SEO Copywriting Hacks

SEO copywriting is the process of writing content in such a way that it gives complete information on targeted keyword. This type of content should be easy for both users and Google to understand it. When users like your content then they return to your website. Search engines are very smart when they observe a lot of traffic is coming to your website then they happily rank it on a higher position.

Content writing is the second most important thing after keyword research. In SEO copywriting your focus should be on increasing the readability and user experience. Today one of the biggest problem people are facing is writing quality content so that they can get the attention of people. It is a beauty of quality content that end-users always find it appealing and gives them a solution they are searching for.

SEO copywriting is an art which helps google to rank it and also persuade people. In case you do not know SEO Copywriting hacks then do not worry. In this post, you will learn why you need SEO Copywriting Hacks? Direct and Indirect ranking factors and 15 best SEO Copywriting Hacks.

Why You Need SEO Copywriting Hacks?

You need to understand SEO copywriting hacks because of the following reason.

1. To reduce the bounce rate.
2. Turn visitor into buyers
3. Help Google to rank content
4. Increase user experience
5. Increase conversion rates
6. Encourage readers to take action

Direct and Indirect Ranking Factors

These direct and indirect ranking factors along with SEO Copywriting hacks help you to boost your organic traffic and conversion rate.

Direct Ranking Factors

Google algorithm gives importance to direct ranking factors. If these ranking factors are included in the content then your page ranks better in SERP. Following are the direct ranking factors.

• Title tags
• URL slugs
• Headings and subheadings
• LSI keywords
• Outbound links

These direct ranking factors are mostly covered in On-page SEO.

Indirect Ranking Factors

These factors help you to increase user experience and reduces bounce rate. If these factors are implemented properly in content then it boosts your ranking in SERP. Following are the indirect ranking factors.

• Meta description
• Content formatting
• Quality of content
• Attractive headline
• Content length
• Engagement (Pictures & Videos)

These indirect ranking factors are covered in SEO copywriting. These factors encourage users to spend more time on your website pages.

15 Best SEO Copywriting Hacks

People often say getting your content in front people is hard. On the other hand, the real trick is engaging these people to read your content. Without a good introductory paragraph, you are not going to retain a user to keep reading your content.  Now, let’s look at some effective SEO copywriting techniques to create more effective content.

Hack 1: Inverted Pyramid Technique

The concept of the inverted pyramid Technique is simple but very effective. In this technique you do not write a conclusion at the end, in fact, you start the first paragraph with it. The reason is people do not read all the content structure-wise. They skip paragraphs to search the information of their interest.

According to NNGROPU’s Eye-tracking study, people lose their patience after reading the first two paragraphs. If you want to develop loyal users who visit your site again and again then we recommend you to follow the given below method in your writing.

• Important information about the topic must be written in the first two paragraphs.
• To retain users on your website use heading, subheading, and sentences with the key information.
• You can use Brain Deans “APP Method” to write an intro paragraph.

APP Method

• Write a paragraph the reader agrees with. Such as you can outline a problem they are facing.
• Then give a solution to the problem, in this paragraph you give the same solutions you used to solve a problem
• At last, give them a preview.

Hack 2: Start with a Question

You can start your paragraph with a question. It is human psychology that they always want to create a complete picture. If you want to dig into human psychology best way is to ask a question. Why? when you ask a question then the subconscious mind of human always desires to know the answer of a given question.

To use this technique in your writing start your article by asking a question. For example, do you think the LED light bulb saves energy?  By asking these types of questions, you can hit the psychology of humans.

Hack 3: Build “Him up and knock him down”

In this technique, you have to create a bridge between destination (End) and starting point. There are three steps to use this strategy successfully.

1. Show people where they want to be. This step is known as the desired situation.
2. Now bring them back to their original position. This step is known as the current situation.
3. Now you have to create a bridge between their desire situation and their current situation.

Many SEO copywriters use only one step of this process or sometimes two. But if they use all these three steps then result will be astounding.

Hack 4: Use These Simple Sentence In Your Content

You can use simple sentences like Brian Dean does in his content to increase his on-page time. For instance, You know; Well… This is a  proven method to reduce the user bounce rate. Following is the list of useful phrases you can use to increase your website on-page time.

• Let me explain…
• But wait, there is more…
• Its gets better
• Yes, you read that right
• Now, there is just one more point I need to explain..

Famous content writers Brain Dean and Gary Vaynerchuck are using the same phrases to gain the attention of people. These people get a low bounce rate and high on-page times by using this simple hack.

To use this hack in your writing you just need to go through your content. Add these phrases in your content where suitable and get amazing results.

Hack 5: Add In-content Links

If you want to find out what your audience wants then add In-content links in your writing. If these links are present in your post then it is easy for both, you and readers to navigate around the content. You can track the activity of your user by using the heat map. let see an example to further elaborate this hack.

Assume you create a topic on “Blogging” or “Selling your products” and created in-content links of these topics. Now, if every visitor to your site clicks on these topics. Then you know there is a market for you to write on product topics.

If you want to create links in your content in such a way that you can track their navigation. Then you need to have little knowledge of HTML. Once you create these links then use Free Heat Map tool to track the activity of the user.

Hack 6: Give Hints About Future Point In Your Content

Book, Noval, and story writers use this technique in their content to tease their reader about what will happen next. It is a great way of making people go further and further through pages. In today’s digital world, the rule for SEO copywriting remains the same because you also want people to read content from your site.

Your content can go viral how? When people read a hint about future point then they start searching the detail about it. They dig further and spend more time on your content. When they get the information they are searching for then there is a great chance they share your content on their social media profiles.

Stuart Walker used this hack in his content and he got amazing results. This technique is effective and simple. Through this technique, you can increase the time spent on your page and make people read your content.

Hack 7:  Use Long Tail Keyword Naturally

Long-tail keywords help search engines to understand your content. If long-tail keywords are implemented correctly in content then they bring huge traffic. However, most people use them incorrectly how?

Let’s look at this example ‘‘Fix iPhone 7 phone home button ” These kinds of long-tail keywords do not sound natural. You can make these keyword sound naturally with given below trick.

How To Make Keywords Sound Natural?

Google algorithm is very smart and ranks pages that have extra words along with the long-tail keywords. Let’s see the examples,

Keyword: Fix iPhone 7  Phone Home Button

New Keyword: Fix your iPhone 7 Home button

Keyword: Free Apple Mac video Software

New Keyword: Free Apple Mac Video Editing Software

This is a simple trick but very effective. If your keywords are not sounding natural then use this strategy.

Hack 8: Create Magnetic Subheadings

Subheadings are the most important element of content after the headline and intro paragraph. Almost 78% of readers are scanners, they do not read everything written in sequence. They quickly scan through articles to get the information of their interest.

Subheadings in your content can gain the attention of your readers. Let’s take an example, Suppose a person just broke a bicycle chain.  Now he wants to change it but does not know how to do it. He types in google ”How to change a bicycle chain” following results will appear in front of him.

Google shows different results based on the search query. Now the person chooses an article or video and clicks the link. The first thing he will read is the introductory paragraph and then start scrolling down to scan the information he needs (How to change a bicycle chain).

Now after getting information about how to change a bicycle chain. The person will start scanning further useful information.

If the researcher does not have an idea about “Size the chain” then he is going to read it. That’s it the purpose of creating good subheading is achieved. The person may leave within seconds after getting information. Therefore, creating interesting subheadings attracts the user and make them read the article completely.

Hack 9: Write for Middle-class reading Level

It is important to write your content using easy and simple words. Do you know why? The reason is most people who come to visit your site do not read English to a high level.

Mostly content writers skip this point and create content using high (difficult words). For example, corporate blogs are very boring for many people. The reason is they use very heavy words which are difficult for a normal person to understand.

It is estimated that around six out of ten countries learn English as their second language. Which means they do not have a good reading level. Some people even use translator tools to understand English.

Even in USA people struggle to read if the readability level is above 8 Grade. If you are creating content above this level then people are not going to enjoy reading it. There are many free tools available to check the readability of your content. I use “Hemingway App” to check the readability of my content.

High Readability Drawbacks 

If your content readability is above 8 grade then people are not going to read or enjoy reading your content. Following are the consequences of high readability.

• People will not link back to your content
• They will not share your content
• It is hard to build your brand

To achieve good readability level you need to go through your content at least 2 times. Figure out if there are alternative words to make your sentence more simple. Remove useless information from your content.

Hack 10: Create Postive or Negative Title Tags

A title tag is the first thing a user reads when he searches for a query. If your title heading is not good then people are not going to click them. A good title tag is which include either positive or negative emotion in it.  Let’s take an example to understand positive title tags.

Title Tag: 10 Hats for your Outfit This Spring

Positive Title Tag: Awesome! 10 Hats for your Outfit This Spring

You can compare the above two headlines. The first headline is good but second is eye-catching. Now, let’s take a negative example which creates emotions.

Title Tag: 10 worst hats you should never try

Negative Title Tag: Why will these hats ruin my new outfit?

The first headline is simple and good but the second one is more appealing. You can create amazing emotional title headlines by split testing. Split testing is writing the variation of the title tags and then selecting the best one.

Hack 11: Meta Description Hack

A meta description is the second most important thing people see after the title headline. Meta description has a big impact on overall SEO because it provides a window into your content.

People often read the meta description before clicking the content page. If you do not know what is meta description? then look at the given below box.

The meta description is editable and it must be created by keeping the following characteristics in mind.

1. Descriptive
2. Persuasive
3. Create curiosity
4. Match the searchers intent
5. 156 characters or less

Now let’s take an example of a good meta description.

The above-written meta description is simple, sweet and short. This description gives me a clear idea of the content I will find on this post.

Meta Description Hack Sheet

Hack 12: Always Use Active Voice

Use active voice in your writing because it gives more clarity in content. In Active Voice, you need only a few words to explain your concept and it reads a lot better. I am not going to teach you the basics of English grammar but I want to show you the relationship between SEO Copywriting Hack and Active Voice. Let us take some examples

These active voice sentences are the simple, short, personal and best approach to writing. Now let’s take an example of Passive voice.

Now see the difference between active voice and passive voice. Passive Voice sentences are long and boring to read. People are not going to enjoy reading your content if it’s written in the passive voice.

At School, we are taught to write in passive voice but in SEO copywriting passive voice writing is bad. The reason is it creates a bad user experience.

Now take a look at these given below examples and you tell me which one is easier to read.

Which one is better first or second? The second one right! because it is written in short sentences and looks more appealing to you.  This SEO copywriting hack is simple and effective.

Hack 13: Use Grammarly

Grammarly is a great tool and it makes a huge difference in SEO copywriting. Commonly, you ignore your own mistakes when writing a long article.  No matter how many times you proofread it. Grammarly helps you to identify all grammatical mistakes in content and gives you a suggestion to rectify them.

You can correct all your mistakes within seconds by just clicking the mouse button. Honestly speaking, I also use this tool in all my writing projects. Both free and paid versions of Grammarly are available, you can download the free version of Grammarly if you want to test this tool.

Hack 14: Internal Linking

In SEO copywriting hacks I always recommend everyone to create an internal link in your post. If you do not know what internal linking is? it is a link from one page on your site to another page on your site.  For example, I mention ‘Protect your hair from chlorine water’ in one of my articles.

Now I can link the red marked sentence to one of my articles about ‘Protect your hair from chlorine water’.  This type of internal linking not only increase the user time spend on your site but it also helps in passing the juice of backlinks across your site.

Good internal linking also helps search engine bots to crawl your site easily. Your website overall presence also increases in the eyes of google too.

Hack 15: Use Short URL

Short URL helps to increase CTR (Click Through Rate) and ranking of a website. There is a significant relationship between google ranking and URL. How?  Well, short URL help Google spiders to crawl your post URL easily. Google uses your post URL to understand what your page is about.  Let’s take an example of a short URL and a long URL.

Short URL: www.website.com/Keyword

Long URL: www.website.com/8/28/2019/keyword-and-its-importance

Which URL is better and easy to understand? First one right! short and understandable URL means better CTR.

It is observed that people ignore websites that have a long post URL, they simply prefer to click on results with a shorter post URL. In reality, google also hates long URL. Let’s see an example long URL.

Now, let’s see a short URL

Note: If your post URL is already long then I strongly recommend you do not change it. The reason is changing already written long URLs to short URL can cause serious technical SEO issues.  However, you can follow this short URL structure in your new posts.

Conclusion

I used these above 15 SEO copywriting hacks in my projects and blogs. I got amazing results in traffic, CTR, reduced bounce rate and ranking of the overall website. You can also boost your website organic traffic and conversions as I did.

If you are unable to retain your website site organic value (Traffic), then here is an ultimate guide for you that will for sure help you get what you want.

Leave a comment below which SEO copywriting hack you are going to implement first. I would be happy to share your success story in my blog post.