The Ultimate Guide To SEO Copywriting and Writing Amazing Website Content

Why Copywriting and Writing Web Content is a Necessity for SEO

B2B, eCommerce, finance, travel — it doesn’t matter what industry you’re in. Your SEO copywriting is what’s going to help you outrank the competition in Google search and drive more online visitors to your website to convert.

Get this right, and the rest of your online marketing will fall into place like clockwork.

It’s no wonder that 61% of marketers say improving SEO and growing organic presence is a top inbound marketing priority.

The challenge is this: Google’s algorithm is now so insanely fine-tuned that it can spot poorly written copy from a mile away.

That’s where your SEO copywriting comes into play.

The most effective copywriting is written for humans, then optimised for search engines.

That’s how you can make sure your web pages rank for the right search terms to reach the right audience and compel them to act.

Not sure where to start? Don’t worry — you’re in the right place. With this handy guide to SEO copywriting, you’ll have everything you need to get discovered online. We’ll cover:

• What is SEO copywriting and why is it important?
• Important copywriting elements for SEO
• Must-know SEO copywriting tips
• SEO copywriting don’ts

What is SEO copywriting?

SEO copywriting is the process of creating useful content that solves a user’s search intent and that is easily discovered by Google.

Good SEO copywriting has two goals.

The first is to provide value to your users and prompt them to take action. This could be buying a product, subscribing to a list, submitting a request form, or any other activity that encourages them to move further along the customer journey.

The second is to increase your website’s visibility in Google’s organic search results.

SEO copywriting is formatted in a way to makes it easy for search engines to understand what your content is about, so it’s more likely to appear for relevant user searches. Well-researched and informative SEO copywriting also increases the authority of your website online, which is another crucial factor for improving your ranking in search engine results pages.

These two are inextricably linked.

Create good content that isn’t optimised for SEO, and a good portion of your audience won’t discover your business online.

Create SEO-focused content that isn’t optimised for your users, and you’ll get outranked by competitors who are doing a better job.

That’s why the most effective way to amplify your online presence among your target audience is to solve their problems with well-crafted and well-optimised content.

Why is copywriting important?

To understand why copywriting is important for SEO, we first need to get to the root of Google’s goals as a search engine.

Google wants to deliver high-quality and high-relevance answers for any query. It judges this by more than 200 ranking factors, from the inclusion of the target keyword to social shares and the amount of time users spend on a website.

Now let’s look at copywriting.

The best copywriting isn’t just about stringing words together — it’s about persuading users to take an action. When you provide value to your users time in and time out, they’ll gradually move through your customer funnel and convert, whether that’s through signing up for a newsletter, booking in a demo or buying a product.

Convince enough people to take action, and Google will see your content as valuable to your audience and push you higher in search engine results pages. And this is precisely where you want to be, because 3 in 4 people never scroll past the first page of search engines.

Copywriting comes in many different formats, but the most common digital formats include:

Blog post

Blog posts explore different topics that are relevant to a website’s industry or operations. These might be articles, listicles, round-ups, interviews or opinion posts.

Blogging is one of the most popular content marketing strategies out there for SEO. In fact, adding a blog to your website can increase your chances of ranking in search results by as much as 434%.

Landing pages

These pages sit on your website and provide your audience with valuable information on your brand, products and services. Common landing pages include an “About” page, “Services” page, or a campaign-specific page for a promotion.

Ebooks

eBooks are long-form pieces of content that are usually available as a digital download. You’ll typically find eBooks used as a lead magnet, encouraging audiences to provide their details in exchange for a free copy.

Ad copy

Copywriting is an integral part of any effective online advertising campaign. You’ll find powerful copy on display ads like this one from Apple:

Or on paid search ads like Upwork:

Website content

On top of landing pages, copywriting is used throughout a website to inspire users to take action. Examples include product descriptions or step-by-step instructions for signing up for a subscription box, similar to this one from Good Pair Days:

Important elements for SEO copywriting

Here’s the good news.

You don’t need to be a technical expert to craft copy that’s created for humans and optimised search engines. However, there are a few basics that, when used correctly, will help increase your discoverability in search and increase your website’s conversion rate.

When you’re writing content for your website, make sure you keep these six elements in mind.

Site speed

The first important element of SEO copywriting isn’t writing at all. It’s your web design.

Consider this: the probability of a user bouncing from a website increases by 32% as a page’s load time goes from 1 second to 3 seconds. With every additional second of load time, website conversion rates also drop an average of 4.42% (between 0 and 5 seconds).

If your content doesn’t load quickly, what you’ve written won’t matter. Site speed is also a crucial ranking factor in Google search results, particularly with the launch of its new Core Web Vitals update in 2021.

That’s why you need to optimise your site speed to reap the maximum benefits of your SEO copywriting efforts and convert more SEO traffic.

Thankfully, it’s easy to measure your website’s load time with Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool. Just pop your URL in the field and hit “Analyze”:

The tool will then analyse your page’s site speed on both desktop and mobile devices. You’ll also receive a list of recommendations that you can follow to optimise your load times (and other Core Web Vitals).

Headline

Headlines are THE biggest influencing factor for someone clicking through to your website. According to Copyblogger, 8 in 10 website visitors will read your headline, while only 2 in 10 will read your actual content. If you want to increase your clickthrough rate, you need to develop headlines that draw readers in and prompt them to read the rest of your content.

There are a number of actions you can take to try and improve your headlines, based on a study from Conductor:

• Use a number. 36% of users prefer a headline with a number, such as “15 ways to be more productive at work” or “30 recipes that take less than 30 minutes”.
• Don’t go overboard with power words. Superlatives, such as “best” or “most”, can be effective in headlines, if used sparingly. Research shows that 51% prefer headlines with fewer superlatives, with 29% preferring 1 superlative and 22% preferring none.
• Be clear with your headlines. More than a third of all users prefer a headline that’s explicit and direct about the content in the article.

Another tip? Test out questions in your title tags to see what works with your audience. A study shows that question-based title tags have a 14% higher clickthrough rate compared to those without a question.

Image source: Backlinko

Content

Content is the biggest SEO copywriting element, and for good reason. People conduct Google searches to solve a problem — and your content needs to address that if you want to provide value to potential customers and rank highly in search results.

It all starts with an introduction that makes the reader want more.

If your headline has done its job, people will click through to read the rest of the piece. Now, you need to hook them in with an incredible intro.

As advertising expert Joseph Sugarman explains in The AdWeek Copywriting Handbook:

• The purpose of the first sentence is to get your reader to read the second sentence. 
• The purpose of your second sentence is to get them to read the third. 
• The purpose of the third sentence? 
• You get the gist.

We love how Dropbox writes its intros. Look at this one for an article about decision fatigue:

The introduction draws in the reader, making them want to read more, and more, and more.

If you can hook them in from the very beginning of your article, they’ll be more likely to read through to the end.

Do this, and you’ll increase time on page and engagement — both metrics that Google pays attention to when ranking your content.

Meta title and meta description

Your meta title and meta description are the two snippets that appear in Google’s search results. These two attributes help convey what your article is about to users and search engines, and entice people to click through to read more.

Here’s an example of a meta title and description from Time Out on the best things to do in Melbourne:

Search engine results only have a limited amount of real estate, so it’s important to keep your meta title between 50-60 characters and your meta description between 150-160 characters. Try to match your copy to the search intent, and include your particular keyword if applicable as these phrases will appear as bold text in search results.

Keyword frequency

Back in the day, SEOs used to stuff keywords in every part of their copy. This led to a whole lot of spammy web copy that was optimised for search engines and not for users.

These days, that kind of copy will get a website penalised by Google.

See, Google understands that people don’t write like this:

Image source: Backlinko

This isn’t to say that you shouldn’t include your target keywords at all in your copy. According to Google, keywords are still a fundamental part of the search engine algorithm:

Google: keywords are still a fundamental part of the search engine algorithm

You just need to be strategic about WHEN and HOW you incorporate them in your content.

Make sure your target keyword is in the most important places:

• Headline
• Introduction
• Title tag
• Image tag
• Meta descriptions

You should also incorporate long-tail keywords throughout your copy to target those low-competition search terms.

Another way to use keywords is with LSI keywords, which stands for Latent Semantic Indexing. LSI keywords are those keywords that are related to the main keyword that users search for.

Google relies on LSI keywords to understand content at a deeper level.

Let’s say you are writing a landing page about business loans.

Google will scan your page to see if you use the keyword “business loans” in your headline, title tags, content, etc.

But it will also scan to see if there are LSI keywords like finance, small business, funding, budget, and so on.

Page links

Links are an important way to build up your website’s ranking in Google search.

Here’s why.

If a website gets linked to from other high-quality websites, Google sees that website as being an authority in their field. And, given that Google wants to prioritise content that’s high-relevance and high-quality, it’s going to prioritise websites that are known experts in the arena.

It’s not just external links either. Internal links help Google crawl your website and discover all of your content, so it shows up in search engine results sooner.

Here are three steps you should follow if you want to use page links to improve your SEO copywriting and your rankings:

• Link to relevant pages within and outside your site in your introduction
• Weave links to more in-depth guides, website content on your page, or other sites throughout your copy
• Add a link to the appropriate anchor text. This should flow naturally through the copy and make sense within the context of the post.

11 must-know SEO copywriting tips

1. Work out your marketing funnel

SEO copywriting starts with the marketing funnel.

Marketing funnels map user intent to different stages of the buying process. It typically includes three stages:

• Top of Funnel (TOFU): Customers are unaware of your brand or product.
• Middle of the Funnel (MOFU): Customers know they need a product or solution, but may or may not be considering your brand.
• Bottom of the Funnel (BOFU): Customers are ready to make a purchase.

Image credit: CoSchedule

When you’re writing copy for your site, it’s critical to understand which stage you’re writing for. Does your audience know anything about the product? Are they at a stage where they’re comparing solutions and want detailed features and benefits?

Consider this content marketing statistic:

47% of B2B buyers view 3-5 pieces of content before engaging with a salesperson. — Demand Gen Report

Lots of content for SEO targets the top of the funnel – the stage where you’re building awareness of the problem and building trust with the audience.

But you need to equally focus on the bottom of the funnel content, such as landing pages, case studies and product descriptions.

Here’s a great example of bottom of the funnel content (case studies) by Marketo:

Another brand that does this brilliantly is outdoor adventure brand, REI:

If you’re in the market for binoculars, this article provides all the information to help you make your decision:

See the well-placed call to action button? This takes the reader directly through to the range of binoculars to make a purchase on their eCommerce site.

2. Get to know your target audience

All good SEO copywriting starts with the audience. How can you expect to engage your audience if you don’t know who you’re writing for?

Start by creating a buyer persona.

Think of this as a detailed description of a fictitious buyer – your perfect customer.

Use market research, data and sales information to find out information on your target audience.

It might look something like this:

Image credit: Single Grain

The more you know who you’re talking to and what their goals and pain points are, the more you can tune into these with your content.

Deloitte is a brilliant example of this in action. The company has a wide-scale audience, making it easy to be unfocused. So what did they do?

Create content microsites that focus on each buyer persona.

Knowing your audience can help you really speak their language and build your authority. For example, when you click on the Financial Services industry on the Deloitte Insights site, you see articles specifically targeted to your unique problems and challenges:

At the other end of the spectrum, check out how denim company Hiut Denim talks to its customers like they’re already friends:

We make jeans. That’s it. Nothing else. No distractions. Nothing to steal our focus. No kidding ourselves that we can be good at everything. No trying to conquer the whole world. We just do our best to conquer our bit of it. So each day we come in and make the best jeans we know how. Use the best quality denims. Cut them with an expert eye. And then let our ‘Grand Masters’ behind the sewing machines do the rest.

3. Nail your keyword research

Okay, so now you know your marketing funnel stage and your buyer persona. Bring it together to do keyword research.

Your keywords research is really the crux of your SEO copywriting.

With your funnel stage and buyer persona, you should be able to come up with a good starter list of terms (keywords) your buyers will be searching. The trick is to really get inside the heads of your audience. What would they search on Google?

Now, use these keyword research tools to help refine your list and find other relevant keywords, variations and combinations:

• Google Ads Keyword Planner: Don’t be put off by the words “ads”. This free tool provides valuable keyword insights for your SEO content.
• Moz Keyword Explorer: Use this tool to find heaps of information around search volume, related terms and more.
• Ahrefs Keywords Explorer: Similar to the Moz tool, Ahrefs provides awesome insights into keywords you should target.

Once you have your target keywords, it’s time to drill down into keyword intent.

Every search has an intention behind it. A user might be looking to conduct research into a product or service, or want to compare prices between the top brands. If you can answer that intent with your SEO copywriting, you’re well on your way to providing valuable content that users and search engines love.

Once you’ve identified the search intent behind each keyword, you can group them into categories based on a user’s likelihood of conversion.

This chart from Acquisio is a great example of where they classify their target keywords by low intent to purchase, medium intent, and high intent. The ones in the ‘high intent’ category are the best ones to prioritise for SEO copywriting and search marketing.

Image source: Acquisio

4. Plan your outline

That’s right – we’re still not at the actual writing stage. Your final planning step is to plan your outline.

It doesn’t matter whether it’s a blog post, case study or landing page copy, you need to take time to work out WHAT you are going to write and how it will FLOW.

Answer these questions:

1. What’s the purpose of your article? What do you want to achieve with this piece? Go back to your marketing funnel to work out which stage you’re aligning with.
2. What is the one key message you want to provide? What’s the one question you want to answer? That’s right, just focus on ONE. This will keep your piece focused and stop you from trying to get across too many messages.
3. What structure are you using?

For the last question, our recommended structure to create content is the PAS, which is Problem / Agitate / Solve.

This classic formula is tried-and-tested. It gives you a solid template to keep your writing on track, while leading your readers through a story.

Here’s how it works:

First, identify the PROBLEM.

Take this example from bookkeeping software Xero. They have worked out that the problem small businesses need to solve is getting a start up loan. That’s the problem.

Next, AGITATE the anxiety and stress around that problem.

In the Xero example, they use this as the intro:

Do you need money to get a business idea off paper and into reality? Then you probably need a startup loan. But do they even exist? We answer your big questions about loans for new businesses.

Finally, offer a SOLUTION.

How does your product or service solve this problem for the audience?

The Xero article offers lots of tips to help solve the problem, which ultimately builds their authority in the finance niche:

5. Build your structure to make it flow

Armed with your outline, go a step further and give your piece a structure.

Create a skeleton, including:

• Intro
• Main body
• Conclusion / Summary

Setting up the structure is essential to SEO copywriting. Google LOVES copywriting that has a clear structure.

Always, start with the most important content. Draw your readers in from the start, so even if this is the only part they read, they have the most important information.

6. Write for super scanners

People scan. They just do.

We’d love to share some incredible secrets to get people to read the whole piece…but most of the time, they just won’t.

Research shows that:

A user will only read 20% of the content on your page. — NNGroup

Only 20%.

So, stop fighting it.

Instead, make it easy for users to scan and get to the main points faster.

How?

Here are key ways to make your copywriting scannable:

A. Break up your content with subheadings.

Make your subheadings really descriptive, so people can skim the article and get the key message.

B. Create a contents list

Make it easy for readers to see what you’re going to cover, like this one by HubSpot:

Better yet, make it clickable so people can skip to the section they want.

C. Create bulleted lists

Bullet lists help you present multiple points in an easy-scan way. Plus, they look different from the rest of your copy, which provides a visual break for your reader.

D. Use deep captions

Studies have shown that image captions are consistently some of the most-read copy on a page. So, consider using deep captions which are 2-3 sentences long.

E. Highlight the main points

Emphasise key points so the scanner can quickly pick them out. Use bold, highlights, CAPS, italics, or breakout boxes.

F. Write in short paragraph of 1-2 sentences.

This makes your copy easier to read, while also creating lots of white space.

Use different font sizes – people scan large text first.

7. Use the Four C’s

It’s easy as an SEO copywriter to get carried away once you start writing. So how do you keep your copy on track?

Use the Four Cs:

• Clear. Make your point really clear.
• Concise. Cut anything out of your content that doesn’t directly answer your reader’s problem.
• Compelling. Make it really interesting. Work in stats, quotes and anecdotes.
• Credible. Back it up with high quality sources and references.

All of this helps you create an incredible user experience with your copywriting.

HubSpot is excellent at putting this to work:

Let’s see how they tick the Four C’s:

• Clear. The headline and intro make the point clear from the outset.
• Concise. Everything in the article points back to the goal – providing tips to start a real estate business.
• Compelling. Stats, tips and quotes are used throughout the article to make it engaging.
• Credible. Stats are backed up with references and sources.

8. Use Bucket Brigades to Lead People Deeper

What are bucket brigades, you ask?

This is:

And then there’s this…

Confused?

Don’t be!

A bucket brigade is a ridiculously short phrase that breaks up the text and forces the reader to read on to get some context.

Here at OMG, we use bucket brigades A LOT.

Here are some you can use in your copywriting:

• Here’s what you need to know.
• That’s a fact!
• You’ll never believe why…
• Something like this:

As well as breaking up the text, bucket brigades force your reader to fall down your article until, before they know it, they’re at the end. Ultimately, they’re a tool to increase time on page and engagement, which are both metrics that Google pays attention to when ranking your content.

9. Edit, edit, edit

Now, you’ve finished writing your content, you’re done right?

No way!

The final step is to EDIT.

Editing is just as important as the copywriting.

True story!

Everything you write, whether it’s a social post, blog post or landing page, has a possibility of generating online business for you.

So, spend that final amount of time to get it right.

Look for these things:

• Throw out the points you don’t need.
• Correct any awkward or unclear sentences.
• Check for misspellings and typos.
• Make sure sentences aren’t too long – read it aloud. If you have to stop to breathe, it’s too long!

Here’s the challenge with editing. You can be too close to your copywriting to see any mistakes. That’s why it’s worth using an SEO plugin like Yoast, SEMrush or Grammarly.

These tools can check your copywriting for things like plagiarism, typos, grammar errors, long sentences, keyword density, and more.

Another really important step in the editing process?

Ask for feedback.

Find out what people love and hate about your copywriting – especially if the people fit your buyer persona.

10. Bring in humour

Want to engage your audience?

Make them laugh.

Remember how we said that SEO copywriting can sound robotic? Humour is a great way to counteract that and bring your copy to life.

Entertaining copy encourages your audience to keep reading. Plus, if you create content that people love, they’ll naturally start to trust your brand and your recommendations — which leads to higher conversion rates and brand loyalty.

Take a look at this web page by Frank Body:

The thoroughly entertaining description encourages visitors to keep reading, while also communicating the benefits of the product.

Use Click to Tweet buttons

Sharable content is rankable content.

Social sharing buttons are a good start. But the best tactic for getting your audience to promote your content via social media marketing is the Click to Tweet button.

You’ve probably seen these before on websites like Content Marketing Institute:

Image source: Content Marketing Institute

These buttons are incredibly helpful when it comes to encouraging readers to share — and they’re insanely easy to incorporate into your blog post.

Simply go to Click to Tweet (one of our favourite SEO copywriting tools). Click ‘basic link’ and then paste your content in:

Hit ‘Generate New Link’ and you’ll get a link like so:

Add this link in your copy to give users an easy way of tweeting your content.

Try Click to tweet buttons for any actionable tips, useful statistics or impactful quotes. You’ll be surprised at how this simple action helps boost the sharability of your post.

Create More Profitable Content Marketing With These Copywriting Secrets

In Addition To The Copywriting Secrets We Offer Below, You May Also Want To Review: Content ROI: How to Increase Blog Content Conversions | Content Marketing Strategies For SEO Success | What Are Content Pillars? | Game-Changing Content Marketing Statistics | Content Marketing Tools For Extraordinary Results | How to Use Data and Content Personalisation in Digital Marketing | How To Create a Content Calendar and Templates | Guide to Completing a Content Marketing Audit

What is Copywriting? And How Is Copywriting Different From Content Marketing?

Copywriting is about accountable (and often immediate) results in the form of sales or leads. It’s focused on sales communication and persuasion.

A downside is that people know they are being sold… so it can polarize them.

In comparison, content marketing is usually focused on education, either as a presell mechanism to prepare someone for a “sales pitch”. It’s also used as a post-sale tool to build a community.

Content marketing can be enormously persuasive… and that persuasion happens covertly over time.

What most people don’t know: there are ways to combine both copywriting and content – so you get astounding leverage and the best of both worlds. Meaning you’re able to produce content that gets QUICK results.

“Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.” — Archimedes

And so, in this article, I’m going to share 3 of the most powerful copywriting secrets that will turn your content marketing into overdrive. These secrets can be placed on your blog as SEO copywriting to get more traffic from Google and Bing.

In our content agency, Fubbi, we use these secrets every day to produce millions of words of content for our clients. More important than that, the tangible results we get for our clients are jaw-dropping!

Content Marketing Stats That Makes You Go “Hmmm”

• According to Forrester, 70-90% of prospects have already made up their mind about you and your product before they even consider connecting with you. (Content Marketing Institute / MarketingProfs)
• The #1 B2B content marketing challenges: Producing engaging content @ 60%.
• Content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing and generates about 3 times as many leads. (DemandMetric)
• Conversion rates are nearly 6x higher for content marketing adopters than non- adopters – 2.9% vs 0.5%. (Aberdeen)
• Companies that published 16+ blog posts per month got almost 3.5X more traffic than companies that published 0-4 monthly posts. (HubSpot)
• B2C companies that blogged 11+ times per month got more than 4X as many leads than those that blog only 4-5 times per month. (HubSpot)
• 47% of buyers viewed 3-5 pieces of content before engaging with a sales rep. And traditional advertising methods no longer work as well they as used to.
• 58% of B2B marketers say they’re NOT effective at content marketing. (Content Marketing Institute)
• 55% of B2B marketers say they are unclear on what content marketing success or effectiveness looks like. (HubSpot)
• 70% of marketers lack a consistent or integrated content strategy. (Altimeter)
• The #1 goal of content marketing: Lead Generation @ 59%. (LinkedIn Technology Marketing Community)
• By spending as little as six hours per week, 66% of marketers see lead generation benefits with social media. (HubSpot)

Copywriting Secret #1: Lead With The Best Proof In Your Content Marketing

One of our clients has a skin care product – that’s a super competitive space. There are also many companies producing solid ‘Grade A’ content. So, that’s why, before working with this client we comprehensively reviewed his website.

Something became immediately obvious…

… his existing content did NOT trumpet that he’s a board-certified dermatologist. There was no mention of it in his title, his headlines, or his subheads.

So the solution was easy – ramp up his proof! Trumpet his education and training. Lead with it in the headlines and subheads. And finally, create a kick-ass bio to go with every article.

But what do you do if you’re not, say, a doctor? Then you should borrow proof. We do it all the time for our clients.

Here’s how…

Another of our clients is in B2B. And one of his most successful articles has the headline “Elon Musk’s Secret to Sales Success”.

Jackpot. Winner!

We (and our client) don’t know Elon Musk personally, and in fact, have nothing to do with him. But it didn’t stop us from using his celebrity status to elevate the quality of the content.

Another of our clients is a Young Australian of The Year. We do the bulk of his content. His name is Sam Cawthorn and he’s in a hypercompetitive space – the professional speaking market.

One way we cut through the clutter is featuring celebrities in his content. Here’s an example:

As you can see, this piece is getting good engagement. In this example, Sam is running a paid ad directly to our content. Normally, it’s challenging to generate ROI by running promotions to content.

But when you know how to combine copywriting principles with content marketing, a new world of possibilities open up!

The other way we cut through the clutter for Sam is by telling his story. Sam’s story is one of the most engaging you’ll ever hear. Go ahead and Google him. He’s a perfect example of someone sharing the wisdom of life experience.

His story is so captivating, Goalcast did a video on him. Check out those stats at 5.7 million views!

If you follow our Fubbi Facebook or LinkedIn, you’ll see in many of our videos we tell stories – our own stories and the stories of others. Then, at the end of the story, we’ll sum up the takeaway with imparting words of wisdom.

Why do we tell stories? Because they’re the most robust and persuasive communication and copywriting tool.

Why do we sum up with wisdom? Because our goal is to shift a paradigm.

Wisdom only comes from applied experience. So when you share your wisdom through stories, it makes for an engaging piece of content.

We have one client with 35 years of business experience. He’s a seasoned investor. Four different companies he’s owned have made it to the AFR/BRW 100 Fast Growing List.

This is one smart dude. He was sceptical that we could impart his wisdom in the content. And he’s right to have doubts. A content author and writer won’t exist with his depth of experience about business.

What’s the solution? So easy…

Enter the monthly chat. Yes, we interview him. Nothing stressful. Nothing difficult. He’s a master of his domain so it’s easy to get gold. And then, we transcribe the call recording… and use the recording as the basis of articles, social posts and even copy for his website.

The lesson

The better your proof, the better your content. The best proof are celebrities. The next best proof is either 1. Your story 2. Your client’s stories.

But it doesn’t end there.

You can also use:

• Scientific studies
• Before and after charts/photos
• Screenshots of product users posting to Facebook

and so on.

Bottom line, what you’re looking for when creating your content is to integrate wisdom.

Yes, wisdom.

This is why one wonderful framework for your content is:

• Tell a personal story of an adventure, accomplishment or challenge you overcame
• Sum up the narrative as lessons

In this way, you’re sharing a unique viewpoint. This is great content and smart copywriting!

Copywriting Secret #2: Use a Call To Action In Your Content

Here’s a content marketing mistake I see almost everybody making…

… they create fantastic content that leads to nowhere.

In other words, there’s no specific call-to-action that sends readers / viewers to a funnel. I’m not kidding!

If you’re a copywriter you might be reading this thinking “no way… everybody knows to use a call to action and send people through to a funnel”.

Not true.

What is a funnel? There are a few different types… but the easiest starts with a brief, one-page landing page that asks for the name and email. This means there’s no navigation bar on the page… and there are no advertising banners.

Attention is focused.

Then after people have shared their details you direct them to the next page, often a thank you page. Sometimes a traditional, copywritten sales page.

One of our clients sends their traffic to a quiz very successfully. They’ve raised tens of millions from one of the largest banks in the country.

Their methodology is simple:

Step 1: Run traffic from paid media, such as Facebook ads.

Step 2: Send that traffic directly to our article

Step 3: From the article, funnel traffic through to a funnel. In this case, their quiz.

The result? Our content generated so many sales leads that it had to be turned off during Christmas. Why? Because there were not enough hands on deck to service them.

Happy times.

But those happy times don’t end there.

Combining copywriting and content marketing has implications for your SEO. Below is a chart of this client’s organic traffic. Take a look at that growth!

And I’m thankful to say a big part of this result is our content (we produced hundreds of thousands of words of SEO content for their blog, too).

The lesson

Sending content traffic to a funnel is tremendously important.

Please, don’t make the mistake of pouring resources into creating amazing content – without sending viewers of that content to a funnel.

Copywriting Secret #3: Speak To Your Audiences’ Level of Sophistication In Your Content Marketing

What you’re about to learn may be the single most important insight about content and persuasion you will EVER read.

More than anyone, I give credit to the greatest living copywriting teacher for helping me master this model. This copywriter’s name is Parris Lampropoulos.

If you’re not involved in copywriting circles, you probably haven’t heard of Parris. But what Michael Jordan is to basketball, Parris is to copywriting.

I’m lucky. Besides being his “copy cub” for four (admittedly gruelling) years, he’s also one of my closest friends in the world. So I’ve had unusually high exposure to his razor-sharp copywriting mind.

Which is why I can honestly say only a handful of people in the world deeply understand this topic I’m about to teach you. It’s such a deep and important topic that I could run a full day workshop on it!

Let’s begin.

What is Market Sophistication?

It’s a term first coined by the great copywriter, Eugene Schwartz. Gene wrote the best copywriting book ever penned, Breakthrough Advertising.

Market sophistication seeks to answer an important question… Does your audience “think” they’ve seen this information before?”

Another way I view this question is as follows…

“If, after reading your article topic, does the reader think they know what the content will be about?”

If the answer is yes, then you need to move up at least one level in sophistication. Let me take you through an example. I will do my best to compress years of knowledge, experience and numerous failures into a few pages 🙂

It’s very important to correctly identify the sophistication of your audience. That’s because it’s key to creating content that truly resonates.

There are 5 levels of sophistication.

Level 1 is the least sophisticated. Level 5 is the most.

Level 1 – First In Market.

You are first to make the claim… or the first to answer a question for a reader… or the first to shed light on the topic.

This does NOT mean you are first in the world to talk about a subject. It means you’re the first that a particular reader has found to answer their question. Please, note the difference.

From Eugene Schwartz:

“Be simple. Be direct. Above all, don’t be fancy. Name either the need or the claim in your headline-nothing more. Dramatize the claim in your copy-make it as powerful as possible. And then bring in your product; and prove that it works.”

Examples include:

How To Lose Weight

The Secret to a Beautiful Garden

Level 2 – You Are “At Least” 2nd In Market

Your competition has caught up. There are a few of you answering the question your reader has in mind. This is also the first time the famed “Skyscraper” method of content creation becomes relevant.

At this stage, as a content creator, you ask “what other information exists on this topic that I need to be aware of?”

From Eugene Schwartz…

“If you’re second, and the direct claim is still working – then copy that successful claim- but enlarge on it. Drive it to the absolute limit. Outbid your competition.”

Examples:

“Lose Up To 47 Pounds In 4 Weeks – Or Receive $40 Back!”

“Who Ever Heard Of 17,000 Blooms From A Single Plant?”

Level 3 – Your Readers Have Heard It All And No Longer Blindly Accept Your Advice

The advice you’ve shared – or other experts have shared before – is now falling on deaf ears. When they see your headlines, readers are no longer satisfied or curious.

That’s because they know what it’s going to be about… or think they know. Either way, the result is the same: they don’t bother reading and instead pass on by.

What’s the best strategy for this stage?

From Eugene Schwartz:

“If your market is at the stage where they’ve heard all the claims, in all their extremes, then mere repetition or exaggeration won’t work any longer.

What this market needs now is a new device to make all these claims become fresh and believable to making them again. In other words, A NEW MECHANISM – a new way to making the old promise work. A different process- a fresh chance- a brand-new possibility of success where only disappointment has resulted before.”

What’s a mechanism? I usually think of it as a better, stronger proof element e.g. a celebrity is writing the article. Or perhaps there’s a fresh reason why the promise is believable.

Here’s an example…

In a stage 3 market, the headline “how to doubles your sales” would fail.

But if the headline read “Richard Branson reveals how to double your sales”…

Now that has a much better chance of working – and in fact, would probably work well. Why? Because Branson acts as the mechanism – the proof why the promise is true.

Level 4 – Proof elements abound!

At this stage, your competition has caught up to you. Newer and bigger claims are made. Everybody’s an expert. Wherever you turn somebody is dispensing advice on the topic.

What’s the best strategy for this level?

From Eugene Schwartz:

“If a competitor has just introduced a new mechanism to achieve the same claim as that performed by your product, and that new- mechanism announcement is producing sales, then counter in this way.

Simply elaborate or enlarge upon the successful mechanism. Make it easier, quicker, surer; allow it to solve more of the problem; overcome old limitations; promise extra benefits. You are beginning a stage of embellishment similar to the Second Stage of Sophistication.”

The biggest challenge at this stage is believability.

So even an article topic with Richard Branson in the headline may not work so well. What’s needed are topic titles that STACK the mechanisms.

An example…

“Richard Branson reveals how to double your sales. His secret has nothing to do with PR escapades… workplace culture or having fun in the workplace.”

So now you see the secret to a winning stage 4 topic – the reader wants what you’re offering and believes that what you’re saying is true… but is unable to easily determine what the topic will be about. This is called “closing all the exits”.

Level 5 – Focus On The Audience

This is by far the most difficult stage to understand. And it’s way beyond the scope of this book to outline a battle plan.

From Eugene Schwartz:

“The emphasis shifts from the promise and the mechanism which accomplishes it, to identification with the prospect himself. You are dealing here with the problem of bringing your prospect into your ad-not through desire-but through identification.”

Putting all the copywriting secrets together

The bottom line is your audience is at various stages of sophistication for all ranges of topics.

To create content that is of vital interest to your audience, you need to assess:

• 1. In general, how sophisticated is your audience? That’s because whilst you want them to engage with one article, in reality, you want them to keep coming back to your website and keep reading your emails.
• 2. How sophisticated they are for each article topic. This way, at every juncture, they are learning wonderful insights from your content.

Believe me, this is easier said than done! But when you know how to use the copywriting secrets to create content that speaks to a person’s sophistication level, your content marketing as well as our digital marketing campaigns will explode thanks to their effectiveness.

Example…

We have a client whom we craft a daily content email for – that’s 30 emails month, like clockwork. Our content is absolutely focused on his audience’s sophistication level.

Is he getting results? Well, take a look for yourself:

This is the calendar for part of their sales team. You’ll see they’re fully booked out. But here’s the thing: the rest of the team are booked solid each day, too.

And then, if I haven’t proven my point, my friend Kerwin Rae uses email very effectively. Over the last few years, Kerwin’s hit the content marketing hard. At the time of writing, he’s closing in on a million fans just on Facebook.

We recently helped him with the campaign for his Fast Growth Summit (full disclosure: Kerwin is not a client; he’s a friend whom I’ve known for a long while). Anyway, once the tour was finished, I received word that we generated an extra 600 event registrations.

Again, the secret to this success is correctly identifying his market’s stage of sophistication.

I don’t know for sure what that is worth to Kerwin’s business. But I’d say a few hundred thousand dollars is a fair bet. Probably much more. Obviously, I can’t take full credit for that. Kerwin has done a blistering job of continually delivering amazing content to his list.

Wrapping Up

Okay, we’ve come a long way together in this report about copywriting secrets. thanks for sticking with me. I’m sure you can instantly see the value of what we revealed. We’ve talked about a number of critically important ideas you can use right now to dramatically increase your sales with content.

But it doesn’t have to end here… since reading the copywriting secrets and actually implementing content strategies, are two very different things.

If you’d like help with your content plan – or if you have any questions about how to combine copywriting and content to your business – then let us know. Our Australian SEO services agency experts are here to help!

Copywriting don’ts

On top of the tips we’ve shared above for SEO copywriting success, there are also a number of things you should avoid if you’re trying to optimise your copywriting for users and search engines. Follow these 6 tips to know which mistakes to avoid and give your content the best shot of ranking in organic search.

Don’t write for just Google

Let’s start with the biggest don’t for SEO copywriting: writing content for Google first, and readers second (or not at all).

Google’s algorithm is extremely sophisticated. Ever since the Panda update, Google has gotten A LOT better at recognising when web content is designed specifically for search engine optimisation — and it’s gotten stricter about how it penalises those websites. Not to mention, web users are savvier now than ever and can detect robotic-sounding SEO content from a mile away.

Today you need to be writing for readers and Google. That means creating persuasive and informative high-quality content that provides value, while being optimised for specific keywords and on-page SEO considerations.

Don’t neglect on-page SEO when you write SEO copy

Writing for users doesn’t mean neglecting SEO considerations altogether.

You still need to structure your content in a way that search engines can understand. That gives it the best chance of ranking in search engine results and the featured snippet spot, while also generating more organic traffic to your page.

This means structuring your content with the <H1> heading tag and <H2>, <H3> and <H4> subheading tags, adding in meta tags for every web page, and incorporating internal and external links whenever appropriate.

Don’t use different spellings on the same page

During your keyword research, you might come across a search term that’s spelt differently. For example, if your focus keyword is “search engine optimisation”, you might see it spelt using British and American spelling.

Your first instinct might be to slip in the Americanised spelling in your copy. However, if the rest of your content is written in British English, this spelling sticks out like a sore thumb in Google’s eyes.

Stick to the correct spelling for the region your target audience is based in, even if you have to modify the spelling to ensure it makes sense for your readers.

Don’t go overboard with keywords

Keyword stuffing is an absolute no go when it comes to SEO copywriting. This is one of the most obvious signs for Google that your content has been written for search engines, not for readers — and if you do it frequently enough, it harms the user experience and your organic ranking.

According to Google’s Webmaster Guidelines:

Add in targeted keywords whenever they make sense within the context of your copy, and try to keep your keyword frequency to roughly 1-2% of your total word count. If you’re not sure about a keyword, it’s better to leave it out or pop in the keyword somewhere else than to plug it in unnaturally in a sentence where it doesn’t belong.

Don’t ignore your URLs

A lot of marketers spend a ton of time optimising copy, and not a lot of time optimising their URLs.

Big mistake.

A study by Backlinko found that short, keyword-rich URLs tend to rank higher on Google AND get a higher CTR from users.

Don’t just leave your URL as a long headline or an auto-generated post number. Shorten it down to your target keyword — for example, the URL for this SEO copywriting is just:

Don’t just make it up as you go along

SEO copywriting should be part of a broader SEO strategy. If you’re just writing content and ignoring technical or off-page SEO, we guarantee you won’t get the results that you’re hoping for with search engine optimisation.

That is to say: all good SEO starts with a solid game plan.

Conduct an audit to identify where you currently stand and which keywords you want to rank for. Use this to guide your content creation efforts and monitor your results on a regular basis to see how you’re tracking. At the same time, you should be focusing on link building for domain authority with high-quality backlinks to your website, and tweaking your technical elements for crawlability and indexability.

When you put them all together, and your copywriting efforts will get discovered by your audience sooner.

Drive More Traffic Through Writing Content

What’s the best way for writing content that ranks well enough to generate traffic? Everybody who creates content wants the answer to that question and to decipher the secrets to profitable copywriting.

After all, great content helps you to achieve better search engine rankings. That means that just pouring any old content onto your website isn’t going to cut it.

Poor content turns readers off from your site. It also sends warning signs to search engines. They’ll see that people aren’t getting what they need from your content.

Your search engine rankings will reflect that fact.

Figure 1 – https://www.digivate.com/blog/seo/google-new-thin-content-penalty-has-arrived/

That’s probably scared a lot of new website owners out there.

Now, you’re wondering how to start content writing without falling foul of the search engines.

Thankfully, there are a few content writing steps that you can follow to ensure you create content that users love and search engines rank.

7 content writing tips every marketer needs

1. Find Out About Industry Influencers on Buzz Sumo

Buzz Sumo is an exceptionally useful platform for anybody who’s searching for topics for content writing.

The platform allows you to enter either a topic or a website address into its search engine.

It then delivers a set of results that are not only relevant to the term you used, but also ranked based on how well they’ve engaged visitors.

Figure 2 – http://buzzsumo.com/

The key here is that all of the results that you see are among the best pieces of content related to the niche that you searched for.

You can use this information to get content ideas. But you can also check the results to see what your competitors did to create such engaging content in the first place.

This may give you a useful set of content writing tips that you can apply to your own writing.

Use Buzz Sumo to provide inspiration for your own content writing efforts.

You’ll find content that’s already achieved what you’re hoping to achieve, which means you’re learning from the best content creators in your niche.

But that’s not all. Buzz Sumo also has a useful Content Analysis feature. This helps you drill down to find the types of content that work best for your niche.

With this, you’ll discover if you’re best served creating a video, infographic, article, or some other form of content.

2. Discover the Best Keywords Using Google AdWords

Once you’ve come up with a few topics for content writing and you understand how best to deliver your content, it’s time to look at some keywords.

Google AdWords provides one of the most effective tools for your keyword research.

It’s simple to use too.

First, just enter a search term that’s relevant to your niche into the planner. It then delivers an array of related terms that you can target in your content.

Figure 3 – http://timfelmingham.com/free-keyword-research-tools-2018

But it doesn’t stop there. The tool also provides you with a graph for each keyword that charts how many people have searched for it per month.

You can use this information to spot keyword trends that your content can take advantage of.

For example, you may find that users search for more festive terms during Christmas. Content that uses these terms will prove particularly effective during December.

But it won’t be anywhere near as effective during other times of the year.

Using the tool is one of the most important content writing steps for ensuring that you target your content towards the right audience.

3.Use Answer the Public to Discover the Burning Questions

The AdWords Keyword Planner gives you some idea about the keywords that you should target.

But you can use other tools to take that research further and produce even more topics for content writing. Answer the Public is an excellent tool for this.

Take the keywords that you pulled from the AdWords Keyword Planner and plug them into Answer the Public.

What you’ll get is a bunch of the most commonly asked questions on search engines that relate to that keyword.

Figure 4 – https://answerthepublic.com/

Search engines value content that answers common user questions.

Ask The Public provides you with a host of questions that can inspire your blog content. Use it to create content writing strategies for every keyword that you intend to target.

4.Get More Data from SEM Rush

You’re not finished with your research just yet.

The previous steps will have provided you with some keywords and topics for content writing.

With SEM Rush, you can check out the data behind the keywords that you hope to target.

Figure 5 – https://www.semrush.com/info/flowers+(keyword)

You’ll get a lot of similar data here that you get from the other tools. But SEM Rush takes it a step further.

It offers detailed information about trends related to your search term. Plus, it provides useful information about paid search related to your search term.

That’s particularly useful if you intend to use paid online ads to drive traffic to your content. You can even find out stats for different countries. SEMRush gives you some final data before you start creating your content.

But you’re not quite done with your research yet.

5.Speak to Your Customers

All of these tools provide useful insight into what people want from your content. But we’ve missed one of the most important content writing steps – talking to your customers.

If you’re looking for topics to write about, go straight to the people who already use your service. Ask them if there’s anything that they want more information about.

You could write a guide for a popular product. Or there’s a pain point that’s affecting a lot of your customers. If you don’t ask, you’ll never know.

This serves another purpose too. Creating content that satisfies your existing customers’ needs ensures you generate repeat business.

Figure 6 – https://www.groovehq.com/support/customer-service-statistics

You want your content to attract new customers. But all of the research suggests that your existing customers are your primary source of revenue.

When you create content based on what they need, you’re securing your base. You can then build on this with other content that’s focused towards potential new customers.

6.Create the Right Structure for Your Content

The first five content writing steps cover all of the research that you should undertake. But you still need to create a quality piece of content based on the data that you have.

And that means structuring your content so that it’s readable and useful to your audience. If you just start writing with no structure, your content tends to meander off in different directions.

You’ll lose track of your thread and create a disjointed piece of content. The problem is that many think keywords are the key to good content structure.

But that’s not the case:

Figure 7 – https://neilpatel.com/blog/the-ultimate-guide-to-writing-blog-posts-that-rank-in-googles-top-10/

Not the importance of the user experience and depth of the content. The keyword research steps above should help you to get your primary and related keywords.

Here are some useful tips for structuring your content:

• Start with a question that encourages discussion.
• Make sure your Title and Meta Data tell the searcher what your content will deliver.
• Use stats to capture attention (did you know that most people will only read about 18% of this article)
• Answer the question that your introduction poses.

Get all of that right and your content has a structure that makes it more likely to rank.

7.Update and Repurpose Your Existing Content

So you’ve done all of this work to get a new piece of content up onto your website.

It reads well, it answers the right questions, and it’s driving traffic to your website.

Now, it’s time to repeat all of these content writing steps for every piece of content that’s on your website. Having one good article isn’t enough to get good rankings in the modern search environment.

Offering content of a consistent quality is the key, which means that old content you’ve created that doesn’t quite hit all of the right notes needs some adjusting.

Firstly, take stock of every piece of content on your website.

The odds are that none of those pieces match the quality of the single piece that you’ve just created. Run an in-depth analysis and carry out the above six steps on all of the content you already have.

This won’t be a quick process and it’s one that you should complete alongside creating new content.

Finally, you’ll have a website full of targeted content that’s useful to your readers. That’s when you start repurposing.

Your existing content provides the platform for new content.

You could repurpose an article into an infographic or put the most important takeaways from your piece onto Facebook. Maybe you have a set of related articles that you can repurpose into an eBook to encourage people to register with your website.

The key is that you’re presenting your content in different ways.

Through repurposing, you can capture the attention of people who prefer visual content over written content, or vice versa. And here’s the best part.

That repurposed content could end up ranking alongside your original piece:

Figure 9 – https://neilpatel.com/blog/does-repurposing-content-work-heres-a-data-driven-answer/

Brian Dean’s work also offers another useful repurposing method that helps you to generate traffic. He tends to create a piece that goes onto his website. This is the piece that ranks on search engines.

From there, he repurposes the piece for an email campaign. And he extracts the most important points for use as social media content.

The end result?

A recent use of this strategy saw him boost organic traffic to one of his posts by over 110%.

Repurpose, refresh, and reinvigorate.

Follow those three R’s for all of your existing content. Then, take advantage of all of the online platforms available.

You’ll see a big boost in traffic.

You Top-Secret Guide To Writing and Creating Amazing Website Content

In many ways, your website is your best employee, working 24/7 to attract, captivate, and convert new customers. Yet too often, we see businesses focus SOLELY on bringing in truckloads of new visitors to their online presence WITHOUT considering how effectively their website will capture and convert them. Investing in your website is one of the best decisions for businesses large and small. At the top of the to-do list should be investing is your website content creation!

Targeted web content helps steer visitors into your sales funnel, so you can nurture them with the right messages and offers all the way to a conversion.
Not to mention the fact that high-quality web content is great for search engine optimisation – it boosts your authority on the subject, generates backlinks and increases the trust of your audience.

All of which helps your website generate more leads and conversions.

Here are some persuasive stats from Demand Metric:

70% of people would prefer to learn about your brand through content over ads.

And…

70% of people feel like they’re closer to a company after reading content that inspires them.

Whether you’re creating a content strategy from scratch or are looking to optimise your existing web copy, this article is filled with the insider tips to help your conversions soar.

We’re not talking about the general tips everyone else tells you – these are tried-and-tested tips from our experts, proven through successful campaigns with our own clients.

Ready to lift your web copy to a whole new world?

Let’s go.

1. Give people what they’re looking for.

Imagine your web visitors are wild animals.

Like a lion looking for his next meal, your visitors are hunting for a solution to their problem – whether that’s a product or service.

When they arrive on your website, they decide instantly whether the scent trail will lead to what they want AND whether they can find it easily.

They don’t want to scour your website for minutes looking for what they want. It needs to be fast.

In those first few seconds, if you’re not showing your customers that you can give them what they want, they’ll click away to another website.

Your visitors don’t need to know for sure that you have EXACTLY what they need – they just need enough information to make a quick decision.

That’s why you need to start at the end. And ultimately put the most important information where they’ll see it first (that’s where great designs complements your content!).

By that we mean, find out what your ideal customers want to achieve (user intent) then focus on writing web content that makes it immediately obvious they are in the right place.

How do you know what your potential customers are looking for?

Begin by checking out what your competitors are doing.

There are heaps of tools available that let you do this cheaply – for example, SEMrush lets you find out:

1. What keywords your competitors are targeting
2. How many searches those terms get
3. Where they rank for those terms
4. The pages they are using to rank those terms
5. How many rankings they gain over time
6. Types of search results they’re targeting

Plus, you can even compare the content you create to theirs to see how it performs.

Here’s what the competitor analysis looks like for the online fashion retailer ASOS.com:

Once you have a good idea of the keywords they are using, delve deeper into online buying behaviour of your target audience.

Let’s say you wanted to know how people are searching for women’s dresses. These are the keywords you’d find with the average monthly searches:

When we did this research for a client, we found that women searched for dresses in over 1,600 different ways.

Why is this information important when writing for the web?

Because you can use these insights to create a data-driven content strategy that ensures the type of content on your website is really what people are looking for.

The data is ready and waiting – you just need to put it to work.

2. Focusing on website content creation that has a clear audience.

Trying to appeal to everyone is like chasing lots of rabbits at the same time — you end up catching none.

Don’t waste valuable effort and budget trying to sell to people who are not interested in your product or services, and probably never will be.

Creating killer website content requires you to know exactly who you’re writing for. You need to start by understanding who your audience is.  This is the cornerstone of inbound marketing.

We’re not only talking about their age, location, occupations and interests (though this is also important).

We mean the really meaty stuff that will determine what you say and how you say it in order to invoke action.

What motivates them? What are their challenges? What are their goals? What presses their buttons?

Speak with your sales and customer service teams – they’ll have insights you’re probably not privy to. But you should also go direct to your target audience and have a conversation with them.

Use this information to create buyer personas.

Once you know exactly who you are talking to, it’s time to formulate the kind of content, messaging and language to speak to them.

If you’re finding it difficult to get the messaging and language right, get real-life customers to help!

See how Thankyou uses real parents to provide content for its baby product pages:

Click on Shirley’s photo and this is what you see:

Under Shirley’s profile are the questions for Thankyou:

Then, close to the end of the page you find a product recommendation – the perfect way to get people to click and convert!

Using real parents is an effective way for Thankyou to show their target audience (in this case, new parents) that they get them. They understand their challenges, dreams and daily struggles, and the parents feel closer to the brand as a result.

3. Write great content for a specific stage in the buyer journey.

Just as you write for different buyer personas, you need website content creation for different stages of the sales funnel.

Let’s be real – it’s pretty rare that people see something and buy it immediately. Most of the time, they go through a sales funnel.

The funnel is made up of different stages, from searching on Google for a solution to their problem to visiting your website for the first time, subscribing to your email list, reading reviews, doing more research, and eventually making a decision to buy.

At each stage, the buyer learns a little more about what you offer. In that respect, the person you’re talking to at the beginning is very different from the person you’re talking to just before a conversion.

That’s why you need to tailor the content you create for each stage of their journey.

This is all part of writing high-quality SEO content. Think about it – if you write content that targets those keywords people are searching for at a specific stage in their journey, you’re more likely to rank higher and be found.

Here’s a quick guide to writing for each stage:

Awareness Stage: The potential buyer recognises their problem and starts looking for answers.

• Focus on the problem first
• Use emotional engagement – tap into real-life stories and inspirational content
• Write top-level educational blog posts
• Avoid jargon and industry speak

Consideration Stage: The potential buyer does detailed research on the solutions available (whether product or service).

• Focus on your benefits to show why your solution is the best fit.
• Write expert guides
• Compare your offering to your competitors
• Use case studies

Decision Stage: The potential buyer makes a call on what solution they’re investing in – and will work out exactly what is required to purchase said solution.

• Get brand specific
• Use product features and customer testimonials
• Craft a compelling call-to-action
• Highlight an irresistible offer
• Write informative case studies focusing on features and benefits

4. Use a problem / solution structure.

Reality check – your visitors don’t want to hear all about how amazing your company and products are.

What they really want to know is: What’s in it for me?

That’s why the question every piece of content should always aim to answer is this:

Which problems do you solve for your customers?

Writing about visitors’ problems grabs their attention. Now you’ve got it, you need to give them the solution. This is the problem/solution approach – it’s incredibly effective at driving conversions.

First Round has nailed this. This company sets out to help entrepreneurs who are trying to start a business. In their website copy, First Round zones straight in on the problems they know founders are facing (loneliness, decision making etc) and provides the solution:

Here’s another example by Basecamp:

Again, they’ve focused immediately on the problem they know all business owners have and provided the solution.

Scroll below the fold, and they delve deeper into the problem/solution:

Another thing we love Basecamp’s web copy is their tone of voice – it sounds REAL. That’s because they know who they are writing for and use a tone of voice that makes sense for their audience.

5. Always include a clear Call to Action.

You know this. We know you know this. But there’s no way as a reputable online digital marketing agency that we could publish this list without it.

Your CTAs are critical in driving conversions.

Don’t expect visitors to figure out what to do next. Tell them what to do in clear, strong language.

One place you might not think about including a call-to-action is on your about page. This is often one of the most visited pages. But what do you want visitors to do next?

Take a look at these examples.

Marketing automation software Mailchimp doesn’t beat around the bush:

While bookkeeping software company Xero gives two options to target two different types of visitor:

Notice how the call to action words are active, not passive?

This is all part of making your writing more conversational. Let’s break that down…

6. Write like you’re having a conversation with the reader.

Conversational writing is a mighty powerful way to write for the web.

Check out the benefits for your business:

1. Your writing is easier to understand, as you are less likely to use jargon.
2. It helps build trust and empathy, as visitors feel like you’re writing for them.
3. Your writing will be more engaging and emotive, which can lead to more conversions.

So, how do you write as if you’re having a chat with your visitors?

Take a look at any of your web pages, landing pages or pieces of content. Now, edit it using these tips:

• Chop up long sentences.
• Eliminate difficult words, acronyms, and jargon.
• Change the passive voice to active – “It’s possible to collaborate with your team” vs “Collaborate with your team”.
• Add questions.
• Use the word “you”

Content marketing tools like Grammarly will help you pick up on changes you can make.

Example of active voice

Trello, a productivity app, uses active language on its product feature pages. The words you’re looking for are “Dive”, “Collaborate”, “See” and “Go”:

Example of short sentences

We love this brilliant piece of web writing by denim company, Hiut Denim. Note how it uses short sentences to grab your attention instantly:

We make jeans. That’s it. Nothing else. No distractions. Nothing to steal our focus. No kidding ourselves that we can be good at everything. No trying to conquer the whole world. We just do our best to conquer our bit of it. So each day we come in and make the best jeans we know how. Use the best quality denims. Cut them with an expert eye. And then let our ‘Grand Masters’ behind the sewing machines do the rest.

7. Maintain a consistent tone.

Consistency is key.

Whatever tone you’re writing in, stick with this on all pages. Even the “404 – page not found” (this is something your web developer can do).

Here’s one of our favourites from Skype:

Image Credit: VMO.com.au

Skype not only makes a boring page surprisingly entertaining, they have also included the most important links that a user might need to continue their journey. Very clever.

If you are going to be witty, it’s not just your website you need to worry about; the whole company needs to be on board.

For example, Moosejaw is an adventure gear retailer in the US, renowned for its humour.

The humour extends to their product descriptions too:

With Moosejaw’s particular brand of wit, customers expect to be entertained while they shop. But this falls flat if they go to live-chat and the customer service representatives aren’t on board.

Consistency is key.

8. Be clear and concise.

Okay, we know we just raved about the brilliant writing by Moosejaw. But we’re going to let you into one of our copywriting secrets:

Don’t try to be clever.

Clever writing requires people to think. But your visitors don’t have time to think because your visitors are in a hurry. They’ve got problems to solve, remember?

Keep your writing as simple as possible.

Be careful with jokes unless, like Moosejaw and Skype, you’re confident your target audience will get them.

Look at the Trello website. It doesn’t get much clearer than this:

Here’s another great example of concise copy by Qantas Insurance:

9. Write for scanners

How many people read the whole web page – from start to finish?

Practically nobody.

Research says a user will only read 20% of the content on your page.

Only 20%.

Yikes.

People are looking for quick answers. So, what most visitors do is scan the page and click on the first link that grabs their attention or most resembles what they’re looking for.

This is proven by countless eye-tracking studies over the years, which show how the majority of people read online content in an ‘F’ pattern, as shown in this heat map:

(Source: econsultancy)

So, how can you write for scanners?

Here’s an actionable checklist:

• Create bulleted lists.
• Write an engaging headline that clearly says what the page will be about.
• Use lots of descriptive subheadings.
• Write in short paragraph of one or two sentences only.
• Create plenty of white space (short paragraphs will help with this).
• Highlight key points in bold, highlights, CAPS or italics.
• Use different font sizes – people scan large text first.

The good news is search engines love this type of writing too as it makes the bot’s job easier!

Recap
Writing for the web is a skill worth learning. Whether you’re starting from scratch or reviewing your existing web content, make sure to nail these tips.

Your website content checklist:

1. Give people what they’re looking for.
2. Create website content that has a clear audience.
3. Write great content for a specific stage in the buyer journey.
4. Use a problem/solution structure.
5. Always include a clear Call to Action.
6. Write like you’re having a conversation with the reader.
7. Maintain a consistent tone.
8. Make it clear, concise, and easy to read.
9. Write for scanners.

Speaking of checklists, you can download our Content Creation Checklist for free – right here! It’s got everything you need to create compelling, high-converting content EVERY TIME. Don’t start your content creation process without it.

Things You Should Also Keep in Mind When Writing Good Website Content

Creating high-quality website content is one of the most important aspects of your online presence. Whether you’re aiming to engage your audience, improve your search engine rankings, or convert visitors into customers, your content plays a crucial role.

If you want to ensure that your website content is not only effective but also stands out, here are key things you should keep in mind:

• Know Your Audience – Understanding your target audience is the first step in creating engaging website content. What are their needs, pain points, and interests? What questions do they have that your content can answer? Tailor your content to address the specific challenges and desires of your ideal customers. Use language, tone, and examples that resonate with them, making your content feel personal and relevant.
• Provide Value – Content that provides value will always be more successful than content that is overly promotional or lacks purpose. Ensure your website content is informative, useful, and helps the reader in some way. Whether you’re offering helpful tips, answering frequently asked questions, or providing solutions to common problems, your content should always leave the reader feeling like they’ve gained something from visiting your site.
• Be Clear and Concise – Website visitors typically have short attention spans, so it’s essential that your content is clear, concise, and to the point. Avoid jargon and overly complex language, and focus on making your message easy to digest. Break up large blocks of text into smaller paragraphs, use bullet points, and highlight important information so that readers can scan your content effortlessly.
• Optimise for SEO – Search engine optimisation (SEO) is crucial for driving organic traffic to your website. Make sure your content is optimised with the right keywords, but don’t sacrifice readability in the process. Use keywords naturally throughout your content, including in headings, subheadings, and the body text. This helps search engines understand the relevance of your page while ensuring that your content remains valuable to your readers.
• Keep It Engaging – To keep visitors on your website, your content needs to be engaging. Use storytelling, visuals, and interactive elements to keep your audience interested. Incorporating images, videos, infographics, or even quizzes can break up text-heavy content and make your website more visually appealing. Additionally, compelling headlines and calls-to-action (CTAs) encourage users to continue exploring your website.
• Focus on Readability – The readability of your content is just as important as the message you’re trying to convey. Make sure your website content is easy to read by using a clean and readable font, a good contrast between text and background, and a layout that allows users to follow the content easily. Short paragraphs, proper use of headings, and white space are all factors that contribute to readability.
• Be Authentic and Consistent – Authenticity builds trust, so make sure your content reflects your brand’s voice and values. Don’t just follow trends—be yourself and speak directly to your audience in a way that feels real. Consistency is also key when it comes to both the tone and frequency of your content. A consistent brand voice helps build recognition and keeps your audience engaged across different platforms.
• Measure and Improve – Creating great content is an ongoing process. After publishing your content, use analytics to monitor how it’s performing. Look at metrics like bounce rate, time on page, and conversion rates to see if your content is hitting the mark. Based on these insights, you can make improvements to your content strategy, whether that means tweaking headlines, adding more visual elements, or improving CTAs.
• Make It Mobile-Friendly – With a large portion of web traffic coming from mobile devices, ensuring your content is mobile-friendly is essential. Make sure your website loads quickly on mobile, and that the layout and text are easy to read on smaller screens. A seamless mobile experience keeps users on your site longer and encourages them to engage with your content.
• Include Clear Calls to Action (CTAs) – Every page of your website should have a clear purpose, and that purpose should be reinforced with a strong call to action (CTA). Whether you want visitors to contact you, download an eBook, or make a purchase, your CTA should be easy to find and compelling. Guide users towards the next step you want them to take on their journey.

At the end of the day, writing really good website content is more than just putting words on a page—it’s about creating a meaningful experience for your visitors that drives engagement, builds trust, and converts leads into customers. By understanding your audience, focusing on value, optimising for SEO, and continuously improving, you can craft website content that works hard for your business and keeps your visitors coming back.

AI Content – What You Need To Know

We’re not going to lie; Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) experts around the world have been nervous about the rise of Generative AI. Will the content we’ve been working so hard on be condensed into three sentences by an AI content robot or code? Our Enterprise SEO Team attended MozCon 2024 in Seattle to hear directly from AI and SEO agency experts on what’s coming and how to future-proof our strategies. There were 20 talks over two days, and we’ve pulled together the best bits to help you work with your agency to create content that lasts.

Top Tips to Help Your Agency Create Lasting Content

• Share Your Perspective: When your agency suggests a content topic, give your perspective and provide a quote.
• Conduct Customer Surveys: Find out why your customers chose your brand, then share this information with your agency.
• Promote Content: Share the content your agency writes across your social channels and communities.

What Content Will AI & SERP Overviews Replace?

The first thing to consider is what content will be the first to go when AI Overviews roll out in Australia. We can predict which AI content will take over by looking at existing Search Engine Results Page (SERP) features.

Bernard Huang’s excellent talk focused on creating and writing content that targets perspectives, not just using different types of keywords. The buzzword from this talk was “Consensus.” If there are two key takeaways, they are:

• Consensus = Bad
• Perspectives = Good

Consensus is when all results on the SERP say the same thing. For example, the answer to “How many legs does a dog have?” will always be 4. Google can easily condense this content into a single answer.

However, if there’s anything romcom robot movies have taught us, it’s that robots can’t feel. The same applies to AI—it can’t create its own perspectives; it can only scrape and relay content from the internet. Creating content that targets perspectives instead of just keywords can future-proof your content.

So what should you do about it? You tell us! You’re the expert in your industry. Share your thoughts on our content topics, give us your hot take (perspective), and maybe a little quote from you. Then let OMG do the rest.

Using Emotions to Target Decision-Making

We make decisions every day, but how often do you reflect on your purchase decisions? I recently reflected on a few of my purchases, and the decision-making journey went like this:

• Did I need to buy it? Yes.
• Did I need to buy the most expensive one? No.
• Why did I buy the most expensive one? “I really liked it.”

Often, we don’t evaluate all options before making a purchase. A lot of our decisions are based on emotions.

Talia Wolf’s talk gave tips on using emotions to target decision-making. There are two clusters of emotions that drive decision-making:

1. Self-Image: successful, valuable, happy, confident, important, lovable, smart.

• Example: “Age like a pro with these health products that will keep you young and healthy.”

2. Social Image: envied, looked up to, valued, passionate, appreciated, admired, the go-to.

• Example: “The only online parenting program that will have people asking ‘How does she do it all?’”

It’s one thing to add emotion to your copy; it’s another to determine which emotion best influences your target market’s decision-making. Let’s add to my decision-making journey:

• Why did I buy this product over a cheaper option? I want everyone to think I’m successful enough to afford luxury items.

Understanding the emotional triggers behind decisions will guide the type of language you use. Language that targets emotions like admiration and success could have been effective for my decision-making.

Conducting Customer Surveys

Conducting customer surveys is a great way to get these insights. Talia outlined the details you should uncover in these surveys:

• What pain does my customer feel before finding a solution?
• What are their hesitations and concerns?
• How do they want to feel after finding a solution?
• What are the emotional triggers that drive their decision-making?

So what should you do? Conduct customer surveys to find out why customers purchase from you. Provide this information to OMG, along with the general demographics of your target market. The more information we have about your company and target market, the better our content will be.

Share Content Across Your Communities

If you’ve followed the above suggestions—adding perspectives and emotions to your content—you’ve got high-quality, shareable content! Visibility is not just about ranking in position #1 on a SERP. Wil Reynolds’ talk highlighted the importance of integrating SEO into the wider online digital marketing plan. Visibility can also be achieved by sharing your high-value blog content in your social communities.

Here are some examples:

• Local Businesses: Location-based Facebook groups.
  • Example: A local business might post in a suburb-level Facebook group linking to their recent how-to guide.
• B2B: Personal LinkedIn accounts.
  • Example: An influential founder could share the content to their personal LinkedIn pages, especially if they’ve shared a quote in the article.
• Ecommerce Brands: TikTok or Instagram.
  • Example: Fashion brands might create a TikTok on the same topic as the new blog.

Google remains the #1 place for users to search, but social media usage is rising. We need to follow where the trends are leading us:

List of most popular social networks in 2024

Find more statistics at Statista

Organic Search vs. Organic Social

A question arose: “Is a session from organic search the same value as a session from organic social?” Users from social media are already engaged enough to follow you, whereas SEO can be very top-of-funnel. An organic social user might be more likely to engage with your content than a user from organic search. However, you need strong SEO content to engage your social audience first – these two channels go hand in hand.

So what should you do? Once OMG creates a content calendar, share it with your marketing team to coordinate your content distribution. After your content is written, ensure it’s posted across your social channels and communities to maximise reach and engagement.

In Summary

Future-proofing your content against AI is all about adding unique perspectives and emotions. By engaging with your agency, sharing insights from customer surveys, and promoting content across social platforms, you can create high-quality content that stands the test of time. Remember, the key is to make your content irreplaceable by AI—focus on what makes your brand and perspective unique. Together, we can ensure your content remains relevant and engaging, no matter how advanced AI becomes.

If you want to learn more about AI, here are some great articles to read:

5 ways ChatGPT Elevates your SEO Strategy | What is Gemini? A Guide To Google’s Newest AI | What Is Google BARD? A Guide To Googles New AI

Take your SEO copywriting to the next level

With that, you have all the content writing steps that you need to create content that gets great rankings and engages your audience.

So much of your strategy revolves around your research.

Find out what your audience wants and consider the niches that you can cover.

Use the tools mentioned in this article to create a range of topics for content writing.

If you follow these steps, you’ll create content that people can use. And that’s how you earn top rankings and a great reputation.

Of course, content writing is just one part of a comprehensive SEO strategy.

There’s so much more to consider and you need to build it all into your digital marketing efforts. From backlinks through to website design optimisation, you need to slot in all of the pieces of the puzzle to get the best results.

That’s where Online Marketing Gurus can help.

Got Questions?

Pushing traffic towards a website is an extremely important part of any SEO and content marketing strategy. But it’s the quality of that traffic that’s the true deciding factor.

Even poor SEO can boost the traffic numbers. But it won’t provide a business with the quality that it needs to generate a return.

With all this evidence, from Australia’s best Search Engine Optimisation Agency, along with the many statistics shared in this article, you can now see just how vital SEO is for all modern businesses.

The Final Word

There you have it! All the SEO copywriting steps to get great search engine rankings and engage your target audience.

Use the tips and tools in this article to hone your copywriting mastery. These are the tips used by the best content writers around the world to create copy that Google and customers LOVE.

Good SEO copywriting is one of the fundamental skills you need to make your site rank higher and rake in revenue. You need it to craft landing pages that convert, ad copy that drives sales, and content that nurtures and drives your conversion rate sky-high.

Make SEO copywriting the cornerstone of your strategy. Download your free Online Digital Marketing Game Plan today.

About the Author

Andrew Raso

Andrew Raso, Co-founder and Global CEO of Online Marketing Gurus, has been instrumental in transforming the agency from a start-up into a $15 million global powerhouse. Since co-founding OMG in 2012 with colleague Mehrdad Hedayati, Andrew has leveraged his deep expertise in SEO and digital marketing to drive OMG’s expansion across Australia, the US, and Singapore.