“I’ll just use AI.”
“I can hire copywriters online for a few dollars an hour.”
“We have someone in-house who likes to write.”
Those are all valid arguments for avoiding paying a copywriter. And yet, they won’t necessarily produce the best SEO results.
Great copywriters know how to draft quality content that resonates with your audience while also helping to drive organic traffic to your website.
What Is SEO Copywriting?
SEO copywriting is a strategic form of writing in which the writer incorporates keywords and other aspects of quality content to help search engines serve up your content for relevant searches.
People are constantly turning to the internet for answers to questions you have the expertise to answer. Search engines help these individuals reach your website. These search engines catalog content based on how well it answers certain queries.
But to catalog your content, Google needs to know more about what your content is and what it’s all about. That’s where keywords, backlinks and good structure help.
Why Great Content Requires a Human Touch
Many companies have turned to AI to produce their content. The big problem with that is that AI can only rewrite existing content. It cannot come up with new ideas or write about emerging markets or products that have no competition.
So if you want to remove innovation from your company entirely, AI is a good place to turn. Search engines have also stated that they will not give as much weight to content that they can tell AI wrote. While AI might feel like a good shortcut, you might find yourself rewriting the content anyway to make it sound more human.
The Need for Native English-Speaking Copywriters
Much like how search engines know when AI writes content, they also know when non-native English speakers write content. You want to ensure your writer is extremely proficient in the language they will be writing. While they might not need to be native speakers, they do need an in-depth knowledge of the language to where they sound like native speakers.
Awkward phrasing and improper word use will flag your content as mediocre and search engines won’t recommend it because they know readers won’t want to read it.
Additionally, under-skilled writers might link stuff or keyword stuff, which will reduce the value your content provides your readers. Search engines know when content is not expertly written or uses scam tactics to get results.
What an Authority Score Has to Do with Great Content
An authority score is a value that search engines assign to your website and its pages. Websites with a higher authority score are more likely to rank new pages as they add them.
That means that good content with good rankings can lead to more good rankings if you keep producing good content. Once you do the hard work of getting your website to rank for SEO initially, you should have an easier time getting additional content to rank.
What to Look for in Good SEO Copywriting
Now that you know the important role good copywriting plays in helping you grow your website traffic through organic visitors, here’s what to look for in great content.
- Grammatically correct sentences.
- Short, easy-to-read sentences.
- Good distribution of paragraphs (every few sentences).
- Use of headings (generally no less than every 300 words).
- Simple words and terms the average person would know (think an 8th-grade reading level or lower).
- Inclusion of ordered and unordered lists (bullets and numbers).
- In-depth content that helps answer questions completely without being overbearing or hard to read.
- Good distribution of the content to help drive some initial traffic and demonstrate its value to existing customer base and readers.
- Benefit-driven content that helps customers and prospects understand the value that you offer your customers. This content should speak to your target audience clearly.
- Original, authoritative content that showcases your expertise.
Looking for a high-quality SEO copywriter? Schedule a free consultation with Rebekah Brately from Bridge the Gap Communication. Rebekah uses her journalism training to draft clear, accurate content and her marketing background to help make the content as valuable to the organization as possible.