I can’t remember the last time a website I worked on was delayed for technical reasons.
It was never the encoding that caused the delay.
It is always a copy.
Everyone thinks they can write copy until they see a blank page.
People in your organization may be subject matter experts—but that doesn’t mean they can meet copywriting deadlines.
Copywriting is hard.
Writing SEO-friendly copy can be intimidating.
But even a novice SEO copywriter can make a huge impact by doing a few simple things.
1. Target 2-3 keywords or keyword phrases
Many new SEO copywriters mistakenly target too many keywords or keyword phrases on a page.
In my experience, if you try to target more than two or three keyword phrases on a single page, your copy will sound scattered.
Focused copy is often the best sales copy.
Even in long-form articles, targeting too many keywords—especially irrelevant ones—can result in copy that doesn’t engage readers.
Unfocused copy doesn’t turn readers toward the desired action—in other words, conversion.
I recently participated in a Twitter conversation where participants berated a conference speaker for saying a blog post should be 2,500 words.
The conference speaker could be right.
Conference speakers can be wrong.
Posts should have no “magic word count” numbers.
Your content should adequately answer your website visitors’ questions as long as it needs to.
If you can answer the question in 50 words, that page might only need 50 words.
As long as both site visitors and search engine bots can determine the context of the page, you should be golden.
No need to count your words.
Your visitors don’t care the length of your blog post.
Contrary to the opinion of some conference speakers, Google also doesn’t care how long your post is.
Copywriting that says “too big for its pants” tends to be unfocused.
Long-form copy is great for customers looking for information or at the top of the buying funnel.
But visitors who are ready to buy or become leads are likely to have done their homework.
Rehashing what they already know is more likely to cause a visitor to lose focus and leave, rather than become a sale or lead.
But even the most grizzled copywriter can benefit from a few key phrases in their writing.
Writing tends to become clearer and more focused.
And it tends to convert better.
2. Break up your copy
A large wall of text on a web page can be intimidating.
When a visitor encounters a page with only pixels and copy pixels, it can be so objectionable that it stalls, causing the visitor to leave the page.
Use graphic elements such as bulleted or numbered lists, pull quotes, ample images, etc.
Webmasters can turn intimidating-looking walls of text into attractive web pages that truly convert visitors into buyers.
I’ve seen a page that never turns anyone into a sales machine, just by making simple tweaks to the page format.
One thing that confuses me is that B2B marketers are reluctant to put images of any real people on their pages.
We know that images of smiling, happy people often increase conversions on B2C pages, but we forget that B2B customers are just B2B consumers at work.
But did I know that pictures of real, happy smiling customers will increase conversions on your blog posts?
no, I do not.
In fact, I wanted to test a combination of several graphic tweaks on the text wall to find out what worked.
The other day, some agency colleagues and I were talking about our agency’s unique selling point.
My friend said he thinks his agency might be doing better A/B testing More than any other institution currently operating.
In my opinion, this is an amazing selling proposition.
Of course he knows that smiling, happy people are no longer just for consumer goods.
3. Put keywords on post-it notes
Everyone knows that when you watch your weight, one of the most beneficial things you can do is track your calorie intake.
When writing copy with an SEO focus, it’s important to keep track of the words you’re writing.
Specifically, it’s important to know how often you use keyword phrases throughout your copy.
As with the overall word count, there is no hard limit on how many times a keyword can be used in a particular copy.
Novice SEO writers tend to stuff their copy with keywords so it looks like a duplicate directory entry.
This is not the way.
The copy must make sense to the end consumer.
The copy needs to attract search engine bots, so they know what the content is about, but don’t need a telegram context.
You don’t have to signal that the page is about a certain keyword phrase to search engines.
Anecdotally, I tell writers to try to include each target phrase in a copy block at least twice.
But many times it makes sense to use a phrase more than twice.
I would caution to only use one keyword phrase at a time.
For less competitive phrases, using other signals, you can rank a page with just one keyword phrase mention, but more often it requires more than one mention.
But that brings Post-it notes.
When creating SEO copy, I write keywords on post-it notes that I put next to my keyboard.
When I write copy, I make checkmarks for each keyword phrase as I use it.
But I try not to count keyword phrases when I write my first draft.
Every time I use this phrase, I tick it off.
Once I’ve finished my first draft, I’ll read through it to make sure it makes sense, and count my keyword mentions to make sure I’ve got everything.
If not everything is included, or I find that the copy is not in targeted keywordsI rearranged and started again.
This can be a frustrating process at first, but eventually, you’ll get to the point where you can make adjustments to the draft to use the final version.
4. Read the copy aloud
When in doubt, read your copy aloud.
If you’re still not sure, read it aloud to others.
When you read the copy aloud, you don’t necessarily have to look for ways to make the copy better – it should already be fine by this point.
Reading copy aloud helps SEO experts and webmasters understand if copy flows.
When we tried to insert round pegs into square holes, it didn’t fit.
The same is true when we try to target keywords on pages where the context does not match the intent of the target phrase.
Reading the copy aloud will almost always reveal whether a page is Too many keywords.
We’ve found that you can actually include more keywords in your copy than you think — and the process still works.
Often, by reading the copy aloud, we’ll find at least one or two more instances where we can reasonably use keyword phrases in the copy.
In summary
There are a few simple steps any copywriter can take to make their content more SEO friendly.
And the steps don’t require years of training to be perfect.
Always test and realize that if search engines understand the context of your copy and convince users to take a certain desired action, you are golden.
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Featured Image: YoloStock/Shutterstock
