to 50K results per report, upto 10,000 reports per day, create up to 200 projects, track up to 5000 keywords, up to 1 million pages to crawl, up to 300 profiles for monitoring and 50 profiles for posting along with 50 scheduled PDF reports.

So what are you waiting for? If you’re searching for a free tool for keyword research, you can try Ubersuggest. Although it has premium plans but it also offers you a free plan that lets you find a ton of keyword ideas in any niche.

2. Hemingway App (for Better Persuasive Writing)

Hemingway App is an excellent editor that can be helpful for copywriting as it highlights long and wordy sentences in yellow and complicated sentences in red. Here’s how it looks like; It also offers a desktop app and offers one-click integrations with Medium and any WordPress blog. You can also check out their online editor to copy-paste your content to make your writing better.

3. Headline Generator Tools (to Kill Writer’s Block)

Writer’s block is a common thing that most writers often struggle with. There are some amazing headline analyzer tools that you can use to kill writer’s block. Our suggestion is to write something. Start somewhere. You don’t necessarily have to start from the beginning. Most of the time, introduction consumes a lot of energy. That’s why you should start writing from the middle or end. Then, once you get the momentum, you can finish the introduction of your copy. Here are some of the amazing headline generator tools that help you with unlimited blog post ideas.

Blog Title Generator by SEOPressor TweakYourBiz Title Generator Blog Title Generator by BlogAbout Impact Portent Content Idea Generator HubSpot Blog Ideas Generator Fat Joe Blog Post Title Idea Generator

4. Rank Math SEO Plugin (for Better Optimization)

Rank Math is an all in one WordPress SEO plugin that helps you with better on-page optimization. Here are some of the awesome features of Rank Math.

Offers XML sitemaps Offers all types of redirects Offers rich snippets LSI keyword tool is integrated Optimize up to 5 keywords Automated image SEO Access to .htaccess Editor Access to robots.txt Editor Offers internal linking suggestions

SEO Copywriting Examples: 3 Real-Life Examples

Looking for examples around SEO copywriting? Here are some of the powerful SEO copywriting examples you can check out for inspiration and ideas.

1. Brian Dean’s Content

Brian Dean is the founder of Backlinko. He’s an SEO expert and he often uses powerful words to create content. His content generates millions of views and converts like crazy – thanks to his SEO copywriting skills. Here’s an example of one of his blog posts around Skyscraper technique. As you can see above, his blog post is all about link building. See how he carefully crafted his title along with the introduction. It’s REALLY effective. It’s easy to understand for people and also optimized for search engines for the term “link building”. Almost all of his blog posts are easy to consume, very informative and optimized properly for search engines. If you’re looking for real-life SEO copywriting examples, you should definitely read his blog posts.

2. Neil Patel

When you Google “affiliate marketing” (extremely competitive keyword), you’ll see Neil Patel is ranking #1 for the term. When you visit that blog post, you’ll notice an enticing copy. Have a look; His title, introduction, the usage of keywords – everything is crafted carefully. This post is one of the best SEO copywriting examples as it’s also ranking #1 for the competitive keyword which gets a ton of traffic each month.

3. Ahrefs Blog’s Content

We love Ahrefs. Not only they have an extremely useful SEO toolkit but they have an amazing blog. Their content is top-notch and they use the BEST SEO practices. When you search for “SEO tools” on Google, you’ll see that Ahrefs is ranking #1 for it. Visit that page and you’ll be amazed with their content. See how they optimized that page for both people and search engines? It’s elegant. That’s how you craft your content for better engagement and search rankings.

SEO Copywriting 7-Point Checklist

Here’s a simple yet most effective 7-point SEO Copywriting checklist for you.

Research the RIGHT topics. Find keywords that people are actually searching for. Use tools like Semrush, Ahrefs, Ubersuggest, Buzzsumo etc for topic research. Write for people. Don’t even think about Google search bots while writing. Write as someone is sitting in front of you. Use the word “YOU”. Don’t use jargon. Use simple words. Write for an fifth-grade reading level so anyone can understand your content. Come up with at least 3 to 5 headline ideas. Pick the best one among them. Use headline analyzer tools to test your ideas. Include your primary keyword in title, meta description, image alt tags, URL, subheadings (if possible) and sprinkle LSI keywords throughout your content for better rankings. Add value with your content. No matter what topic you pick, your primary goal should be to help your target audience. So know your audience wants and needs and create useful content for them. Search engines come later! Add visuals to your content. Include images, videos, illustrations, screenshots etc to make your content visually appealing to the users. Always make sure to perform a final copy edit. Proofread twice your whole content. Read it out loud. Use online proofreading tools like Grammarly. Trim unwanted words from your copy.

Here are some of the most frequently asked questions around SEO copywriting.

Semrush Coupon Code (Plus Our FREE eBook!) Off Page SEO Techniques for 2023 Best SEO Blogs to Follow for Better Search Rankings Answer The Public Review: How to Find Hidden Keywords? SEO Friendly Titles: Best Practices with Examples Dofollow and Nofollow Links: How They Impact Rankings? Semrush Pro vs Guru vs Business Plans Compared Best Keywords Everywhere Alternative Tools

Helpful Resources:

7 SEO Content Writing Techniques to Rank High In Google Search SEO Best Practices for 2023: The Ultimate Guide

Final thoughts on SEO copywriting for beginners

Learning to create content that’s optimized for both people and search engines is an art. If you become good at it, there’s no stopping you. But SEO copywriting takes time to learn and master and it’s worth your time. Fortunately, we now have access to so many copywriting and SEO related blogs that produce high-quality content. Read them, watch their videos, listen to copywriting related podcasts to become good at it. So what are your thoughts on SEO copywriting? Are you going to write content for your visitors and optimize for search bots? Have any questions? Let us know in the comments.