Content marketing has always played a significant role in drumming up interest in a product or service, even if SEOcopywriting isjust a new concept.
Cast your mind back to World War I when the U.S. Army wanted recruits for American forces. They came up with the “I Want YOU” campaign featuring Uncle Sam. Even though the world has changed a lot since then, one thing hasn’t: the importance of targeted writing to lure in prospective purchasers.
Both copywriting and SEO writing are integral for reaching people, engaging them, then turning them into paying customers.
The problem is, you can’t just put words on paper or a web page and immediately expect them to bring customers in their droves. It pays to have an understanding of both copywriting and SEO writing, their differences and similarities, and how to use them to your advantage.
What is Content Marketing?
The internet is full of information on marketing, including how to market your business, how to build your customer base, and how to earn more money in business. It’s easy to get overwhelmed by all the information.
But one thing that appears like a shining light through a blanket of fog is content marketing. Understand what it is and how it works, and you can build a solid foundation to work from.
Content marketing incorporates creating and sharing content to attract, engage, and convert ‘leads’ or customers. It can exist in many forms, like email newsletters, press releases, blog posts, web pages, social media, and video.
No matter the form of content marketing you use, they all involve using words to achieve your end goal. How those words form can ultimately be based on your target market and can influence your customer base in the future.
Copywriting and What it Involves
Under the umbrella of content marketing is copywriting, which is produced to turn a slightly interested person into a paying customer. Copywriters put together a lot of different content, such as landing pages, web pages, emails, direct mail, print advertising, video, and audio scripts.
But they don’t just put together a whole bunch of words and wait for them to work their magic. They incorporate several different elements to ensure those words are what people want to hear before purchasing a product or service. Take note of these elements below.
Customer Targeting
When you market a product or service to the public, you think long and hard about who will buy it and who it will appeal to. It would be best if you did the same thing when writing content about that product.
Many businesses work with copywriters to put together a buyer persona. This allows you to narrow down the desired demographics in a target audience that sets your content’s tone. You can then shape your words to address a problem or pain point, then offer the solution – with that solution being your product or service.
An Emotional Response
Being able to tug at heartstrings is an integral part of content marketing and copywriting. You also see it in SEO copywriting. Appealing to a prospective purchaser’s emotions is also a sound way to generate a lead where word counts are limited.
Think about all the emails that make their way into your inbox every day. Dozens of them probably end up in your trash bin because their subject line didn’t capture your attention. Copywriters must be able to form emotional subject lines that recipients can’t help but want to open.
The average open rate of emails across U.S. industries is 22.1%, which means around 80% of consumers aren’t opening emails. Attention to detail in copywriting could change that.
SEO Writing and What it Involves
In recent years, you may have seen a lot of information on the internet about SEO, or search engine optimisation. While it’s a powerful tool for lead generation, it’s also one that’s changing all the time. As a result, many businesses are noticing the benefit of leaving it in the capable hands of an SEO expert.
The goal of on-page SEO, or SEO copywriting, is to form content designed not only for your reader/potential customer but also for search engines. In saying that, a business must achieve a balance.
Too much focus on catering to a search engine can result in a technique known as black hat SEO. If caught adopting any black hat SEO techniques, you may receive a penalty from a search engine such as Google. Penalties may include being downgraded or delisted from the search engine.
Blackhat SEO Techniques
Some of the more well known black hat SEO writing techniques include private blog networks, often called “link farms”, keyword stuffing, article duplication, comment spamming, link buying, and content cloaking.
One of the best ways to avoid accidentally falling into any of these traps is by letting a content marketing specialist in Auckland or nationwide take care of your SEO needs.
Keyword Research
Once you know what not to do with SEO writing, you can focus on what you should do to master content creation for your business. Keyword research is an integral part. It involves discovering what people are searching for when trying to find products and services that you offer.
For example, if you are a bakery in Ponsonby, your business might rank well if you include keywords in your content such as “bakery in Ponsonby”, or “baked goods in Ponsonby”. There are plenty of keyword research tools online to make use of, or a content marketing expert can provide assistance.
Readers First, Search Engines Second
It’s easy to get so caught up in the latest SEO algorithms that you focus all your attention on them. Truthfully, content marketing is about putting your reader first. Create content they are asking for, and you’ll gain momentum from it – with a helping hand from SEO.
Google’s primary focus is on making sure that content is relevant. If it’s appropriate for a reader, you’ll benefit from it being shared online or even used in backlinking by other businesses.
But Don’t Ignore Algorithms Altogether…
Of course, writing for the reader is paramount. Still, it’s also worth being aware of SEO practices that can benefit your business and content. These are changing all the time, so it’s worth asking an expert for a helping hand to make sure you’re doing all the right things regarding your content marketing direction.
The Similarities and Differences of Copywriting and SEO Writing
Under the umbrella of content marketing, you have both SEO writing and copywriting. What they both have in common is that they are a form of content designed to generate leads for your business.
They first lure the reader in, engage them in what you are offering, then turn them into a paying customer who believes in your product or service. But that’s ultimately where the similarities end. From that point, these two writing styles become much different.
SEO writing is largely for websites. It’s writing that you target towards readers while also keeping in mind that search engines can help it be seen. Copywriting, on the other hand, has a broader spectrum.
It features on websites, but it’s also something you use in radio ads, TV ads, printed products, newspapers, emails, the list goes on.
SEO writing is also about bringing in a generally interested person, warming them up, then turning them into a buying customer. Copywriting in other avenues relies on that customer to already be interested in what you may have to offer but building on that buyer persona voice to clinch the deal.
Copywriting and SEO writing might be two different things. Still, they are both necessary things for your business while focusing on content marketing. Are you unsure where to begin? It might be time to bring in the big guns to work out where content marketing could take your business now and into the future.
FAQs
What is SEO writing, and how does it relate to content marketing?
SEO writing is optimising content with relevant keywords and other on-page SEO techniques to improve visibility and ranking in search engine results, thereby driving organic traffic to the website and supporting content marketing goals.
How does content marketing attract, engage, and convert leads?
Content marketing attracts, engages, and converts leads by creating and sharing valuable and relevant content that addresses the needs and interests of the target audience, establishing trust and credibility, and guiding them through the customer journey.
