Five ways to improve SEO copywriting

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) copywriting is all about writing blog posts, articles, and other content on your charity’s website that ranks highly in Google’s search results.

 

It’s important that they are highly ranked – and certainly that they appear on the first page of results – because that will ensure that as many people as possible will find your content.

 

This will maximize your opportunity to raise awareness of your charity in its causes, attract volunteers and supporters, raise funds, and, ultimately, further the aims of your organisation.

 

It’s also important to concentrate on Google search results because these account for more than 85% of all internet searches, according to Statista. By contrast, Microsoft’s Bing search engine accounts for just 10.5% of internet searches, with all the others accounting for the remaining 4.5%.

 

Google fine-tunes its ranking algorithm regularly to improve its search results. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t some very simple techniques that you can use to help ensure that your charity’s content ranks highly, regardless of any likely future changes. Here are five of the most important ones:

 

 

1. Think hard about keywords

 

Keywords are the words (or phrases) that users type in to Google when they carry out a search. So it’s important that your content includes these words to ensure that it is “found” by Google.

 

A good start is to draw up a list of keywords that you think that people might use if they were searching for the type of content you are creating. Wordstream is a good free tool that you can use to help you come up with keyword ideas based on ones that you supply.

 

Another technique is to look at highly ranked sites with content similar to the content you want to create, and then use a tool like Ahrefs’ Content Gap to see what keywords helped those sites get their high ranking.

 

One more very useful trick is to use Google’s “Related Searches” feature. To do this simply type in a search query (for example “how to cook an egg”) and scroll down the results page.

 

You will find a “Related Searches” section with examples of other searches people have done in the past (such as “how to cook an egg step by step” and “100 ways to cook an egg”) which you can use to get an insight into what keywords people commonly use to search for a given topic.

 

 

2. Ensure content matches searchers’ intent

 

Internet users search for all kinds of things, but very broadly these searches fall into three categories. Either they are searching for information about a general topic, or they are searching for something specific – perhaps a particular place, thing, organisation, person, or website – or they are searching for a product or service to buy.

Matching your content to searchers’ intent, then, means insuring that the keywords you use are appropriate for the category of content you are creating. So, for example, if you are writing a blog post about how to ensure children play with certain toys safely, you need to avoid keywords that may be used by people looking to buy those toys.

 

That’s because your information will not be relevant for people wanting to make a purchase, so they will not be ranked highly by Google.

 

3. Get your keywords in early

 

Google favours articles which are relevant to the keywords that searchers use, and one of the most effective ways to demonstrate that your content is relevant is to ensure that your chosen keywords appear early in the piece – preferably in the first couple of paragraphs.

 

An obvious question to ask is how many times should they appear. There is no clear cut answer to this, but it may be that mentioning them two or three times in the first two paragraphs is more effective than mentioning them only once.

 

4. Avoid keyword stuffing

 

A common mistake that copywriters make is to use their keywords as many times as they can in their copy to try to ensure that it ranks highly. But this is a mistake for two reasons.

Firstly, although this may have worked in the past, Google is now aware of this tactic so it is highly unlikely to have any effect at all on the content’s ranking.

 

But perhaps more importantly, copy that is stuffed with keywords is not pleasant to read. That means people are unlikely to enjoy your content or take it seriously, they are unlikely to come back to it in the future and they are very unlikely to link to it from their own websites.

 

That means that keyword stuffing is counterproductive and should be avoided at all costs.

 

 

5. Don’t forget the headline

 

A good headline or title for your content can improve its search ranking. But it can also ensure that, when your content appears in search results, people actually click on it and visit your site. This, after all, is the whole point of SEO copywriting.

There are a number of ways to write a good headline, and one of the most important is to ensure that it is not too long. Aim for 60 characters or less if you can, otherwise there is a risk that it will be truncated when the search engine results are displayed.

 

It’s also important to try to encapsulate what your copy has to offer to a reader, and also to tempt them to click on the link to read the copy. One way to do this is to intrigue the potential reader with a headline like “10 things you ought to know about yourself”.

 

Another way is to establish your authority in the headline (“I lead a team of 100 sales staff: here’s how I keep them productive”).

 

 

In conclusion

SEO can be a complex business, and there are many companies that offer services intended to improve your content’s search engine results rankings. But following these five tips will go a long way to ensuring that your charity’s content is found and read by as many people as possible.