Posted by SEOScribe in If you are new to SEO copywriting, it quickly becomes quite clear that writing for SEO is far more complicated than it seems.
The SEO Copywriter’s Challenge
First, there are many variables that you have to consider before you even START writing – you must keep in mind the company’s overall brand and marketing strategy, their targeted keywords, the article subject matter and the audience you are trying to reach all at the same time.
Second, the article must be shaped around a topic that the target audience is likely to find interesting, whether your goal is to inform or entertain them. Because if the article isn’t doing one of those two things, nobody’s going to read it. Taking a montage of ideas gathered from various sources – your own personal experience, your daily newspaper, your client’s data – and packaging it together in a cohesive manner can be quite a challenge.
Third, like many areas of SEO, copywriting is a trial and error sort of thing. With the search engines periodically changing their algorithms and not really sharing what they are looking for when they review sites for their listings, the profession is a constant guessing game that could change at any time. And because SEO is a relatively new segment of marketing strategy, the industry itself is changing all of the time – tools and techniques that were hot just a few years ago aren’t working today. As an SEO copywriter, you have to stay fresh, keeping abreast of changes in the industry and you have to read, read, read and learn as much as you can about marketing, the search engine world and SEO.
Fourth, the competition is fierce – sort of. On the Web, the most skilled and trained SEO copywriter in the world (is there one?) is forced to compete with the mom & pop shop that has read a couple of articles about SEO and wants to give their website an SEO copywriting facelift. And then, there’s everything in between. So, you’ve got trained professionals competing with “writers” who don’t know the first thing about writing marketing copy, let alone SEO copy.
The Nose to the Grindstone Never Fails
While all of this may be true, just as with anything else in life, if the SEO copywriter is committed to absorbing as much information as possible about SEO and learning how to do the job well, they are bound to learn how to write SEO copy that will make the search engines happy and get results for the client.
However, if you are learning the process as I am, and there are times when these four factors seem so overwhelming that writer’s block is locking your brain, keep a few things in mind:
The writer’s biggest obstacle is the blank page. So write something – anything. When you go back to read it, if it’s absolute garbage, you can always delete it.
If you are truly copy constipated, read something – anything – that exists about the clients’ industry or that the client has already written.
The difference between good SEO copywriting and great SEO copywriting is originality. The easiest way to be original – let your true writing voice come through. And if you don’t know what your true writing voice is, the only way you’ll find it is through practice – and that means A LOT of writing.
To keep your writing fresh, do some writing outside of your SEO copywriting responsibilities. Creative writing on a subject that you find interesting is one of the quickest and easiest ways to crack writer’s block.
