Website Copywriting: How to Write Copy for SEO

Effective website copywriting is crucial for SEO (search engine optimization) and your company. Get your web copy right, and your website can attract a growing number of targeted, prospective customers. You’ll rank higher in the search engines, and your visitors are more likely to convert. If you aren’t intentional about copywriting, you may be losing targeted traffic to your competitors.

For your website content to be effective, it must be relevant to both your visitors AND search engines like Google. You’d be surprised at how many businesses miss the boat here. They write website copy that sounds good, but doesn’t help them rank higher in search engines or get the conversions they need. Conversely, other businesses write content that is packed with keywords, without thinking about how it sounds to real people.

We want you to write great content that gets results – and an edge on your competitors. This article will teach you how to write copy that search engines love, without losing sight of your readers.

Here’s how to write copy for SEO:

1. Include your most important keyword in the page title. The page title is the first thing Google (and your visitors) see when they look at your page. It REALLY HELPS to let Google see what’s most important about your web page from the very beginning. (For example, I’m targeting “Website Copywriting” as the main keyword for this post. Therefore, you’ll notice that I’ve used it at the very beginning of this page title.)

   SIDE NOTE: Please, do not use “Welcome” as your home page title. Your company isn’t defined by “welcome”. You don’t want your website to rank in search engines for “welcome”. However, we see businesses make this mistake way too often. In fact, there is a good chance your competition is using “welcome” in their home page title. If you can find a creative way to use a keyword in your home page title, you’ve got a better chance of being relevant in search engines than your competitors who are using “welcome.”

2. Use your primary keyword(s) in the first sentence on the target page – early in the sentence if possible. Then, make sure to repeat the keyword several times throughout the page. 

   (Example continued: Notice where I first used “website copywriting” in the content of this post. Also notice that I’ve used “website copywriting” four times so far. Because Google sees this word used multiple times, they can conclude the article relates to it.)

3. Include common alternatives of your keyword throughout your web page content. This helps search engines validate that your page should rank for your keyword. It can also help your ranks increase for the related search terms.

   (Example continued: Variations I’ve used so far – web copy, website content, write website copy, write copy for SEO, web page content, etc.)

4. Use geography words in conjunction with your keywords, if appropriate. This is especially important if you are a small business that serves a client base in a specific geographical location. For example, if you own a local landscaping company, you might want to consider targeting “Columbus, Ohio landscaping company”.
5. Mention a few other key pages on your website. Include links to those pages, if relevant, with keywords targeted to those pages. For example, I know that you’re interested in SEO (otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this article). Since you want to know about SEO, I’m going to include a few links to other pages on our site that will help you with SEO. My link will be a keyword related to the page I’m sending you to.
6. Make sure you make it interesting for real people. Don’t get so caught up in using keywords that you lose sight of what will resonate with the people you’re trying to attract.

This article touches on how to write content for search engine optimization. However, there are many other SEO strategies you will need to implement on your website. To get more SEO tips, you can download our free SEO Cheat Sheet. It covers other ways you can improve your on-page SEO tactics. And as always, if you need any guidance with SEO website copywriting, we’d love to help you.

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