This article centers on and around how to rank well on SERPs through search engine optimization, while also retaining the quality of your SEO copywriting.
If you’ve ever done SEO for your website, you definitely know that search engines (SE) play a major role in web traffic. SE optimized copywriting can maximize the number of visitors you receive, just because visitors are using the key phrases of your content to search for information.
However, ranking well on SERPs does not mean to satisfy only search engines, you can’t ignore your readers either. You do need to provide quality content in your optimized web copy to build trust, credibility and entice your readers to come back for more.
What is SEO copywriting?
Having optimized web content for both visitors and search bots is essential to increase your rankings on major search engines, like Google. By following SEO-focused web content writing tactics, you can help search engines to better categorize your webpages and ultimately serve better the users.
As your SEO-rich articles climb higher and higher in rankings, the exposure of content increases, and more visitors will see your articles. The more traffic you receive, the more popularity you gain and build a readers base.
Many professional search engine optimizers, however, focus more on search crawlers, which can be a mistake if their readers are ignored. The purpose of this blog post is to demonstrate you how to maximize your traffic from search engines, while also satisfying your readers by providing super quality content.
1. Finding keywords for your web copy
For any optimized content you write, you’ll need to research and find potential keywords to include in each article meaningfully.
Many writers use Google’s keyword tool to search for lucrative keyword ideas. When using this search tool, typically you’ll want to find keywords with a decent amount of search popularity to receive a considerable amount of traffic if you rank well for the key-phrase.
You’ll also want to make sure that the key-phrases you use have moderate or low competition in your industry. To do this, determine the Keyword Effectiveness Index (KEI) of your chosen keywords.
About KEI -
The KEI or Keyword Effectiveness Index is actually a formula that gives a comparison between the number of searches for the keyword and the number of competitive pages for the same. This Index helps to point out which keywords have the higher searches with the lowest competition level which can be the most effective for your SEO-focused content.
The procedure -
To start with, find the KEI of a certain keyword by first doing a search for the keyword in Google’s tool you want to use in your content. Then, search for the keyword on a search engine, preferably Google, for its global dominance as of now. Finally, divide the number of visitors by the number of websites in the search results.
A KEI greater than 1 is a good number, since fewer competitors are trying to rank for the keyword phrase, and you have a good chance of ranking well for the search term. Any keyword phrases with a KEI of less than 1 will be harder to rank well with, and you should find another keyword phrase to use in your SEO article.
Let’s take, for example, a hypothetical number of 300 searches a month for your targeted keyword. Google shows 225,400 results against that same search query. To get the KEI, just take the 300 and divide it by 225,400. The result is 0.0013, such a low KEI implies that a specific keyword is, most likely, NOT a good one for you to go for unless you are super authoritative.
If you’re having trouble finding a keyword with lesser competition, try adding a popular suffix or prefix into it. For example, instead of targeting the keyword “dog food”, try using “healthy inexpensive dog foods” or “nutritional dog food recipe”.
2. Retaining quality in SEO web copy
As mentioned earlier, you need to write quality articles for humans to be successful in terms of ranking, traffic, and conversion performance. After all, why should readers prefer to read what you say over others if you’re simply writing for search engines? Put your readers before search engines and make sure that your SEO web copy is uniquely informational.
A good way to do this is to keep your keyword density to less than 2.5 - 3 percent. To determine the keyword density, just divide the number of times the target keyword used in the SEO web copy by the number of total words in the entire article. Then, multiply the resulting number by 100 to get the percentage.
According to many renowned SEO masters:
One way to tell if your usage of keywords is spammy is to measure that occurrence against the overall length of the content. A keyword density roughly less than 2.5% and greater than 3% could make your content dull and your page could be abandoned by readers. You don’t need to carelessly repeat keywords within the content for SEO, else, it will be considered as keyword stuffing by search engines. In fact, if you do keyword stuffing, you’re likely to achieve the opposite result. Your focus should be on inserting keywords naturally within the flow of content.
3. Backlinking SEO web copy
Major search engines like Google also look at how many backlinks are pointing to your content, both internally and externally. So it’s a good idea to link back your SEO web copy to increase its authority to search engines to influence the ranking. To do this, here are some “suggestions” for linking based on generally accepted SEO best practices:
- Link back from relevant web pages of your site or other sites (the more reputable the more beneficial)
- Choose anchor texts that work for a long-term SEO perspective, though keep it natural
- Find the right opportunities to place links as high as possible in the content’s body
- Link back to relevant web pages from within the content
You might also receive backlinks logically if your SEO web copy provides top-quality content. These types of backlinks are better than backlinks you create intentionally since people who are genuinely benefitted from your content will want to become an advocate of it and share it with others.
These SEO tactics are obviously not the only ones to help increase your conversions but they are certainly among the well-known to significantly influence the ranking by major search engines and help drive more traffic to your website. Therefore, by considering them, you will have the best chance of considerably optimizing the ranking position of your website and shape your traffic flow to impact conversions positively.
Wishing you a happy year ahead!
