Essential SEO Copywriting Tips for Small Businesses

Are you a small business looking for ways to boost your online presence through copywriting? Chances are you want to learn more about SEO copywriting but not sure where to start or what it truly means. After all, you post blogs every now and then to your brand website -- doesn’t that count as SEO copywriting?

Not really. 

There are two questions I hear a lot of clients interested in developing content for their website: what does SEO copywriting mean and how can I make sure that my content performs well?

Two great questions that pose a challenge to small businesses who want to increase search engine ranking, but don’t know how to implement it. Think about it this way -- it’s hard enough to come up with the time and energy to create content in a consistent manner, but add in the need for keyword research, strategy and SEO tactics -- it’s no wonder why most business owners avoid writing blogs and choose to outsource it to a copywriter or avoid it altogether.

As a way to help small business owners navigate all there is to know about SEO copywriting, I’ve created this guide -- along with numerous additional resources -- that should help you get the most out of your own copywriting practices. 

Ready to dive in? Let’s do this. 

What is SEO copywriting?

Generally, there are two ways to create content for your website: using SEO (search engine optimization) practices or going with the more organic route of simply writing content. For most businesses, opting for an organic route seems easiest -- this method entails writing content specifically for your readers and offering answers for the questions they have while browsing the Internet. While it seems easier, it’s actually much harder than implementing SEO techniques.

Why?

In order for this method to work over time, each and every blog post needs to be of the highest quality -- long-form content in a very specific niche or industry that really goes the distance in providing value to readers. Google’s search engines thrive on making that connection between what people are searching for and the websites with the best answers -- if you want to go this route as a small business you will need to make sure that every piece you publish has a purpose. 

On the other hand, SEO copywriting uses keywords and key phrases to help boost ranking on search engines.

For example, let’s say your target customer is searching for gold bar stud earrings and you happen to run a jewelry boutique store. Creating content using keywords or key phrases like ‘gold bar stud earrings’ increases your ranking on Google’s search engine, making it easier for your website to pop up when a searcher is looking for gold bar stud earrings.

Think back to the last time you used Google. You entered a keyword or key phrase into the search bar and saw a list of potential matches on the first page of Google. Did you select the first result? Maybe you found what you were looking for in the top three results. 

That’s the point of SEO copywriting. You want to create content that gets your website in a high visibility space -- most of us go for those initial results rather than comb through pages of Google searches looking for the right thing!

That’s where keywords come in. The better targeted keyword or key phrases you have that speaks to what your customer is looking for, the better chance you create quality content that provides them an answer.

Google loves this and shows its appreciation by bumping your page up to more shoppers, which in turn boosts your small business visibility and (hopefully!) sales. 

Copywriting vs. SEO Copywriting 

Now that you understand more about what SEO copywriting is, you might be wondering how it differs from traditional copywriting. 

It differs in that it contains those valuable keywords and key phrases PLUS it combines high quality and authoritative content. So many businesses get caught up in the need to simply post blogs that they don’t bother to do keyword research or write quality posts so the content ends up underperforming and becoming (mostly) a waste of time. What do we do when we fail to see fruits of our labor? We usually quit.

Aside from a consistent strategy, you want all of your blog and website copy to be high quality and contain keywords that are being searched for by your target market. 

I keep mentioning high-quality -- and there’s a reason for it. Back in the day, businesses could get their website ranking by stuffing keywords throughout their content, regardless if it was low quality and uninformative. Of course, Google caught on to the practice of keyword stuffing and made it more difficult to rank on keywords alone. 

That’s why it’s important to remember that SEO copywriting is: keywords + high quality content = higher ranking. 

Essential Tips for SEO Copywriting

Now that you understand what SEO copywriting is, how do you implement it into your small business content strategy?

Consider these tips when creating content for your website, or when working with a copywriter: 

Give your audience the answers they’re searching for -- understand search phrases and keywords that connect your answers to common questions. Investing in a keyword tool is a great way to learn about trending keywords for your content. Another great way to create content is to look at your website’s analytics or Google trends to see what your target market is searching for.

Using the term gold bar stud earrings, you’ll see how those keywords bring up relevant websites for a search. 

Connect your content to keyword intent. In other words, what’s the reason people are searching for key phrases or keywords? Is it to get more information on a product or service? Do they want to find something specific? Or maybe they want to buy a product or service and you offer said item.

If you’re selling gold bar stud earrings, you’ll want to create content that matches the intent of searchers -- likely a shopper who is looking to buy a pair of earrings, not learn about the history of gold or trendy necklaces for the holidays. 

Don’t stuff keywords into your content just to increase ranking. It won’t work. I’ve been a copywriter for over a decade -- long enough to remember being hired for projects and given a keyword phrase or two and asked to place it frequently throughout the copy.

Sometimes it worked based on the keyword, most of the time it felt and sounded forced and now readers see right through it. Not sure what keyword stuffing sounds like? Here’s an example: 

Gold bar stud earrings are super trendy and gold bar stud earrings go with just about everything in your wardrobe. If you’re looking for a great pair of gold bar stud earrings, here is a list of brands that sell gold bar stud earrings at an affordable price. 

Ugh. 

Sounds awful, right? Aside from the keyword stuffing, most of that content holds no value to a reader. Combine those two points and you’ve got yourself some low-quality, low-ranking content. 

Now that you have the basics of SEO copywriting down, it’s time to start creating a list of keywords or key phrases your audience is searching for and get to writing some great content. 

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