‘I’ve heard of SEO, and I’ve heard that I need it. But what the hell is it all about and how do I get it?’
It’s a common question; almost as common as ‘where do babies come from?’
But today’s your lucky day, because today, your friendly Brisbane Copywriter – that’s me – has the answer for you. (The answer to the SEO question, that is, not the baby one.)
So, without further ado (and certainly without any more origin-of-babies questions), may I present to you your basic “Basic Guide to SEO”.
What is SEO?
SEO – or Search Engine Optimisation – refers to the practices and techniques copywriters and others use to help your website appear higher in a search engine’s “organic” (unpaid) keyword search results.
The different search engines use algorithms that take into account a range of variables in order to determine where they rank your site when delivering results for keyword searches. SEO is about ensuring these variables are addressed so your website receives a higher rank.
In other words, SEO is about sweet-talking Google and the other major search engines.
Relevance and Authority – Google’s Modus Operandi
Google ranks each and every website according to its perceived relevance and authority. So SEO is about building a website’s relevance and authority in order to help it achieve a higher ranking. Put basically, Google will consider a site to be relevant and authoritative if:
- it is full of keyword-optimised content, including a keyword-optimised title tag and other such bits and bobs (but beware – your content must also be human-optimised!)
- it includes “fresh”, up-to-date content (usually achieved through regular blogging – preferably keyword-optimised blogging)
- it is connected to the rest of the web through quality links (but be sure to avoid “bad” links like the plague, or Google will pound you into dust and eat you for breakfast, then spit you out for good measure).
Why is SEO Important? Get Found, Get Customers
SEO is important because it helps a website to appear higher in the search engine results pages (SERPs). Let’s express that as an equation:
SEO = higher SERP position
The higher up a website appears in the SERPs, the more web traffic it will receive:
higher SERP position = more web traffic
In general, the more traffic a site receives, the more customers it will attract, and thus the more business it will generate. (We’ll discuss an exception to this rule – and how to avoid it –in a moment.) So, generally:
more web traffic = more customers = more business
From there, it’s a no-brainer:
more business = more money
More money is what most of us want. That’s why SEO is important. Because ultimately:
SEO = more money
SEO Matters – the Numbers
The importance of ranking highly for a relevant keyword search cannot be overemphasised. A 2013 study by Chitika found that, on average, sites listed on the first Google search results page receive 92% of the traffic generated by that search. A website at the top of a keyword search results page receives an average of 33% of the web traffic generated by that search, while the website in the second position receives 18%. It’s sobering stuff. Especially as, according to Margin Media, in April 2013 Google had a massive 93.05% of the Australian search engine market share.
Clearly, if you want web traffic and the business, customers and money that it brings, you need a high SERP ranking. As discussed, that means you need good SEO. But if you want good SEO, you’re also going to need good copywriting.
Good Copywriting – The Key to SEO Success
Good copywriting is vital to SEO success. Your web content can’t just be keyword-optimised – it needs to be human-optimised too. If your content is appealing, useful, and user-friendly, people will want to read it, they will share it with their friends, and they will choose to buy the product you’re offering, or engage the service you’ve advertised. That means lots of money for you!
On the other hand, if your content is boring, badly written, or hard to understand, your visitors won’t be converting into customers. Without an SEO copywriter, while you might manage to achieve a high SERP rank by stuffing your website with keywords etc., chances are that that content is not going to read naturally. Even if you attract lots of readers, your cruddy content will fail to hook them in and turn them into customers. If that happens, no amount of SEO is going to save you.
It’s an important point, so it bears repeating: good SEO requires good copywriting, and that means hiring a good SEO copywriter.
Get a Good Copywriter – it’s Worth it!
A good SEO copywriter will create great content for you that is interesting and engaging, sells you and your services or products, and is sprinkled with keywords in a way that reads naturally to humans, while also sweet-talking Google. Sound like what you want? It’s certainly what every site needs!
Hiring an SEO copywriter will save you time, get you results, and will be an investment that brings in great returns. How?
Hiring a copywriter will save you time because you won’t have to spend hours agonising over how and what to write. Instead, you can leave it all to an expert. Hiring a copywriter will also get you results, because your content will be well-written and keyword-optimised by a talented writer with great SEO skills. And while it will obviously cost money to hire a good copywriter, the web traffic that they help you attract will ultimately bring you more business, and, as you’ll remember, more business = more money.
A Good Copywriter
Of course, you can’t just hire any old copywriter. You need to hire a good one. I know of a few. One in particular *wink, wink, nudge, nudge*. You can check out her SEO Copywriting Packages here.
Questions?
Got questions or comments? You know what to do! Comment below, or send me a message via carrier pigeon.
Ready for great SEO copywriting? Give me a call, or check out my SEO Copywriting Packages.
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