Investing in high-quality SEO copywriting is one of the smartest decisions that you can make as a businessperson. After all, it’s an investment in the future and one that should continue to pay dividends over the months and years to come. It’ll help you to get found in search engines and it’ll help you to convert visitors into paying customers.

That’s why it’s a good idea to spend a little extra cash on a professional SEO copywriter instead of relying on people who speak English as a second language or using automated software. The best SEO copywriters follow all eight of these essential elements of SEO copywriting. Let’s take a look at what separates the good from the bad.

• Human Optimization

The number one mistake that people make when writing SEO copy is that they focus on search engines and forget that the whole point of SEO is to bring people to your website. If you optimize only for search engines, you can end up bringing plenty of visitors in but not getting any conversions. The key to great SEO copy is to write for humans first and to sprinkle in your keywords in a way that feels natural.

• Calls-to-action

Your calls-to-action tell people what action you expect them to take next. If you don’t specifically push people to “buy now” or “read more”, they’re far less likely to do it. Every one of your web pages should include at least one call-to-action, otherwise, there’s no point bringing people there in the first place.

• No spelling mistakes

According to one study, a single spelling mistake could cut online sales in half and cost millions in lost sales. John Cody of EssayOnTime explains, “Relying on spell checkers isn’t good enough. Professional writers will always give their work a thorough proofread before they share it and if you can get a second writer with a fresh pair of eyes to do it, even better.”

• A/B Tests

A/B tests – also known as split tests and multivariate tests – are all about scientifically changing one element at a time and seeing how it affects your metrics. When your website goes live, you should see it as just the first iteration. Carry out A/B tests on key elements such as your headlines and your calls-to-action to figure out what works best at creating conversions.

• Alt tags and meta descriptions

Alt tags for images and meta titles and descriptions for web pages are often overlooked when it comes to briefing SEO copywriters and then later added by SEO specialists who don’t necessarily have the skills needed to write good copy. Getting the alt tags and meta descriptions right will help you to be discovered by relevant searchers while simultaneously encouraging higher click-through rates from search engine results pages.

• Cross-linking

Cross-linking involves linking between different pages of your website and can be a great way to improve user journeys and to facilitate discovery. These links shouldn’t be added arbitrarily, though. Look for ways to naturally cross-link between different but similar pages in such a way that it adds value to website visitors.

• Write for your audience

Good writers know who their readers are and go out of their way to accommodate them. This might mean using the same colloquialisms and language as your readers, or it might mean altering your writing style to make it more or less formal based on who your audience is. The best SEO writers won’t write a single word until they know exactly who their audience is.

• Don’t neglect other factors

Even when you’re using well-written and highly optimized SEO copy, there are other factors that you need to consider. Google uses over 200 different factors to determine where pages rank in results pages, including everything from page loading times to whether your site is optimized for mobile. Get the SEO copyright, but get your technical approach to SEO right as well.

In brief about the Elements of SEO Copywriting

There’s a misconception amongst marketers that SEO is dry, uncreative industry, but nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, when it comes to SEO copywriting, it’s important to stay as creative as possible and to focus on honing your writing skills.

That’s because if you want to create engaged website visitors, you need to write engaging website copy. Engaged visitors means longer dwell times and higher conversion rates, factors which will also help you to rank higher on search engine results pages (SERPs). Like we said, investing in high-quality SEO copy is investing in the future. The only question is, are you ready to make that investment?