Keyword placement is incredibly important in terms of maintaining a good ranking with search engine results, but it doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice good copy to get there.
Content is king. We hear this phrase so often it may start to lose meaning, but it’s also true. Google recognizes and favors valuable content that is not only searchable, but shareable. This means that the content you write must be written with the intent to either inform, entertain, challenge, or convert your target audience. It must be written well.
Just to be clear, the term content can refer to a number of things, including the written copy for your website, blog posts, press releases and media kits, social media accounts, marketing emails, and more. Your business may not have a marketing copywriter or in-house copywriter, but there are still ways of making sure that your copy is at the top of its game. SEO Brand will teach you 5 quick ways to improve your writing today.
1. Avoid Keyword StuffingÂ
In the quest for higher rankings, companies will unfortunately practice the art of keyword stuffing, or overusing keywords in their website content. People do this with the intention of manipulating Google and Bing’s algorithm so that they can rank higher for a certain word or phrase.
It’s likely that you’ve been on a website that displays a set of keywords that have very little relevance to the written content. Repeating the same words over and over again in an unnatural way is another method of keyword stuffing. When this doesn’t work, a website may try to “hide” the keywords by using white text on a white background, or by sneaking certain words into metadata and alt tags in images. Not only does this create a poor user experience for your audience, but search engines will actively give websites a lower ranking as a result.
Instead, improve your writing by naturally using keywords within your text. Trying to “force” a certain phrase in places where it doesn’t belong is not a good SEO practice, and it’s definitely not user-friendly.
2. Create a Style GuideÂ
A style guide is an excellent way to keep the voice of your brand consistent no matter what platform you’re writing for. If you have not used one before, a style guide is a set of standards or rules that your writing should always adhere to. While these are mainly used for a company’s “rules of grammar”, such as the use of capitalization and abbreviations, style guides keep your brand’s tone in check, too.
Is your company formal, classic, lively, or warm? Or do you want your brand to feel more simple and straightforward? A simple style guide can work to improve your writing by strengthening your ability to communicate from a specific perspective.
3. Boost your CTAs
Companies that don’t want to seem “sales-y” generally don’t use a Call to Action (CTA). And yes, it is true that you don’t want to oversell products and services in every paragraph. However, if your target audience does not know, in a very clear and obvious way, what their next step should be after reading your text, then your copy is not doing its job. A few great Calls to Action include:
- Subscribe now to get started
- Fill out the form below for a 20% discount
- Give us a call to find out more information
To improve your writing, you must improve the confidence of your writing. This means being able to tell your audience what they need to know in an action-oriented way.
4. Use Two Sets of Eyes
Proofreading is a very powerful tool, but it can’t always be done by one person. Having a second set of eyes to take a look at your work before publication is an excellent way to catch style guide errors, organizational errors, and common grammar errors. The second person to edit your work should be fairly knowledgeable about all of these points.
5. Stop Trying So HardÂ
Many copywriters will feel the need to impress their audience with big words or unfamiliar language. This type of writing is very alienating. Using common language is how people search for what they need online. For example, a user looking for flights may search “cheap flights”, “inexpensive flights”, or “low fare flights”. They are much less likely to search for “moderately-priced flights”.
Your copy shouldn’t take much of an effort to read or scan over. Writing short paragraphs and numbered lists is a great way to keep an individual’s attention. Avoid unnecessary words and “jargon” that not everyone will understand.
Improve Your Writing With SEO Brand
When you finally see your target audience engaging with your copy, you’re actually improving Search Engine Optimization. Not only do you make it easier for your audience to read and find out more about your brand, but you ensure that they stay on your pages for longer (which makes a positive impact on a website’s bounce rate).
SEO Brand is able to tackle clear, persuasive marketing copy for your brand. Contact us for more ways to improve your writing, SEO content, press releases, sales emails, and more.
