What Is SEO Copywriting?

You are looking for quality content.  You are in search of something special, the kind of writing that hits the sweet spot between earning high search engine rankings and converting actual human beings into customers.  Many SEO “experts” will try and convince you that a tension exists between these two goals, that the search engines must be bamboozled with tricks and gimmicks, while human beings require a whole different tool bag.

Not so.

Content Is King

Search engines make their money, and stake their reputations, on one thing: providing valuable, relevant, high-quality search results.  Rumors abound about the complexity of these search algorithms – and there's no question they are complex – but the bigger picture is actually simple.  The search engines are all trying to answer a single question: what would a human being recommend?  The closer they can get to this magical answer, the more successful and relevant their results will be.  And the more you'll keep coming back to their site for your searches.

Obviously an actual person would quickly bypass anything that smacks of tricks or gimmicks, and zero in on the most substantive site available.  Since human beings don't like or even read markup language, the search engines do their best to tune that stuff out as well.

SEO Copywriting in a Nutshell

SEO copywriting is designed to provide your site with value – the actual kind.  Instead of relying on source code hocus pocus that may or may not backfire within weeks, an SEO copywriter sits down and creates quality, substantive SEO content that will keep people visiting and linking to your site for years to come.  Rather than focusing on wonky markup language and other invisible page factors, SEO copywriters work in WORDS.  This works wonderfully because the search engines love words.  They rely on words to tell them what your site is about.  It works because words equal value.

Optimization, Keywords and More

That said, there is one piece of wonkiness that demands your attention if you are to get the best SEO content available.  You have to pay some attention to something called SEO keywords.  This is a term that gets thrown around a lot by people who only dimly understand what it means.  SEO keywords refer to the phrases that people actually type into search engines.  When your site is optimized and targeted toward these search terms, you'll have a far better chance of rising in the rankings – and getting more valuable visitors as a result.

The Mission of SEO Copywriting

An experienced SEO copywriter will run some detailed analytics to determine what your visitors are searching for, what phrases they use, and what phrases you may be missing out on.  In other words, effective SEO copywriting takes two steps:

1. The SEO copywriter learns about your network traffic.
2. The writer then designs and writes a bunch of high-quality SEO articles that capitalize on this information.  (For more information, check out our full article on how SEO keywords really work.)

SEO Writing: The Gold Standard

SEO copywriting works, but not because it's a trick.  It works because it is a way to add valuable, substantive, high-quality information to your site.  This is what your visitors want, and because it's what your visitors want, it is also what the search engines want.  Providing relevant search results is their stock in trade.  A compelling package of SEO content can make a dramatic difference to your rankings and your profits.  It all starts with content.