The balance of SEO copy with quality content is difficult to find and often misunderstood.  How much copy should be in your content? How much content in your copy? How much should keywords play into what you post? The broad answers to these questions blend together into “it depends on the project and your team(s).” Luckily, we don’t have to leave it there. Here’s how good SEO copywriting can improve organic traffic and conversions.

Navigating Vs. Steering

Imagine a car with a driver and a passenger. The passenger has a map or, more likely, directions on their phone. For them to get where they need to go, the driver needs to trust the passenger’s navigation, and the passenger needs to trust the driver’s steering. SEO should function as navigation and content should be the driver.

If your company has separate SEO and content departments it is important to get them on the same page. They are working for the same goal, and they’ll go further together. It is key to remember that both departments have specific jobs that they excel at, and forcing those in SEO to try and design content or those in content to analyze SEO will only result in failure and confusion. The car will crash if the passenger tries to steer or if the driver tries to read. 

The Role of SEO

As previously stated, SEO should function as a GPS. Let the data show where to go, and don’t stop at your company’s data. Research your competitors, see what’s working for them and either beat them at their own game or focus on areas where they’re weaker. If your competitor is producing a lot of high-traffic content in the form of video blogs but is lacking in written articles: it’s time to get your content department to start writing.  

The Role of Content

Content writing is focused more on producing well-written, enjoyable, and/or useful pieces, as opposed to copywriting, which is aimed at increasing traffic and conversions. The two exist on a spectrum, in that copy needs to be well written in order to have conversions, and content needs traffic in order to be read. A good content department/writer can strike a balance between the two and should be familiar with the basics of SEO. This doesn’t mean they won’t benefit from guidance from the SEO professionals. 

Where They Blend

Keywords and formatting. Before content writers cringe, this doesn’t mean content should be dictated by how many keywords can be stuffed into an article. This leads to clunky writing and ultimately lowers organic traffic. Keywords should be used as a prompt. SEO research can provide content writers with topics consumers are interested in, as well as what formats perform best for that topic. From there the writer can get to work. Ideally, other keywords will naturally fit into the content. 

Good SEO copywriting exists in the gray area between data analysis and content. It cannot exist without collaboration between SEO researchers and content writers, and it cannot succeed without hard work on both sides. 

Just in time to kick off AdWeek in New York City, YouTube has launched Video Reach campaigns; an ad management system designed to improve the advertiser experience on the video-sharing platform. 

The new Video Reach campaigns will allow advertisers to upload three sets of ads under one campaign, as opposed to in the past when advertisers were forced to create separate campaigns for each type of ad. The ads, or asset types, are six-second bumper ads, skippable in-stream ads, and non-skippable in-stream ads.  Once the advertiser uploads their assets and begins the campaign, Google will analyze which ads perform better and will optimize the campaign for maximum viewership.

This built-in analysis and access to consolidated asset-types will allow advertisers to run more comprehensive campaigns for a reduced price. 

Early users are already seeing strong results, according to Google’s announcement. Says Google “[Ford] lowered their campaign cost over 20 percent compared to their previous YouTube benchmarks.” 

The Video Reach campaigns promise to save time and money for advertisers as much of the learning from trial and error of advertising is replaced by Google’s machine learning. The built-in analysis paired with automatic efficiency optimization will ease the role of finding the best combination of assets away from advertisers. 

The full benefits and drawbacks of YouTube’s new feature is yet to be fully known but has the potential to improve video advertising experiences for companies everywhere.

Google’s Knowledge Panels and Featured Snippets have led to an increase in what is known as “no-click” search results: consumers will search something, then find an answer without having to click a single link. This benefits the searcher and Google but impedes click-through rates for those producing content. While this is worrying for those in SEO, it doesn’t look like Knowledge Panels or Featured Snippets are going away anytime soon.

A survey conducted by Path Interactive, which covered multiple countries and age ranges from 13->70, found that Knowledge Panels and Featured Snippets are growing in popularity among younger users.  When asked what they do when faced with a featured snippet, 40% of responders between the ages of 13 and 18 said that they considered their search done. Less than 15% of those over the age of 70 answered similarly. Of the almost 2,500 responders, 36.8% said that they considered their questions answered when given a Knowledge Panel. 

 

These numbers are scary for those whose jobs rely on click-through rates, but they provide an interesting opportunity for those who work in SEO: designing content that Google likes enough to be featured. Those featured in Knowledge Panels or Featured Snippets get an almost doubled click-through rate than those not featured. 

The type of content appearing in the Snippets also influences click-through rates. Searches with simple answers tend to have lower click-through rates. 30.6% of consumers concluded their searches on features such as weather forecasts when given a Snippet, while only 13.6% of consumers said they consistently relied on features regarding job searches, local events, or more complicated results. 

 

Google is adapting to better respond to user experience, often at the expense of those desperately trying to increase organic traffic. According to the survey, 93% of respondents said that Google had maintained or improved its user experience over the years. If improved user experience goes hand in hand with increasing challenges on SEO, I don’t think we can expect Google to ease up on those in SEO.

Breadcrumbs have been helping users navigate websites for well over a decade now, and as technology has gotten better, managing the breadcrumbs have gotten easier. A recent announcement by Google has revealed that website managers will now have access to structured data reports of their breadcrumbs and will receive a notification in the case of malfunctions. This will allow website managers to more efficiently identify and fix issues, decreasing any impact they might have on user experiences. 

Google announced the new feature through a tweet with this photo attached

 

With all the competing website-building companies and their desire to make SEO more accessible, building breadcrumbs has never been easier. Hierarchy-, history-, and attribute-based breadcrumbs have made website navigation easier for consumers and are controlled by the website administrators. Well designed breadcrumbs even make it to Google search results, making it easier for consumers to navigate the site before they even click through. 

 

Google’s announcement has made the use of breadcrumbs even more essential for SEO than before.  The increased access to technology means that those who ignore it will be left in the dust.

The most recent in Google’s long list of core updates, September 24th saw the rollout of a new, content-oriented update. Google has ensured webmasters in their announcement that no specific pages have been targeted and that “there’s nothing wrong with pages that may perform less well in a core update.” Self-assessment is advised for webmasters of pages that may see lower rankings, as is a visit to Google’s advice on how to build a high-quality website.

If yours is a website that has suddenly dropped in the rankings, or even if you might want to see your website get higher rankings, Google has provided some updated advice for how to achieve that. This includes:

• Ensuring your site has original content
• Providing comprehensive coverage of the topic 
• Providing an in-depth analysis of the topic
• Making sure you do not just copy and paste from your sources, and that you cite sufficiently
• Your headlines and title pages should relate to the content, not exaggerate it
• If you were just stumbling onto your website, would you trust its information based on its sources, author, and website’s “About” page?
• Making sure all your facts are true and verifiable
• Making sure there are no grammar or spelling mistakes
• Ensuring the web design is pleasing 
• Avoiding mass-produced content
• Developing the webpage with mobile in mind
• Comparing the content to other content that might appear in the same search

 

Keeping up with Google’s core updates can be a challenge, but producing good and original content is a safe way to stay high up in the rankings. For a comprehensive guide on how Google rates quality content, feel free to examine their Search Quality Rating General Guidelines. For a less comprehensive guide (Google’s is 167 pages), check out some of our content-focus pieces here and here, or contact our team and we can talk about how to optimize your webpage.

Google announced Monday an improvement to website reports geared towards fast-paced webmasters. The update, same-day website data, is a response to the “user’s #1 feature request,” according to Google. 

The update will affect performance reports, allowing webmasters to view general statistics on their sites less than a day old. This means that weekend visitor statistics will be available Monday morning as opposed to Wednesday, as it was previously. Webmasters can even view same day statistics; especially useful for holidays or high-traffic days.

Access to these early numbers will help webmasters with website maintenance, international site audience numbers, and early analytics. To keep up with the more recent numbers, Google has also updated its time zone settings, making them clearly visible when choosing a statistical date range. This will help websites with international audiences more efficiently report their local as well as regional findings.

While the same-day website data will help to improve immediate performance reviews, Google stated in its announcement that the fresh data is not yet supported by The Search Analytics API or the Discover performance report. It should also be noted that data points will change and update before being finalized a few days after first being reported. 

These new changes will allow webmasters to update their websites and follow traffic more efficiently throughout the week, making quick fixes and analyses more effective than before. 

A week after Google updated its review rich results algorithm, as covered and followed by Barry Schwartz of Search Engine Land, review rich results have plateaued around 33 to 36 percent, depending on which analytics tool you use. 

 

 

Mozcast’ SERP Feature Graph showed the largest drop between Monday, September 16th, the day the update was initiated, and Tuesday, September 17th, with a 3 point drop from 39.2 percent to 35.8 percent. From there, it dropped a further 2 points and has stayed steady between 33.2 percent and 33.5 percent. 

 

 

RankRanger’s SERP Insights showed similar results: a sudden drop and a trend towards a plateau. RankRanger varied from Moz by showing the largest drop occurring between September 17th and September 18th, with a difference of 3.8 points. While the days since September 18th have remained between 36.95 percent and 35.34 percent, September 23rd appears to be the start of an upward trend. The 23rd is the first day with a higher percentage of reviews than the previous day since September 15th, before the update.  

This update was made to improve consumer trust in reviews and address the “misleading interpretations webmasters have flagged to [Google],” as stated by Google. This meant removing self-serving reviews, largely posted by the entity under review and posted to their own page. It also meant limiting schema types that trigger review rich results, reducing the number of reviews seen for things consumers may not need reviews for. For more information on why the update was implemented and how to make sure your website doesn’t lose its review rich results, visit Google’s original announcement here.

How do users find your blog posts online? Unless they subscribe to your newsletter or follow you on social media, the answer is likely that they find your content through search engine queries.

Knowing this, it is extremely valuable to develop your content based on what users are searching for.

In a previous article, it was said that to optimize your blog posts for search you should be utilizing keywords. But what are keywords, how do you identify them, and how should they be used within your content?

What are keywords?

According to Moz, “keywords are the words someone types (or speaks!) into a search engine.” There are many factors that determine which result a search engine will serve for a user query, but one major indicator of content relevance is the words that are being used.

Here is an example search query and result:

All of the search terms being used can be found in the title, description, and body of the blog post. This indicates to search engines that the information is relevant to the searcher. In order to have a high performing, traffic and lead driving blog, you must write content that users are searching for.

So, what can you do with this information? Well, you could guess which words your potential audience is using, or you can identify the right keywords like a real SEO pro.

How do you identify keywords?

What is a digital marketer without her tools? When identifying which keywords you should use, it’s helpful to use a keyword planner, such as Moz’s Keyword Explorer.

This tool can help you with your content development with two main features:

1. Explore by Keyword – Type in a word or phrase and get back related keywords.
2. Explore by Site – Type in a webpage or site and get back keywords that it ranks for.

After the list of words is generated, you will need to decide which keywords make the most sense for your content strategy. The two components you should focus on are search volume and difficulty score: The search volume tells you how many people are searching for that keyword each month and the difficulty score will tell you the strength of the pages that are currently ranking for that keyword.

To determine if a keyword presents a good ranking opportunity you must consider both search volume and difficulty.

For example, just because the search volume for a term is low does not mean that you shouldn’t pursue it. If a keyword has a low search volume, but also low difficulty score, you may have a good chance of ranking for that term. If a term has low search volume and a high difficulty score, that may not be a keyword that you should pursue using.

How should keywords be used in your content?

Once you identify the words that your potential clients are searching for, the next step is to implement them into your content.

Topic

One way we suggest brainstorming ideas for blog posts is to consider what questions your clients have asked you in the past. One way to supplement that exercise is by using Serpstat Questions. Once you have identified the keywords you would like to use, you can enter them in the Serpstat and generate popular questions that use that word.

Title & Description

Make sure that you are optimizing the title and description with the keywords that you have identified.

Do Not Keyword Stuff

I repeat, do not keyword stuff. Search engines are not dumb. There was a time in which you could list a bunch of keywords on your page and you might end up ranking. That day has passed.

Today, you must produce quality content that uses keywords organically, not in an unnecessary and contrived manner. Instead of hunting for all of the sentences in which you can cram in your keywords, simply aim to answer the question, the word usage will come naturally (I couldn’t stop using the words “keyword” and “how” in this post if I tried).

Blog Smarter, Not Harder

Many attorneys are of the belief that having an active blog is the key to online success. Most of us have heard the phrase “content is king,” and many of us have bought into it.

While content is important, there is no point pushing out blog posts that no one will read. If you’re currently blogging once a week, but you’re not seeing any results, try cutting it back to once or twice a month, but do your research first. Follow the steps outlined in this article, and keep at it.

You have valuable knowledge, you just have to figure out which pieces of it potential clients are actually searching for.