As a website copywriter, you aim to be a wordsmith, a storyteller, and a creative genius. Crafting compelling narratives and engaging a brand’s audience with your words is what you do to make a website stand out from its competitors. But in today’s digital landscape, creativity alone may not be enough to ensure search ranking success. The SERPs (search engine results pages) are highly competitive, and for a website copywriter to stand out and thrive, you should be incorporating Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) strategies into your work.
A collaboration between creative writing and optimising content for SEO is what can truly elevate your copywriting game and help your business (and clients) get the best results possible from their website. If it’s something you’ve thought about but never got around to doing, keep reading to learn how an SEO consultant can work with a website copywriter to boost your business and improve results for your clients.
The Creative Copywriter’s Dilemma
Copywriters are known for their ability to weave magic with words, but sometimes, the focus on creativity alone can leave your client’s website falling short of their online goals. You may have crafted a beautifully written website, but it’s not getting the ranking and visibility it deserves. Your copy keeps visitors onsite but it’s not helping potential customers to find it via search in the first place.
That’s where a freelance SEO consultant like myself comes into play – I can help unlock the full SEO potential of your written content and help your customers’ websites get found on Google. Which in turn, will improve the reputation of your copywriting business. Not only does your writing sound great and engage visitors, but it also helps them to find the website (SEO is an in-bound marketing technique) and then convert them to leads and sales too.
Why Would a Website Copywriter Work with an SEO Consultant?
Combining your website writing services with the know-how of a search engine optimisation consultant allows you to offer your customers a next-level service, giving you a secret weapon to online success. Here are four ways that working together can save you time and stress, and enable you to offer a more specialised and skilled service so you can create the most effective, targeted website copy for your customers.
1. Keyword Magic
SEO experts are well-versed in keyword research and can research the keywords and phrases that people are searching for in the industry or niche you are writing for. These nuggets of information are gold for a copywriter and will make your targeted copy much more effective in the long term. By strategically incorporating keywords into your content, you can boost your chances of your customer’s website ranking and being discovered by search engines. Which in turn, will give you a reputation as a kick-arse copywriter that knows their stuff.
A website will take off more quickly in the search rankings if the keywords to be used on each website page have been researched and agreed upon before writing even begins. Get it right by crafting your copy around targeted keywords from the get-go, rather than having the company edit your work later on if the website isn’t getting enough visits.
Let an SEO consultant do the keyword magic for you to get started, then give them the finished page copy for feedback. Once the web page goes live, they can give it a final check to confirm the page is optimised correctly before going live. That means checking that the keywords are used at the optimal density and then feature in the right places such as page titles, headings, link anchor text and meta description.
2. Balancing Creativity with Making Sense to Web Crawlers
Copywriters prioritise creativity and engaging content (as they should!), but there is a balance to strike between that and optimising the content for search engines. A website can hit all the right notes when a real person reads it, but if the content isn’t optimised correctly then a web crawler may have problems understanding it. If that’s the case, it will rank badly. Or even worse won’t get returned on search at all. Or if it does, it will be for the wrong keywords and phrases.
A working collaboration with an SEO freelancer will help you to achieve that balance between being creative and crawler-friendly. If any page copy needs tweaking I’ll suggest changes that make the page more SEO-friendly but without spoiling your carefully crafted copy. I aim to keep the tone and the vibe just as you intended but to make small, minimal tweaks to help those little crawlers understand the website better and see exactly what the content is all about.
Balancing creativity and SEO doesn’t mean sacrificing one for the other. It’s about making both elements work together in harmony. When you strike this balance, you’re not only creating beautifully crafted content but also ensuring that it gets the search visits it deserves. It’s a balancing act for sure, but it’s possible to have a beautifully written website that also pleases the Google Gods!
3. Meta Titles and Descriptions
It’s confession time now. As a website copywriter, do you complete the meta titles and descriptions for your client’s web pages? It’s one of the most common tasks that people miss when launching a new website and I see it time and again when I start work with a new client. At least 50% are missing them, or they aren’t done properly.
Creating and adding an SEO title and meta description (using the right amount of characters) is an important part of SEO. It’s what Google uses to display information in the SERPs (search results pages). They give you another chance to be clear about your page content and tell search engines exactly what the page is about. It also tells the visitor browsing results in search, and what to expect from your page. The more engaging, the more likely they are to click on your client’s website instead of a competitor’s.
If you tend to ‘forget’ to complete the task of creating meta titles and descriptions then you’re not giving your customers a full website copywriting service. It doesn’t take a huge amount of time but it’s easy to overlook. Get them done without any drama – this is just the type of task that you can outsource to an SEO consultant to take care of. They’ll use your copy as a base, weave it with some keyword magic, insert it into the page and then bam! That website page has just been given way more SEO-juice than it had without it.
4. Link Building Strategies
High-quality backlinks can improve a website’s authority and search engine ranking. (Read What are Backlinks if you need more information). Original, high-quality content that ranks well is more likely to bring in backlinks. Get inspiration for winning blog titles that will help achieve this, by using the weapon discussed in Point 1 – keyword research. Get lists of potential subjects and topics that people are already searching for so you can give them your unique spin.
Keywords are also used as part of internal link building (adding text links from one page to another within your own website). Internal links encourage visitors to stay on-site longer as they can easily click on related articles, products and services. The text used within these internal links is called anchor copy and the crawlers read it to check the topic of the linked article. It should include your targeted keywords or related phrases to help with SEO.
These link-building strategies complement a copywriter’s efforts. Teaming up with an SEO freelancer can help you add these links in the best places, using targeted phrases.
The Business Benefits for Copywriters – A Summary
Collaborating with an SEO expert like myself can offer numerous benefits to your copywriting business:
- Improved Search Engine Rankings: Optimised content ranks higher in search results, bringing in more organic traffic.
- Enhanced User Experience: Content optimised for both humans and search engines keeps your audience engaged and coming back for more.
- Greater ROI: Your clients will see a higher return on investment as your content is more discoverable and converts better.
- Time Efficiency: With SEO experts handling keywords and optimisation, you can focus on what you do best – creating captivating content.
- Long-Term Success: Staying up-to-date with SEO trends ensures your content remains relevant and successful in the long run.
So, the next time you’re crafting a masterpiece, remember that an SEO expert is your secret weapon. They’re not here to stifle your creativity but to supercharge it, ensuring your words reach the right audience, and your business thrives in the digital age.
Ready to unlock the full potential of your content to take your copywriting business to new heights? Make creativity and SEO your winning combination!
Monthly SEO Packages for Website Copywriters
All of my monthly SEO packages for small businesses are also a great fit for web designers, digital marketing agencies or website copywriters looking for help to complete SEO work for their own clients.
Buy a bank of time each month and get expert SEO services for help with ensuring your client’s websites are as SEO-friendly as can be. The time can be used for a range of client work including keyword research, optimising web pages, working on backlinks as well as tracking search data.
Packages start at £199 per month so they are affordable for small businesses or agencies. Get in touch to learn more about this flexible, professional investment in your copywriting business.
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