5 Ways SEO Can Teach You About Better Copywriting

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the art of ranking well in Google, here’s what it can teach you about Copywriting.

In SEO good Copywriting is a superpower.

First, a tad of backstory. I’m the son of a writer (novelist, poet, screenwriter, songwriter and actor) so I grew up subliminally learning a ton about writing. I had no idea I had learned so much about the psychology of writing until I landed my first job as an SEO consultant for a fortune 500 oil conglomerate when I was 17.

I was writing headlines that would be seen by millions of people at the push of a button. It was instant feedback, with data to back up my reasoning. Writers (or copywriters) typically have to put out work for proofreading to get feedback before it goes live, then it’s in a vacuum of success or failure. They typically have to cater to the emotions of people (editors) who may not even be their target audience before their work can go live — thus alienating their reader. They don’t know what kind of engagement their work will have until it goes live, then all of their work will be for naut until they hone their approach on the next go-around (which for novelists could take years). The copy I was writing had to entice social sharing, as is crucial to any form of online copywriting success. And ultimately the more output of content I had, the greater input of traffic I recieved for my clients.

So, when I started SEO I didn’t realize that I would fall in love with writing, because I was learning to write methodically and with data-driven practices that I could iterate on the fly. It seems to almost amplify your rate of success in writing, whereby you can learn to write “successfully” (and by successfully, I mean with a wider readership and larger engagement than normal) faster.

Every SEO should study copywriting, it is ultimately the skill every SEO needs to have — paired with an analytical approach to content.

SEOs are now the copywriters of the 1950's. We are the Peggy from Mad Men, we are Don Draper without the misogyny (most of the time).

SEOs need to study the arts of Ogilvy, DDB and so many other ad agencies of that period that put out grade-a level copy — a subject that Copyblogger often harps on (which is also one of my favorite blogs ever, it taught me an unimaginable load about the marriage between SEO and Copywriting).

Onto the point.

The 5 things that SEO gave me that fundamentally made me a better Copywriter.

1. Instant Feedback and Real-time Iteration

In SEO you post a title, a headline or a blog post and you know if it was a failure or a success within 24 hours (or earlier sometimes). It’s instant feedback, telling you if your work was up to snuff or has gone down the drain. The beauty is though that we have tools to test this work, and can make on-the-fly iterations to improve this content — which can make content that wasn’t a success very successful in minutes.

2. Clear, Targeted Headlines Directed to a Defined Audience

Before each and every headline in SEO comes a goal to aspire to. We have a set amount of “keywords” to target or a direct motive following every post — whether it be sell more items, get more traffic, get more shares, build domain authority for a certain keyword or what-have-you. The point is that every headline we write is clearly targeted for organic search prominence, and at the direct audience that will be searching for those terms. In Google you want to be as clear as possible, as simple as possible to make sure their algorithm is picking your site up properly, which makes for idiot-simple headlines.

3. Engagement is Paramount

In Google time-on-page, page-views and click through rates are paramount to ranking higher. If you have a user click on your listing or content and then immediately hit “back” it counts as a “bounce” and works against you in the organic SERPs (search engine result pages). This means that engagement is paramount, you have to entice your reader, you have to make them entertained. The headline must be catchy, the hook must be addicting and the copy must be like crack for the eyes.

4. Enticing to Share is Fundamental To Success

The more people share your posts the more successful they will be. With social ranking factors developing it is even more important to have social shares on your content, just from a search standpoint (obviously it’s incredibly important for general exposure. So enticing your readers to share your content is absolutely fundamental, we want our viewers to share our content to their circles, to let their friends know about us and have the industry we’re targeting talking about us. This is why SEOs have such a focus on “great fucking content” — because that’s what we need to entice shares.

5. The More The Output The More The Input

The more content we put out, and the higher the frequency — the better Google sees it. Google loves a constant refresh of content on your website, so writing often and posting quickly is a great trait to adopt. It’s tough for creatives to just put out a ton of content, going against our natural nature for perfectionism. The beauty though is that if you’re an SEO, you don’t have a choice. You have to publish, you have to launch — things has to be posted regardless of if they’re perfect or not. The more output the more input you get (output being content, input being visitors).

These 5 points are essential to successful copywriting, and they make or break SEO success. SEO taught me about all of these things and actually subliminally made me fall in love with copywriting. I would suggest that every copywriter try to adopt these principles, they will be more successful, learn to enjoy their work more and ultimately become better copywriters and simultaniously better marketers.

Internalize this and always remember this quote from David Ogilvy (the king of copywriting and marketing in the 50's):

“If it doesn’t sell, it isn’t creative.”

I’m a content marketer and SEO consultant, having worked with brands like Best Western, Holiday Inn, MFG, Bidsketch & Olo to boost revenue through clever content and organic search. I’m also a consultant for hire.

I’d love it if you shared this post and chat with me on Twitter!