SEO content writing is essential in today’s digital landscape, where inbound marketing reigns supreme as the top source of high-quality leads for 60% of marketers. Getting your strategy right is paramount. This involves not only producing content but also selecting the appropriate type of content to align with your audience and objectives. While SEO content writing and copywriting are often used interchangeably, they serve distinct purposes, understanding of which can significantly impact your content marketing success.
Therefore, as a business, it’s crucial to assess your objectives and determine which type of writer to enlist to help you achieve your goals.
What is SEO Content Writing?
SEO, short for Search Engine Optimization, is a procedure aimed at enhancing a website’s rankings in search engine results pages, consequently driving increased traffic to the site. This is done through various methods by enhancing the website’s performance.
SEO content writing being one of those methods, encompasses various forms of content – whether articles, blog posts, videos, or images – that deliver value to readers by educating, entertaining, or offering solutions to their problems.
The fundamental difference between SEO content and standard content lies in writing for both search engines and users. This entails considering factors such as keyword optimization, expertise, authoritativeness, trustworthiness (E-A-T), readability, image alt tags, metadata optimization, imagery, internal linking, and more.
What is SEO Copywriting?
Contrary to SEO content writing, copywriting aims to propel readers to take action, ultimately leading to conversions, whether in the form of sales, inquiries, or subscriptions. It involves crafting narratives that foster a connection between readers and your brand, persuading them to engage with your product or service.
Copywriting is employed across various platforms, including social media campaigns, website copy, advertisements, and email promotions.
Do I Need SEO Content Writing or Copywriting?
SEO content writing and SEO copywriting serve important roles for all businesses, but the answer hinges on your brand’s objectives. Let’s delve deeper into the different types of content writing services, their purposes, and the expertise required to achieve them.
Converting Traffic and Leads
Many businesses grapple with converting website traffic and leads into tangible sales. An adept copywriter can help surmount this hurdle by creating compelling content tailored to key landing pages.
Informed by buyer personas and aligned with the inbound funnel, such content persuades users to progress further along the buying journey, whether by making a purchase or seeking your services.
Improving Rankings and Organic Traffic
To bolster search engine rankings and augment organic traffic, a robust keyword strategy, coupled with a well-defined content plan, is indispensable. In this regard, enlisting the expertise of an SEO content writer proves invaluable.
A content writing agency would be equipped with the requisite skills in keyword research, user intent analysis, and user-friendly content creation, they craft articles and page copy optimized to meet both user needs and search engine criteria. Therefore SEO content writing would be the correct step for improving rankings and organic traffic.
Generating Email Subscribers
Building a high-quality email list necessitates offering real value to users in exchange for their contact information.
This could entail providing downloadable assets, such as whitepapers or e-books, offering promotional deals, or delivering informative newsletters. Crafting enticing copy to entice potential subscribers falls within the purview of a creative copywriter.
Creating Compelling Ad Copy
Effective ad copy serves as a catalyst for converting potential leads into paying customers across various channels, including PPC ads and Paid Social. Leveraging tactics such as evoking emotional responses, highlighting unique selling points, and offering exclusive deals, a creative copywriter can effectively showcase your brand while also ensuring optimal keyword inclusion for enhanced ad performance.
Telling Your Brand Story
A content writing agency usually focuses on brand storytelling that fosters a connection between your brand and your audience, setting you apart in a competitive market and fostering brand loyalty. By elucidating your brand’s values and personality across different channels be it through thought-leadership blog content, social media messaging, or ad copy a proficient copywriter can help solidify this connection.
What Makes an Excellent Copywriter?
Whether building an in-house team or partnering with freelancers or agencies, certain key skills are non-negotiable when selecting a copywriter for your brand:
Excellent writing skills:
Producing quality, error-free content is paramount.
Consistent tone of voice:
Aligning content with your brand’s tone ensures coherence and resonates with your target audience.
Companies usually align their efforts in using a consistent tone of voice across the platforms or sometimes they use a different tone of voice for each platform if they are targeting different demographics.
Creativity:
Generating unique and engaging content is essential across various platforms. This is the case for both content writing and copywriting and it translates to making engaging content that helps elevate website rankings.
Openness to constructive criticism:
Adapting to feedback ensures that copy effectively communicates your brand message.
Flexibility in writing styles:
Adapting writing styles to cater to different channels is crucial.
Strong research skills:
Demonstrating expertise and addressing audience needs requires thorough research on a diverse array of topics.
Key Skills for an SEO Content Writer
In order to master SEO content writing, along with the aforementioned skills, SEO content writers require a nuanced understanding of SEO principles and practices:
Understanding of SEO:
Comprehensive knowledge of Google’s algorithms, ranking factors, and search intent is essential in getting the best results possible with the content written on your website. That’s why content writers need to be well-educated on all subjects SEO related.
Up-to-date knowledge of SEO best practices:
SEO best practices refer to the guidelines and strategies that website owners and content creators can follow to optimize their online content for search engines.
These practices aim to improve websites’ visibility, ranking, and overall performance in search engine results pages (SERPs). Staying up to date with these practices is a key factor in making a great SEO content writer.
Excellent research skills:
Conducting thorough research is crucial for creating authoritative, trustworthy content. This includes researching keywords for your content and also researching other competitors in the field of industry your website is in.
Gaining knowledge on how they operate their website and taking notes on how you can use some of their methods in improving your own SEO content writing and website ranking.
Audience research:
Tailoring content to diverse audiences ensures relevance and resonance. We write content for people. Therefore, we need to make sure this content is what people are looking for. While also being suitable for their consumption.
A very simple way to understand this is to realize that writing SEO content for real estate website would definitely not be the same as writing content for an ice cream shop. Content writers need to study their audience well to guarantee great results.
SEO Content Writing vs. Copywriting: Which Do You Need?
Finding the right writer for your brand hinges on evaluating your objectives and determining the types of content required to achieve them. Whether it’s SEO content writing or traditional copywriting, hiring writers with the requisite skills and expertise ensures your content effectively communicates your brand message and resonates with your audience.
Chapters Digital Solutions is an SEO agency in Egypt that provides content writing and copywriting services along with a multitude of other digital marketing services. If you’re in need of a content writing agency for SEO copywriting services or content writing services, don’t hesitate to reach out to our team at Chapters Digital Solutions for further assistance.
