If we had a penny for every time someone asked us to reveal our on-page SEO content writing tips for guaranteed conversion of the RIGHT kind of customer. Let’s just say our office may well be situated in Mauritius rather than Manchester right now!
- How do you increase conversion when your website copy just isn’t turning heads?
- What are the secrets to the best SEO copywriting skills?
- Where do you start with learning SEO content writing when you’re entirely new to search engine optimisation?
Don’t worry; we will answer all these questions and more and share some of the top tips for SEO content writing success.
It’s true, writing heart-stopping, brain-enticing, money-spending SEO copy is an art not always easy to create. Search engine optimization is more than just doing your keyword research.
But what if we told you that crafting a decisive page of conversion-increasing content often boils down to one thing: understanding human psychology?
We know what you want. You’ve got an epic service or product, and you simply need to convert web traffic into sales. What you want, however, is to:
- Reduce bounce rate
- Increase on-page time
- Increase conversion rate
- Find customers who will return time and time….
- Know that your website copy is SEO friendly
- Reduce unnecessary ad spend by making your website work harder
What is SEO Content Writing?
We SEO experts know that every word counts. SEO copywriting uses carefully selected keywords, questions, and phrases that present high levels of engagement, hook in your dream customer, and increase conversion rate.
SEO-optimised content creation begins when you choose a theme to write about through researching similar content, words and phrases most potent use. Even the final tweaks you make to optimise every paragraph helps search engines find and understand your content.
SEO Content Writing Styles
Broadly speaking, you can split styles of copywriting into these four main areas:
1. Informational
Intention: specific information on a topic.
Keywords: guide,’ ‘tutorial,’ question words, such as ‘what,’ ‘how,’ or lists with ‘top,’ ‘best,’ ‘checklist’ in the title (e.g. ‘best music festivals 2021’).
2. Navigational
Intention: specific web page or site.
Keywords: brand name, product, or service (e.g., ‘ultra-music festival’).
3. Commercial
Intention: purchase consideration and investigating options.
Keywords: product modifiers like ‘cheapest,’ ‘review,’ and ‘comparison’ (e.g., ‘ultra music festival reviews’).
4. Transactional
Intention: Ready to purchase.
Keywords: ‘buy,’ ‘price,’ ‘coupon,’ etc. (e.g., ‘ultra music festival tickets’).
How to write SEO content
We will go on to share our top SEO copywriting tips, but first, a few of the basics to consider before writing spine-tinglingly, unique, conversion-rate-increasing SEO content:
1) Do your Keyword research: we use Surfer SEO to research our keyword extensively to review competition, search ranking and similar keywords
2) Don’t be afraid to split the content into multiple posts: you may find it more beneficial to drill down into more detail and cover the subject from different angles
3) Consider your target audience: conversion increasing content comes from knowing your reader well and speaking directly to them
4) Don’t forget to consider search intent: your content, and indeed a product, should be the answer to their question. If you’re looking to increase website conversion, start with an SEO copywriting hack that pitches your product at the heart of your content
13 SEO copywriting tips for conversion
1. Get emotional, powerful power words
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that ‘The love, of Love’ is one of the most used lines by music songwriters. Indeed unquestionably the first copywriters before we had the joy that is WordPress.
The fact is, emotional words are powerful words.
If you can get your audience’s feelings, then you’ll sure as anything gets them reading.
Powerful words tap into our primal needs and make readers connect your content to emotions. And all good marketers know that feelings lead to connection, and connection leads to desires (ideally for what you’re offering!).
It could be desirable words like:
- Beautiful
- Happy
- Excited
- Curious
Or not so hot, like:
- Sad
- Angry
- Greedy
- Ugly
In your search for SEO copywriting success, you may be piling in keywords to your titles, headers and tags.
But what if you were to replace a few keywords with emotional power words?
Take it from me. Including a power word in your title tag by adding either power word will increase the click-through rate instantly.
OK, but how do you use power words?
Good question. Because I don’t want you to go away trying to crowbar a “wow” into your copy, it will be embarrassing for all parties.
What NOT to do:
1. Use lots of exclamation marks!!!
2. Insert too many emojis
3. Cram the power word at the beginning
4. Overuse words like “exciting”, “New”, “Free”, “Phwoar.”
There’s emotional and eye-catching, then there’s the kind of cheese that gets people running for the hills.
Instead, here’s what you SHOULD do:
1. Use the power word as a descriptive word
2. Use it as a solution or end goal
3. Make it natural and close to the truth
2. Build-in cliffhanger content
Want to know the top SEO copywriting tips and be the best content generator the internet has ever seen? Well, we have one BIG secret most SEO copywriters forget to include in their conversion driving content. Keep reading as all will be revealed….
Did I get you hooked? Want to know more?
Chances are, if you’re promised something great, you’ll stick around to access it. When cleverly used, this copywriting trick can keep people reading and increase your on-page time dramatically.
Hands up, who’s ever been sucked in by the following:
- But there’s so much more…
- Let’s dive in deeper…
- Keep reading for the full story.
These genius content hacks are bucket brigades that hold your audience’s attention and allow for more consideration time, which is vital for website conversion.
Why is it that asking a simple question is one of the best SEO content copywriting tricks around?
3. Ask a question
Tapping into human psychology and how the curious subconscious mind responds to questions keeps your audience reading, thus instantly improving your on-page view time.
After all, if we have a real-life conversation and someone starts nodding off, we will soon increase engagement by asking them questions.
But how does human psychology work?
Our brains are hardwired to find answers and solutions. So, the more questions, the more they’ll keep searching through your content! We will keep moving, looking, and reading until we have found the answers.
You can ask general questions like:
- Does that sound good?
- Sound too good to be true, right?
- Who knows the answer?
Or more specific questions:
- What motivates you most on a Monday morning?
- How many times a day do you step away from your desk?
- Did you know 99% of the best SEO copywriters ask questions?
So what are you waiting for?
Start asking questions as you mean in, and get your SEO content optimised in no time!
4. The APP Method
Unfortunately, we’re not talking about an ace app that does your SEO content writing for you!
This tried and tested copywriting hack is one of our top conversion tips for giving your reader precisely what they want.
The APP method, like any good hack, is in three steps:
- Agree: acknowledge the problem and emphasise it, ideally on an emotional level.
- Promise: directly promise to fix the problem if they can only stick around to hear more.
- Preview: give a teaser to the good stuff to get them hungry for more.
We’ll go on to talk about how this works in much detail in a moment when we expand on this to beat pesky skim reading!
5. Bridge the gap
Have you heard of something called The Bridge Model?
No, we hadn’t either, until one of our favourite SEO experts, Matthew Woodward, shared this NLP trick that is a content writer’s dream for getting people to read your articles.
It works in 3 steps:
- The Desired Situation: Get them to imagine where they want to be.
- The Current Situation: Knock them down to reality.
- Offer A Bridge: Create a link between the two scenarios, and position you as the solution.
Which step do you tend to get stuck in your copywriting?
Most content creators focus too much on step one or skip to step three to be the solution.
Like a good movie, great copywriting takes people on an emotional journey, where they don’t want to look away.
In those first few moments of reading an article, you’re scanning to see if this is really for you. Get them hooked in with the solution they are looking for. This is what we refer to in the SEO world as the intent.
Considering intent keeps them not only reading but also considers these other vital elements of great SEO:
- It matches their search query
- It taps into emotional cues
- Suggests a promise
- Adds intrigue
6. Skip to the point early
You made it to this point, yay you! You’re likely further ahead than most.
A relatively low 55% of readers will read your post for 15x seconds or less. The rest of them are already on to the next juicy bit of information.
Don’t beat around the bush for too long. The best SEO copywriting is punchy, informative, eye-catching and gets the hook in as early as possible.
Long-form content is unbeatable for improved SEO, but don’t say words for the sake of it. Keep your audience on their toes and your page.
To optimise conversion, build in great points throughout your content to your destination. You never know when they may depart.
7. Get into the head of skimmers
Are you a skim reader? I know I am! And like we mentioned above, less than half of us stick around to read the whole article.
Heck, you’re probably skimming everything I’m saying right now…
So, I’m going to keep this short and sweet for you.
Here are five ways to beat the skimmers:
1. Use Headlines to outline the content
2. Use subheadings to break it up
3. Build-in intrigue in headings and questions
4. Use bullet points and numbered lists
Wait, did I say five ways?
I realised the fifth SEO content hack is too juicy not to give it it’s heading. So let’s move on to our final tip for reducing skim-reading…
8. Contents Are Key For Search Engines
You might have sensed a theme by now. All my SEO copywriting tips centre around the balance between lots of helpful content vs not waffling on!
But, what happens when your SEO knowledge is endless, and your word count had reached 5000?
Chuck in good old-fashioned content, of course!
Academics have done it for centuries, and search engines like Google love how they help them understand your content.
You’ll notice many of our long-form content includes content to break it down. On these posts, we have seen an increase in:
- Search engine traffic
- Click-thoughts
- Read time
When you add a table of contents like this, you also add clickable links to your results.
This has two positive effects:
- Search engines view this as a great user experience and boosts your rankings
- Users can click through to the most relevant section quickly
The increased click-through rate from users also provides a boost to your rankings.
Not bad for a “boring” table of contents, right?
The final benefit is that they help to create a hook for your readers.
But isn’t building in contents a bit of a pain?
No, my friend! Supercharging your long-form content is easy when you download a WordPress plugin like Table Of Contents Plus, and let that do all the hard work!
9. Utilise open loops
Let’s just recap why you’re here. You want to:
- Dramatically increase read time
- Reduce bounce rates
- Ultimately lead to more conversions
Are you familiar with open loops? Chances are you have been instinctively using them in your content and not realised it.
Open-loo, look similar to the bridge method by adding intrigue to keep you reading. However, slightly less complicated their work in two steps:
- Open the loop: tease some exciting content on its way
- Close the loop: include that content later in the content
Simple right?
Why even include this in our SEO copywriting tips when it’s so common sense?
Well, frankly, it’s often the easiest of SEO hacks that get forgotten, and we did promise you this was the ultimate guide for conversion copywriting, right?!
10. Keep SEO Writing natural
Hands up if you struggle with long-tail keywords.
Though they are priceless gems at driving targeted search traffic, it can sometimes feel like shoehorning a Whale into a wallet. They just never fit!
That’s the thing about good SEO copywriting: you need to write something your reader would search but wouldn’t say out loud!
- “Carpet Cleaner Near Me”
- “Broken Window Fix Easily”
- “SEO Content Writing Books To Buy”
Search engines rank copy based not only on content but precisely on how the user experiences said content. Google bots analyse your keywords and the words around them, so keep it natural and user-friendly ALWAYS.
11. Speak their language
How many of your website visitors are native English speakers?
Demographics go beyond eCommerce marketing and SERP intention. When we are crafting conversion-driving content, we need to speak their language.
No, I don’t mean translating your copy into 100 languages. I mean, stick to plain English that most people can understand.
The fact is, English is not the first language in most countries, and those who speak it as a second language may only do so at the secondary school level.
Advice: keep your copy simple, snappy and super SEO optimised.
You risk excluding a whole load of your audience if you are writing higher than their understanding, meaning they are less likely to:
- Think your content is for them
- Stick around and read the whole article
- Share your content with others
- Link back in their content
How do you write for a broader audience?
Look at your current writing age.
In a Word document of your content, open the ‘Readability’ tab. Here you will be able to see some information about your posts. Specifically, you want the “Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level.” Aim to get this number as low as possible – between 5.0 and 8.0 is spot on!
Keep in mind who you are writing for. Dumbing down an academic paper won’t get you down with the kids!
Use your reader’s knowledge to pitch your content but don’t be afraid to keep it super accessible.
12. Pick A Font That Fits
When you realise that it’s not just the words you say that matter but how they look, you know you’re getting deep into the psychology of copywriting.
I mean, the fonts we use have been proven to switch our minds on or off to what we read. As SEO experts AND graphic designers, this is our area of knowledge.
The font you use effects:
- Accessibility
- Readability
- Emotional reactions
- Professionalism
- Reading longevity
- Convertibility
What’s the best font for conversion-driving content?
According to the leading copywriting experts, the light flicker of Serif fonts subconsciously leads a reader down the page, keeping their attention for longer!
13. Grammarly Is Your Best Buddy
Are you still listening?
Congratulations, you made it the final and arguably most apparent SEO content writing tip of all: check your grammar and spelling, duh!
If you’re already an expert SEO content copywriter, you’ll know that you can’t be without Grammarly.
Those final touches to any content are more than just killer keywords and cleverly placed questions.
SEO copywriting will never increase conversion if you differentiate your ‘there’s and your ‘theirs.’
