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How much time does SEO copywriting take before your rankings improve?

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How much time does SEO copywriting take to improve search engine rankings

How much time does SEO copywriting take to improve search engine rankings

I was going through a Reddit thread about whether a person should invest in SEO if he is spending good money on advertising on Facebook and other social media networks.

People also talk about how much time it takes for search engine rankings to improve.

SEO copywriting is the backbone of search engine optimization.

SEO copywriting is the backbone of search engine rankings

SEO copywriting is the backbone of search engine rankings

Search engine optimization does not exist without optimized content because if there is no content, if there is no copy, what do you optimize?

Three main components of SEO – as I understand the field – are:

  • Writing and publishing optimized content.
  • Optimizing source code so that search engine crawlers can crawl and index content without hurdles.
  • Getting backlinks from authority websites, preferably with higher page rank.
  • Interlinking existing content.
  • Increasing the time people spend on the website.

Recently Google rolled out its “Helpful Content” algorithm update that penalizes websites that solely publish content meant to improve search engine rankings, without providing any value to human readers.

This is a good step on Google’s part because what is the purpose of publishing even optimized content if your content is not solve any purpose.

Therefore, SEO copywriting can help you only if it really helps your readers.

What is SEO copywriting?

The meaning of SEO copywriting

The meaning of SEO copywriting

I’m surprised that after all these years people still ask this question.

SEO copywriting in itself is nothing.

Every useful piece of copywriting is search engine optimized automatically.

As Google has suggested in its new algorithm guidelines, always write and publish human-friendly, human-first content.

And anyway, unless you are a high-authority website with hundreds of backlinks and a domain that is very old, even if you publish top-class content, it is difficult to get higher search engine rankings in just a couple of months.

So, if you hire me for my SEO copywriting services and then you expect that your rankings should improve within two months, you are daydreaming.

Even if I give you an example of my own website, although I’m writing this blog post on “SEO copywriting” there is a slim chance it will rank well because high authority websites such as Hubspot, Search Engine Journal, Backlinko, and Neil Patel (among many more) have already ranked well on the first and the second page.

Then why am I writing on this topic if I don’t hope to rank well for “SEO copywriting”?

It improves my content depth – and this is a reason why you should publish SEO content.

To gradually improve your content depth because as your content depth increases, so do your search engine rankings.

Now coming back to the question of “What is SEO copywriting?”

The simple explanation is that it is the art of writing informative content following the best SEO practices.

These practices include:

Crafting a headline that truly represents the body content.

Using the language used by the target audience.

Using short sentences to make it easier for humans to read and for search engine algorithms to process.

Strategically using keywords and search terms within the content so that they are an integral part of your narrative.

Satisfying the search intent – with what intent people are searching for your information?

How is SEO copywriting different from SEO content writing?

Difference between SEO copywriting and content writing

Difference between SEO copywriting and content writing

Content writing is mostly for blogs and other pieces of content that is meant to inform and educate.

You follow the same conventions when writing SEO content but a big difference is that in copywriting, you convince and convert people.

In copywriting, there is a CTA.

Content writing is used for blogging, case studies and other information articles.

Copywriting is used for the main website content, email marketing campaigns, landing pages and social media advertisements.

Hence, SEO copywriting means writing search engine friendly copy with the intention of making people perform the action represented by your CTA.

How long does SEO copywriting take before your search engine rankings improve?

Your search engine rankings don’t just depend on optimized content although, your content is the base of your entire SEO strategy.

SEO experts say that there are more than 200 factors that affect your search engine rankings, and your content or copy is just one of them.

Still, from the perspective of a content writer who has attained decent rankings for a few websites merely on the strength of SEO content, how long does it take?

I’m talking from the perspective of SEO copywriting and content writing.

I have experienced this with a couple of my own websites.

If you publish content – good SEO content – everyday, and preferably multiple times in a day, you can improve your rankings in 3-4 months.

It depends on the topics you choose.

It also depends on how well you can use your keywords and how competitive those keywords are.

You need to focus on longtail keywords because main and primary keywords are already covered by other websites.

For example, if I want to rank well for search terms like “content writing services” or “SEO copywriting services”, at least right now it is near to impossible.

Therefore, I try to focus on less competitive search terms.

For example, I rank well for “content writer for accounting businesses” or “content writer for coaching websites”.

In fact, even if you search for “SEO copywriter for accounting business” you will be able to find my website in top position.

Again, coming back to how much time it takes.

If you are aiming for rare keywords that very few people use, your website can start ranking well even within a couple of weeks if you manually submit your links to Google after publishing them.

But with fair amount of competition, give yourself 3-6 months.

3-6 months when you publish content everyday on your chosen keywords.

You will need to exercise patience.

Can you improve your rankings just on the strength of SEO copywriting without getting backlinks.

I have never actively sought backlinks.

My website has backlinks but that’s because many people have linked to my blog posts on their own.

Over the past 10 years, my website has accumulated some good backlinks.

Somewhere around in 2010 I actively wrote guest blog posts for some high traffic websites and from there I got a few backlinks.

After that, I never tried, and I solely focused on publishing content on my own website.

I use a mix of SEO copywriting and content writing to keep my content search engine friendly.

My rankings are not stellar but they are good enough to give me a steady flow of work.

I don’t remember how much time my content writing website took to create a search engine presence, but I have worked on two other websites.

For both of them, I was able to start getting search engine traffic within three months.

But I published lots of content, sometimes more than 5-6 posts per day, with 4 being minimum.

Those were highly focused blog posts and back in those days (5-10 years ago) Google was not very strict.

Since most of my blog posts linked to external content, they were just 300-400 words.

Despite that, I could get them rank on the first page.

Realistically, what suggestion would I give to someone starting from scratch?

How long does SEO copywriting take before the rankings improve?

Keep a budget for 4 months if you publish one web page or one blog post every day.

If you publish twice every day then 2-3 months.

It goes without saying that how well your SEO copywriting performs depends on the degree of competition you face, but then, whenever you are starting from scratch, it is always better to focus on less competitive search terms.

Google “Helpful Content”: what about SEO content writing?

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SEO content writing after Google helpful content update

SEO content writing after Google helpful content update

Once Google’s new “Helpful Content” algorithm update kicks in, will you be focusing on SEO content writing?

Sure, you want your content to be helpful to your audience.

You want to keep your visitors engaged.

You want to inform them so that they can decide in favor of your product or service.

But many businesses work with content writers for SEO purposes.

There are many writers who provide SEO content writing services, including yours truly.

Many businesses and entrepreneurs hire me because they want me to write SEO content.

Google says merely writing for SEO is bad.

You should write human-first content.

Precisely this is the reason Google has named its latest algorithm as “Helpful Content” because it will be penalising websites that publish low quality content simply to improve search engine rankings.

On the other hand, it will be rewarding websites that publish quality content that really helps the readers.

What type of SEO content writing services do I provide?

Update or no update, my focus is always the reader.

I do write my content in such a manner that its easier for search engine crawlers to crawl it, analyze it, and then index it appropriately.

For example, I use the main keyword in the title because I know that for search engines titles are important.

I use the keywords in the first 100 words because again, keywords don’t just represent an SEO opportunity, they also represent the query people are using to find your content.

It means, using the language that people use when they talk about your product, service, or business.

Using your keywords is still important but use them as words that truly represent your central idea.

For example, for this blog post, I’m using the expression “SEO content writing”, but it doesn’t mean if I want to optimize my blog post for this expression, I use it repeatedly.

I make it appear naturally.

It appears where it should, otherwise it doesn’t.

Is SEO content writing still relevant after the “Helpful Content” update?

Don’t be afraid of writing SEO content after Google’s new update rolls out.

Writing content to improve your SEO doesn’t mean you cannot focus on your human readers.

Keep them your priority.

Write content for people.

Make it easier to scan.

Let your meta title, main headline, and subheadings, truly represent the central points of your web page, article, or the blog post.

Don’t try to cram everything in a single piece of content.

Write on focused topics.

For example, if you want to write a blog post on search intent, you should also write smaller blog posts for different types of search intents.

It is important to write compelling headlines to write effective content.

You can write a blog post just on how to write compelling headlines.

This way you will be able to increase the subject depth of your website or blog.

On Google people search for precise topics.

They ask specific questions.

Provide answers to those specific questions and don’t dillydally just to write bigger blog posts or web pages.

Even if you have been using some SEO tools to make your content search engine friendly, don’t worry, as long as it provides the information people are looking for.

 

How important are keywords when writing content?

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Are keywords important for content writing

Are keywords important for content writing

Keywords are needed for SEO content writing.

Although there are many SEO experts who have begun to say that keywords no longer matter because Google these days focuses on natural language processing rather than keywords, if you search on Google, you will observe that keywords still matter.

I will give you a small example: suppose you are looking for “SEO content writing” and the keyword does not exist on my website.

Will you be able to find my website?

Suppose I’m constantly writing web pages and blog posts on “SEO writer”, “SEO writing”, or “writing for SEO” – will you still find my website for “SEO content writing”?

You may or you may not.

It depends on how well I have been able to optimize my website and what is the nature of rankings my content enjoys on Google.

If lots of people link to my website, my blog, and individual blog posts and on those websites, they have repeatedly used the keyword “SEO content writing”, then, maybe, Google may infer that my website is about “SEO content writing”, otherwise, it is all guesswork.

On the other hand, if I have multiple blog posts and web pages talking about the topic of “SEO content writing” then there is a great chance that one of these days, you will be able to find my website for this particular search query.

Therefore, you shouldn’t ignore the keywords when writing content.

Keywords have significance other than SEO

Whenever my clients send me content writing specifications, they also send me a list of keywords.

They may want me to optimize a single blog post for 5-10 keywords, or they may want me to focus on just a single, longtail phrase.

I prefer focusing on longtail phrases.

They are easier to optimize.

They don’t dilute your optimization process.

Whenever my clients ask me to optimize a particular piece of content for 5-10 keywords, I refuse to do so.

This is because then I need to write lots of unnecessary content to cover all the keywords unless the blog post or the web page is actually comprehensive enough to be able to accommodate all 5-10 keywords.

Even when the client doesn’t mention SEO, I advise to compile a list of keywords.

Keywords are not just needed for SEO – they also give you an idea of the language people use when they are using Google.

People use conversational language when they’re searching for information.

Again coming back to my own example, I may end up spending lots of time optimizing for “SEO content writing”, whereas, clients might be searching for “need an SEO content writer” or “looking for SEO content writer”.

Maybe only those people look for “SEO content writing” who want to learn about writing SEO content.

Therefore, the language that you are using when writing content may be completely different from the language used by your target customers and clients.

For better conversion rate you must write in the language used by your visitors.

Hence, keywords are needed for two purposes:

  1. Help you write optimized content so that you can organically improve your search engine rankings.
  2. Help you get a sense of the language people use when talking about your business so that you can write your content in the same language.
  3. Help you get content writing ideas – you need to create lots of topics to write on based on the keywords you want to optimize your website or blog for.

How to find the right keywords before writing content?

When writing content, keyword research can either be done by the client, or the content writer writing the content (it depends on whether the client is ready to pay for the time or not).

There are free as well as paid methods to find the right keywords.

There are three elements you must pay attention to when finding the right keywords before writing your content:

Relevance of the keywords

How relevant the keywords you’re planning to use are?

Here I would quickly like to add that when researching for keywords, focus on probable topics of search rather than keywords like “SEO content writing”.

For example, should you optimize for “looking for SEO content writer” or “what are the benefits of hiring an SEO content writer?”

This is where search intent comes into picture.

The intent of the first search query “looking for SEO content writer” is transactional because the person submitting the query wants to hire an SEO content writer.

The intent of the second search query “what are the benefits of hiring an SEO content writer” is that the person may be thinking of hiring an SEO content writer but he or she needs more convincing.

This is commercial intent.

You may like to read Why search intent is most important when writing content for your website

Authority of the keywords

It is the depth of expertise your keywords or topic represents.

You build topical authority by writing lots of content on your chosen topic.

For example, if I have multiple web pages and blog posts talking about “SEO content writing” and if the content is relevant and many people link to it, Google will think that it is an authority keyword for my website.

Keyword authority is more about choosing a key phrase or a longtail keyword and then building authoritative content around it.

Keyword search volume

For this you may need to use a keyword tool like Google Keyword Planner.

The Google Keyword planner is less for SEO and more for bidding on Google AdWords advertisements, but if you enter your keywords, it gives you such volume.

Search volume tells you whether the keyword you want to use is popular or not.

You may rank on the first spot for your chosen keyword but if people are not searching for it, there is no use of it.

You must choose keywords for which there are a decent number of search queries being done.

Also, highly competitive keywords may be difficult to optimize.

Hence, you should use keywords that are relevant to your business, but they are not extremely highly competitive (thousands of people searching for them per day.

In conclusion, finding the right keywords are important for your content writing process both in terms of improving search engine rankings as well as helping you write in the language your target audience uses.

SEO content writing: Should you write content for robots or humans?

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SEO content writing – should you write content for robots or humans

SEO content writing – should you write content for robots or humans

This is an age-old question, and it has been asked and answered umpteen times.

It is quite tempting to target search engine robots when writing content because after all we all want to improve search engine rankings. Not just improve, but possibly, get our legs at the first spot.

A FirstPageSage analysis has found that links that rank at the top on Google have an average CTR of 39.6%. Compared to this, the CTR of a link at the fifth position drops to 5.1%.

Therefore, it is tempting that writing for robots takes precedence over writing for humans. The problem is, it can be a pyrrhic victory if all the traffic that you generate does not lead to proportional business.

Whom to write for when you write content for SEO?

This Moz blog post tries to answer that. Although we all know that ultimately it’s the humans find your content on search engines, click the link, and come to your website or blog, to do whatever you want them to do, how to strike a balance?

Is there even a need to strike a balance? Shouldn’t good content automatically rank well on Google?

There are two worlds regarding this: an ideal world and an actual world.

In the ideal world, and even Google sometimes claims that this ideal world exists, you should simply focus on quality and your rankings are taken care of on their own.

It is like the concept of Dharma: you do your deed, and the outcome comes on its own.

But in the real-world things can be quite chaotic. Roughly 70 million new posts are published just on WordPress. Hundreds of billions of web pages are competing on Google to get at the top spot. Therefore, you cannot take the search engine robots for granted no matter how much you simply want to write for your human visitors. You need to strike a balance.

How do you do that?

SEO content writing: how to balance between robots and humans?

I’m writing about my own experience with search engines and humans. When I’m writing SEO content for my clients my first priority are the humans. I believe you write content so that it generates business for you. If it doesn’t generate business for you, no matter how much traffic you get, it is of no use.

On the flipside, no matter how good and relevant your content is if you don’t get targeted search engine traffic, all the effort of writing quality content goes waste.

Here are a few things I follow:

Use the primary search term in the title

This often proves effective. The primary search term must be an expression your visitors are most likely to use when looking for information regarding your topic.

For example, the focus of this blog post would be “Should I write SEO content for robots or humans?” or something like that.

Distribute the primary and secondary keywords throughout the text

But don’t force them. Keep them contextual. These are for search engines as well as human readers.

When you are making a list of primary and secondary keywords make sure your list contains all the words your target audience is likely to use. Be mindful that the way you talk about your business might be totally different from the way people talk about your business.

Use your keywords within the first 100 words.

The reason for this is that the Google crawlers may not crawl your entire web page or blog post. They may leave midway. This way, they will gather all the necessary keywords from the first or the second paragraph.

Use your keywords in headings and subheadings

Just as humans may skim your web page or blog post without reading the fine print, Google crawlers may do the same.

Both robots and humans skim your content by quickly going through headings and subheadings. If you use your target keywords in your headings and subheadings Google crawlers can make out what message you are trying to convey and they will also know what keywords you are using.

Write compelling titles and descriptions

These are meta tag descriptors, and they appear in search results when your link is ranked and displayed. The meta title appears with a hyperlink in the description appears below.

These are your marketing messages. Usually the main headline of your blog post or web page is the same as your meta title but they can also be different. Through your title you are targeting the search engine users.

Even if your link begins to appear in search results, if the title is not inspiring enough, people are not going to click. Use your copywriting skills.

Remember that if your CTR is low the rankings for the same link begin to deteriorate and if your CTR is good, the rankings improve.

Just as your title, your description is important too. Your description gives you further chance to convince search engine users to visit your link and read what you have written.

Use simple language

Writing is a beautiful, expressive medium. As a writer I wouldn’t advise you to curb your writing skills, but remember that people are reading your blog post or web page because they are looking for information and not for great literary work.

Use simple words and expressions. Express just a single idea in a single sentence. Don’t have paragraphs more than two sentences.

You can use a Flesch score analyzer in the beginning if you are not used to writing SEO friendly content. It scores your text between 0 to 100. The higher your score, the easier reading your content is. It can give you statistics such as ease of readability, average sentence length, and average number of syllables per word. According to various scores

  • A score between 90-100 is easier to read for a fifth grader.
  • A score between 60-70 can be easily understood by eighth and ninth graders.
  • Score between 0-30 is easily understood by college students.

Structure your content using the proper HTML tags

Appropriate HTML tags contribute a lot towards your higher search engine rankings.

<h1> is used for the main headline. It should be used just once on a web page or blog post. If you repeat it for every headline, it dilutes its effectiveness.

When you divide your text under various headlines the individual headline can be highlighted using the <h2> tag. They should preferably contain your keywords.

<h3> can be used for smaller subheadings that may come under the bigger headings of <h2> level.

In between you can also have bullet points as the Google algorithm thinks they usually contain useful information.

Be mindful of the length

Longer blog posts and web pages are known to perform better than the smaller ones but the rule is not written in stone.

Even a 300-word blog post can rank well depending on the reputation your domain enjoys and your brand presence on the web.

Nonetheless, write at least 1000 words. This is what I suggest to my clients. Even when I’m writing for my own blog I aim for 1000 words.

I have published more than a thousand posts and I have a decent presence on Google, so sometimes, I can also get away with small blog posts of 300-400 words.

My personal experience is, it is a mixture of frequency, relevancy, and eventually, the number of words you use, that decide your search engine visibility. The more high-quality content you publish (at least one post every day) the faster your content gets indexed by Google.

If you follow these guidelines, you pretty much automatically write for search engine robots as well as humans.

10 SEO copywriting tips to use whenever you publish a blog post

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10 SEO Copywriting Tips

10 SEO Copywriting Tips

A big reason why you publish blog posts every day is that you want to improve your search engine rankings. During the past 15 years since I have been providing professional content writing services, I have come across only 3-4 clients who wanted to publish blog posts for the purpose of broadcasting their messages. Otherwise, the primary purpose is always improving SEO. I’m not saying there is anything wrong in that.

SEO copywriting is an integral part of writing for the purpose of improving your search engine rankings. Copywriting doesn’t always mean writing for ads or promotional literature. You maintain a business blog because you want to increase your sales. You want to convince your ideas compellingly so that your readers believe you and then do business with you. Whenever your writing involves convincing people, it is more copywriting and less content writing.

SEO copywriting and SEO content writing are often interchanged but the sole difference is that when you use copywriting when writing, you also promote your business.

SEMRush published an infographic listing 10 SEO copywriting tips to follow whenever you write a blog post or web page. Here is the infographic:

SEMRush infographic on SEO copywriting

SEMRush infographic on SEO copywriting

As the name suggests, SEO copywriting is meant to improve your search engine rankings. Therefore, you need to take certain steps, you need to follow some procedures, to make sure that you are optimizing your copy for better search engine rankings. Here are a few things you can do

1. Find the right keywords

There are rumors that Google no longer needs keywords and you can use contextual language to convey to Google what keywords to optimize your content for. But the keywords still matter. You can use various online tools to find the keywords people are using to find your business. You can even use as simple a tool as Google. When you search for something on Google, Google also suggests other search terms. The search terms are being used by people.

2. Find out which questions people are

Questions and their answers are ranked better by Google. Questions are generally a treasure trove of keywords because they use exactly the language people use when they are searching for your business.

Therefore, there is a greater chance of ranking a web page with a question “How to find the best content writing services” higher than a web page having a simple title as “We provide the best content writing services”.

3. Keep search intent in mind

Figuring out search intent further helps you refine your keywords and reorient your language. What is the reason people are trying to find your particular web pages or blog posts? Are you satisfying that intent? Are they able to find what they’re looking for? The more emphatically yes the answer is, the better will be your search engine rankings.

4. What are your competitors writing?

If your competitors are enjoying better search engine rankings than you, they must be doing something right with their content. What type of content are they publishing? What keywords and search terms are they targeting? The infographic suggests research at least 10 competitors before you start writing content for your own website or blog.

5. Gather original data

Original data helps you write authoritative content. You draw your own conclusions. You make up your own mind. You display concrete results to your prospective customers and clients. You can conduct polls and surveys on your website for original content. You can also write case studies and white papers.

6. Optimize headlines and meta information

Headlines hook your audience. Your headline tells your readers what awaits them and why they should read your piece of content. In SEO copywriting writing headlines is one of the most important aspects of writing content. Meta tag information is the web page title and the description. This information appears in search results and have a great impact on your CTR.

7. When SEO copywriting, write easy-to-read text

Write smaller sentences. Write smaller paragraphs. Express a single idea in a single sentence. Don’t use complicated words. Remember that many people might be reading your web page or blog post on their mobile phone and on mobile screens it is difficult to read longer sentences.

8. Include relevant images

Images complement your copywriting. Images are not an integral part of copywriting because copywriting involves writing words, but when you are writing for the web you need to use images that keep your readers hooked. Images also present a welcome distraction.

9. Use appropriate CTA

Call-to-action is very important in SEO copywriting. You may not tell your readers directly to do this or do that, there must always be a hidden intention. What must your readers do after reading your web page or blog post? Should they subscribe to your newsletter? Should they download your e-book or white paper? People’s response to your call-to-action is an important KPI of your SEO copywriting.

10. Link to other blog posts and web pages from your current piece of writing

Interlinking solves multiple purposes. It makes it easier for search engine crawlers to crawl important parts of your website or blog. It also helps your readers find relevant information on your website or blog. It prevents you from writing duplicate content because if there are some concepts you have already written about, better link to them rather than writing about them repeatedly.

SEO copywriting is important at multiple levels. It allows you to write engaging content that prompts people to take an action while they are on your website or blog. It provides relevant information and at the same time encourages people to reach out to you for doing business. The SEO part is, writing your content in such a manner that it is interesting to read for humans and at the same time easier for search engine crawlers to crawl, index, make sense, and then rank for the appropriate keywords.