Do copywriters need to know SEO?

Sometimes, when I’m talking to new - or even regular clients - I find myself unintentionally teaching them how to suck eggs. Of course, some of my clients are well-versed in all things SEO, yet there I am telling them the ins and outs like they know very little.

On other occasions, though, I’m bleating on about SEO like everyone knows what it is. It’s a very fine line - and it’s one I don’t always know how to tread. So, when I remember (my passion for the subject means I get carried away sometimes) I allow my clients to do the talking; I ask them how much they know about ranking well online, and I tell them what I know (if they need, or want, to know it).

So, what is SEO then? Or am I teaching you how to suck eggs too?

SEO - or Search Engine Optimisation, to give it its full title - is the process by which online businesses ensure their website is found by people who are looking for it (or the services and/or products it offers).

Let’s say you own an online bookstore. How on earth do you compete against all the other web-based bookstores out there? Online bookselling is, no doubt, a highly saturated market.

Go on; try it…type in ‘buy books online’, ‘books online’ or ‘book store’ into Google and see what comes up. You’ll likely get the big hitters - people like Amazon, Waterstones, or maybe even a popular independent online bookstore or two.

So, can the much smaller bookseller be spotted online? That’s where SEO - the art of injecting well-chosen key words (let’s call them ‘phrases’ instead - key words is jargon unless you know what on earth I’m going on about) into your content. You see, it isn’t just about putting your website live and hoping for the best. You need to take intentional steps to ensure it is noticed. Those who don’t have an online business might be totally unaware of the work that goes on behind the scenes to ensure a site gets spotted on Google. It’s a lot, but it’s all in a day’s work for an SEO specialist and/or copywriter.

Do copywriters need to know SEO, then?

Well, while it isn’t a necessity - after all, there are SEO experts for that - it’s certainly a bonus if the copywriter in charge of sprucing up your website’s content knows a bit about how to ensure you stand out online.

Do I know about SEO? I wouldn’t claim I know lots and lots, but I know enough. I know how to expertly weave key words into your content in a natural way. I know the kind of key words to include - and I know a fair bit about how Google (and its often-complex inner workings)…er…work.

Want to know more about why copywriters need to know about SEO - and why and how a copywriter like me can help your website get found online? Get in touch with me today and we’ll go from there.

You could also book one of my ‘Copy and Catch Up’ sessions. I won’t call it a copywriting ‘Power Hour’ because, well I hate that term. But, for £120 (an introductory offer for January and February), you can ask me anything at all you like - about your website content, SEO and everything and anything in between (well, as long as it’s about copywriting!) for a whole hour. Say hello via the link above and let’s chat.

Until next time…

10 Tasks You Can Do Now to Improve Your Website’s SEO

Googling your business name again? Don’t worry, we all do it. There’s something strangely addictive about checking your Google ranking. We hope for the best but even if what we find isn’t quite as good as we’d hoped for, there’s still some grim satisfaction to be gained. Why? ‘Cos we know that with a little elbow grease, we’ll start to see our site rise up the ranks.

The hard part is knowing exactly which tasks will help you improve your website’s position. There are plenty of background tweaks and content checks you could work on, but without a solid idea of what you need, you may be focusing valuable resources on areas of your website that won’t actually make that much of a difference to your Google ranking.

That’s why I’ve put together 10 tasks you can get on with straight away to improve your website’s SEO, with no gimmicks or shortcuts included.

1. Fill in adequate meta descriptions

We all know how important meta descriptions are, but when it comes to filling in all those metadata forms in the back-end of your website, it takes a very disciplined person to do the task perfectly every single time.

If you have a lot of products on your site, or a lot of separate pages, you might need to put together a task team to get this done in a timely manner. It’ll all be worth it when you see your domain authority creeping up.

2. Buff-up your security

Google loves safety. So much so that sites with good security measures in place for their visitors get brownie points when it comes to Google rankings.

If your rankings have suddenly slumped, the first thing to check is your security certificate. It’s easy to forget to renew it but it can have big implications for your website’s reputation online. Incorporating a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) is a huge step towards completely securing your site against security breaches. Ask your IT team to create a security plan and implement their suggestions as quickly as possible.

3. Include more pictures and optimise them

People find information much easier to digest when pictures are used to break it up. Google recognises this and naturally favours sites with useful, relevant imagery with all the correct metadata filled in.

Good, original photography of your company and the work or products you create is the best possible source for these images. If you’re not in a position to take new photos currently, try looking at free to use stock imagery websites like Pixabay for some temporary placeholders. However be warned: irrelevant, cheesy stock imagery is not a good look for any business.

4. Put a blogging schedule together, and use it

Regularly updated, useful content is always favoured by your customers and that means Google loves it too.

Blogging is still the number one way to keep that content lemony fresh, and the beauty of a blog post is that it can be about anything. So, if you’re looking to tell people about a new service you offer, do it here. If you’ve just taken on new team members, a blog post is a great way to shout about it.

Word of caution though - always make sure you slip in one outward-bound link and two inward-bound links in each post. It really helps with your credibility.

5. Be more mobile efficient

Is your website mobile-friendly? Is it actually mobile-friendly?

Here’s how to test it. Send the homepage url to everyone in your office and ask them to open it on their phones. By the natural order of things, there will be a range of different models and ages of smartphones in use throughout your team, giving you an accurate representation of what your website looks like to almost any phone user.

Now the hard part: which bits of your site look weird? Which don’t function? Note it all down in an audit document and send it through to your developers so they can fix what’s broken and send your ranking back up the charts.

6. Make it snappy

If visitors to your website are having to wait for ages for your pages to load, they aren’t going to stick around. Google penalises websites with long loading times because it makes them look bad for recommending them - so make sure your pages load fast!

There are a number of ways you can do this. Look into reducing the size of images on your pages, you could ask your developers to reduce the code size on certain pages or if you use WordPress, you could look into plugins that help slim down your load times.

7. Consider your keywords

When was the last time you gave a thought to your company’s researched keywords? If your customers are searching for terms that will lead them directly into your lap, use those keywords liberally, and in useful places.

Headings and subheadings are your best options, but including keywords within block text is another great way to show Google that your content is relevant.

8. Be easy to read

Nobody likes a showoff, especially when it comes to web content. Google loves it when you get straight to the point, and likes it even more when you write in clear, concise sentences.

Instead of writing out a long paragraph about your company on the ‘About’ page, why not chop that content into short, snappy paragraphs with purpose? If you’re writing about a complicated process or service, consider bullet points to help readers take in the information. It really will make a world of difference.

9. Get some authority

If you’re looking to stand out, it might do you some good to align yourself with well-known brands within your field.

Some businesses offer guest blog posts to company websites who are more internationally renowned than themselves in order to get some much-needed kudos. Others find it beneficial to link with their local Chambers of Commerce and other local networking groups, with reciprocal hyperlinked badges on their homepages to make sure the world knows they work as a team.

10. Revise/Remake

Scan through your old blog posts from more than 12 months ago. There’s some great stuff on there, isn’t there?

Look, nobody says that your relevant, fresh content has to be totally new every time. Even the best companies revise their content. It’s necessary, especially when you work in a sector or industry where things don’t really get shaken up very often.

You’ll find that some of your best blog posts, or some of the posts that had the most hits, can actually be separated out into two or three different new blog posts. Read through the content and see how you could update it, using new findings, statistics or projects you’ve worked on. Voila - great new posts that your customers will really find useful.

Until next time…

Beyond Keywords: Content That Does More Than Rank

For some time, I’ve had clients email me in desperation, worried about a new Google update that’ll somehow reduce their hard-won ranking to rubble.

Every time Google threaten to change the way they crawl websites - and now more recently every time Instagram or Facebook decide to change their algorithms - it sends content creators and marketing departments into a panicked frenzy. What about our stats?! What about our processes?!

I’m going to say something controversial now: forget your ranking for a minute. Freeing, isn’t it?

 Writing with Freedom

For me, thinking about Google rankings and keyword selection feels like handcuffs are being slammed around my wrists, and that doesn’t make it easy to type. In fact, it makes it near impossible.

Thinking about your ranking is important, of course it is, but that’s what you consider at the first stage of your content planning. By the time you get to writing your content, whether it’s social media posts, photo captions or blog posts, all the technical work should be at least 80% done.

By considering what you’re using as keywords well in advance, you have the wonderfully freeing sensation of actually being able to write your content without distractions. Slip those keywords in at will. Make the words speak for themselves.

Or, even more controversially, don’t use keywords at all.

The Lost Art of Keywordless Content

I’m going to put this out there: I’m not entirely convinced keywords are necessary 100% of the time.

For a lot of content, yes, keywords are vital. Active content, like the descriptions of items for sale, needs keywords to enable customers to easily search and find the things they are looking for.

However, on the whole, if you’re writing a blog post or a page of web content, your words need to grab your readers. A thin paragraph of key phrases isn’t going to do that. What does engage your audience is reality, frivolity, sense and diverse, interesting content. People want to read something genuinely gripping, or emotive or amusing.

Google’s updates aren’t designed to make your life harder, they’re actually created with users in mind. They want to steer content away from churned-out robotic writing and into more creative, informative forms.

Essentially, Google will reward you if your content is useful.

Using Natural Speech

How often have you searched ‘shoes 5 black’ recently? Or ‘healthy snack’?

What we search for and how we search for it is changing, and with it so are the keywords we spend so long analysing. More and more, customers are using natural speech to find what they’re looking for. Think about how often you ask Alexa for some help, or tell Siri to find something out for you. You don’t chant ‘cheap holiday Lapland Christmas’ into your phone do you?

If you’re having trouble snapping out of a keyword-focused mindset — I understand, I’ve been there! — just read what you’re written out loud. Does it sound like a person said it? How could you improve the flow so it sounds more natural?

Above all, write your content for your customers, not for search engines. Gaming the system won’t improve your sales figures. Targeting your customers will.

Until next time…

10 Tasks You Can Do Now to Improve Your Website’s SEO

Googling your business name again? Don’t worry, we all do it. There’s something strangely addictive about checking your Google ranking, after all. We hope for the best but even if it’s not as good as we'd imagine, there’s still some grim satisfaction to be gained, because we know that with a little elbow grease, we’ll start to see our site rise up the ranks.

The hard part is knowing exactly which tasks will help you improve your website’s position. There are plenty of background tweaks and content checks you could work on, but without a solid idea of what you need, you may be concentrating valuable resources on areas of your website that won’t actually make that much of a difference to your Google ranking.

That’s why I’ve put together 10 tasks you can get on with straight away to improve your website’s SEO, with no gimmicks or shortcuts included. Read on...

1.Fill in adequate meta descriptions

We all know how important meta descriptions are, but when it comes to filling in all those metadata forms in the back-end, it takes a very disciplined person to complete them perfectly every single time.

If you have a lot of products on your site, or a lot of separate pages, you might need to put together a task team to get this done in a timely manner. It’ll all be worth it when you see your domain authority creeping up.

2. Buff-up your security

Google loves safety. So much so that sites with good security measures in place for their visitors get brownie points when it comes to Google rankings.

The first thing to check if your rankings have suddenly slumped is your security certificate. It’s easy to forget to renew it but it can have big implications for your website’s reputation online. Incorporates a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) is a huge step towards completely securing your site against security breaches. Ask your IT team to create a security plan and implement their suggestions as quickly as possible.

3. Include more pictures - and optimise them!

People find information much easier to digest when pictures are used to break it up. Google recognises this and naturally favours sites with useful, relevant imagery with all the correct metadata filled in.

Good, original photography of your company and the work or products you create is the best possible source for these images. If you’re not in a position to take new photos currently, try looking at free-to-use stock imagery websites like Pixabay for some temporary placeholders. However, be warned: irrelevant, cheesy stock imagery is not a good look for any business.

4. Put a blogging schedule together - and use it

Regularly updated, useful content is always favoured by your customers and that means Google loves it too. Blogging is still the number one way to keep that content lemony fresh, and the beauty of a blog post is, it can be about anything. So, if you’re looking to tell people about a new service you offer, do it here. If you’ve just taken on new team members, a blog post is a great way to shout about it.

Word of caution though - always make sure you slip in one outward-bound link and two inward-bound links in each post. It really helps with your credibility.

5. Be mobile-efficient

Is your website mobile-friendly? Is it actually mobile-friendly?

Here’s how to test it. Send the homepage url to everyone in your office and ask them to open it on their phones. By the natural order of things, there will be a range of different models and ages of smartphones in use throughout your team, giving you an accurate representation of what your website looks like to almost any phone user.

Now the hard part: which bits of your site look weird? Which don’t function? Note it all down in an audit document and send it through to your developers so they can fix what’s broken and send your ranking back up the charts.

6. Make it snappy

If visitors to your website are having to wait for ages for your pages to load, they aren’t going to stick around. Google penalises websites with long loading times because it makes them look bad for recommending them - so make sure your pages load fast!

There are a number of ways you can do this. Look into reducing the size of images on your pages, you could ask your developers to reduce the code size on certain pages, or if you use Wordpress, you could look into plugins that help slim down your load times.

7. Consider your keywords

When was the last time you gave a thought to your company’s researched keywords? If your customers are searching for terms that will lead them directly into your lap, use those keywords liberally, and in useful places.

Headings and subheadings are your best options, but including keywords within block text is another great way to show google that your content is relevant.

8. Make sure it's easy to read

Nobody likes a showoff, especially when it comes to web content. Google loves it when you get straight to the point, and likes it even more when you write in clear, concise sentences.

Instead of writing out a long paragraph about your company on the “about” page, why not chop that content into short, snappy paragraphs with purpose? If you’re writing about a complicated process or service, consider bullet points to help readers take in the information. It really will make a world of difference.

9. Get some authority

If you’re looking to stand out, it might do you some good to align yourself with well-known brands within your field. Some businesses offer guest blog posts to company websites who are more internationally renowned than themselves in order to get some much-needed kudos. Others find it beneficial to link with their local Chambers of Commerce and other local networking groups, with reciprocal hyperlinked badges on their homepages to make sure the world knows they work as a team.

10. Revise/Remake

Scan through your old blog posts from more than 12 months ago. There’s some great stuff on there, isn’t there?

Look, nobody says that your relevant, fresh content has to be totally new every time. Even the best companies revise their content. It’s necessary, especially when you work in a sector or industry where things don’t really get shaken up very often.

You’ll find that some of your best blog posts, or some of the posts that had the most hits, can actually be separated out into two or three different new blog posts. Read through the content and see how you could update it, using new findings, statistics or projects you’ve worked on. Voila - great new posts that your customers will really find useful.

If you would love to give your website the SEO content overhaul it deserves but you just haven't got the resources or time to spend, why not contact me for a chat? Let's talk about how we can work together to get your website climbin' back up those all important search engine ranks.

Until next time...

Businesses: Need Some Help with SEO?

So, it's been some weeks since I first hit 'publish' on the brand new Lauren Holden Freelance website. But somehow, I'm only just getting round to writing and maintaining this here blog; you know how it is...

If you've stumbled upon my site and had a nosey around (thank you, by the way), you may have spotted a little publication called SEO For Content Writers & PR Pros (pictured below).

Basically, it's a publication (co-written by myself on behalf of marketing professional, Phil Byrne) which helps businesses and fellow writers get to grips with all things SEO.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), it's one of those things we all (whether knowingly, or not) take advantage of in our everyday copy, on blogs, websites and anywhere else our crop crops up online.

But do you really understand just how to get the most of it? I'm not sure I really did before I began researching this e-book, to be quite honest.

Here's just some of the things you'll learn from the book:

* Why content is important for the Internet

* How to uncover what people actually search for within your niche online

* The difference between short and long tail keywords

*  How to create an online press release

* How to turn keyword searches into content

* How to promote your content via social media and backlinking

So, here's a handy guide - available here. It'll cost you less than a pint. Or a good marker pen. Have a peek. Alternatively, get in touch with me - a Huddersfield copywriter - if you need a hand with a project or two.

Until next time...