The Beginner’s Guide to SEO Copywriting 2013
Copywriting for search engines, often referred to as SEO Copywriting, is equally important as writing quality copy. But today, in the web of Google algorithmic updates, the parameters of writing for SEO are changed. Now, you should avoid things like stuffing keywords, buying links etc. for good; Google itself, recommends not to overly focus on SEO.
So, how to write SEO articles?
Should I write SEO articles? Yes, still you can and should focus on SEO of your writings, but to a limit. Just focus on making your article Search engine friendly, not on ranking high in SERPs. Just leave the ranking part on search engines, you will survive over-SEO obsession.
This simple guide tells how you can write perfect SEO copy yourself without going to an SEO firm and spending bucks. Below are the tips you should follow to learn SEO Copywriting:
- Write for real people: Always try to deliver the best content for real users, not specifically for search bots. Before SEO, think about the real people who come to your website and read that article. Now, decide what best you can do to serve best content to them.
- Keyword Diversity: As I told above, ‘keywords stuffing‘ days are long gone. As per the new SEO parameters, don’t just think of a single keyword, think about a variety of keywords around your topic. Then write the copy while keeping them in mind.
- Proper Format: Formatting your articles is not only good for your readers, but for search engines also. Search engines read the markup data and prefer headlines (<h1>, <h2>, <h3>), bold text (<b> or <strong>), italic (<i> or <em>).
So, utilize these tags better in your copy to format as well as highlight the content, but bolding-out all your keywords is NOT recommended. - Image SEO: Putting relevant images around your content always play an important role in interacting with the readers. With regard to SEO, you should apply these image SEO tips to get more out of your images on searches.
- Provide links: Provide useful links wherever necessary. You may also add a link list at the bottom titling “References” or “Resources”. That would also help search bots to figure out your articles relevancy to a topic.
- Make it a complete Resource: Try best to make your article the best resource around a topic. Now, how to do that? Research, use your knowledge, follow tips #1, #2, #3, #4 and curate content.
Also keep updating your article as and when required.
Hope you find these tips useful. Thanks and all the best :)