However, one of the great ways to establish these connections is through great copywriting - where you use words that are relatable to your audience and fires up the emotions you want them to feel, all whilst trying to entice them to take action and buy your product/service.

While it may seem a simple task to write something that you think will resonate with your audience, there are essential principles to follow to ensure that you can effectively convince them. In today's blog, we'll cover what SEO copywriting really is and discuss some of the best practices that will help you draw in customers, convert leads, and drive more sales than ever before. Check it out.

What is SEO Copywriting?

SEO copywriting is the practice of producing keyword optimised content that’s designed to appeal to your users as well as search engine algorithms. In other words: SEO copywriting is writing content that Google can understand. And, at the same time, that content needs to be the type of content that people want to see from you. The content must contain compelling words that entice the audience to take a specific action (like buying a product or subscribing to an email list). This type of copy can be found in emails, on product pages on your site, and different marketing materials you use.

Here are some examples of content types that can be created with SEO copywriting principles in mind:

• Landing pages
• Call to action (CTA) buttons
• Website copy
• Product descriptions
• Checkout
• Advertising content

SEO copywriting differs slightly from other SEO content writing you know, such as blogging, as the end goal is to convert leads rather than generate organic traffic. In addition, SEO copywriting typically is shorter; where a blog may have almost a thousand words, copywriting content may have less than half of that.

However, the two certainly go hand in hand. For example, you may create a blog that includes a CTA that use enticing words your audience want to click to learn more.

Best Practices for SEO Copywriting

Strong SEO copywriting is a combination of a variety of factors, all of which we’ll discuss below.

Know your audience

The very first step to great SEO copywriting is knowing your audience. Without this information, it will be impossible to entice them with your writing as you don’t know who they are or how to appeal to them.

Finding your audience for SEO copywriting follows the same processes you would when creating any type of content for your business and marketing campaigns: buyer persona research. Buyer personas are representations of what your ideal customer looks like based on  your market research, existing business data and customer profiles. So study your target audience, know what they want to hear and understand their needs, and portray that in your content. After all, you're writing for your audience.

Conduct keyword research

This is the process of uncovering the words your target audience uses when searching for products and services similar to what you offer, and using the keywords in your content to attract those same people to your site rather than your competitors. For copywriting, this research is essential because it helps you uncover user intent behind the keywords your audience searches for so you can write copy that quickly resonates with their needs.

Be concise and straightforward in your copy

It's important to know the harder your copy is to read, the less likely it is you'll convert visitors into paying customers. If they have to put in a significant amount of effort to understand what you have to offer, you’ll likely lose them rather quickly along the way. So avoid using jargon and only include what is most relevant into your copy. This can be a difficult skill to develop, so it can be helpful to consider all of your audience's pain points and model your SEO copywriting strategy off of that.

Test and measure

Continuous testing ensures you keep up with what you audience wants and makes sure you're satisfying their needs. Testing also ensures that you’re maximising your efforts and prioritising your audience. Your copy should help your audience seamlessly come to the solutions you’re providing without putting in extra effort because your copy already explains it all perfectly.

An example of continuous testing can be creating different CTA’s, each with a variety of different copy, that you place on different website pages to see which drives better results.  When you utilise this strategy of test and measure, you’re directly showing your audience how you’ll solve their pain points and entice them to become a customer.