7 SEO Copywriting Mistakes You Might Be Making

No matter how well your website is ranking in the search engines and no matter how much traffic you’re getting, if your copywriting isn’t great, you won’t get sales. Those rankings will be meaningless. And that traffic will be for nothing.

SEO copywriting is the glue that brings all your other online marketing efforts together. Without strong glue, everything unravels, and you get no results.

If you aren’t converting visitors into customers, it could be that you’re making one or more of these 7 SEO copywriting mistakes.

1. Targeting the wrong keywords—Just because you’re ranking well doesn’t necessarily mean you’re targeting the right keywords. You want to focus your SEO efforts on keywords that draw in searchers who are in the final stages of the buying cycle. Never guess about which keywords you should be targeting. Do your research. There are several great keyword research tools online you can take advantage of.
2. Stuffing keywords—I can’t believe I still see this mistake, but I do. Amateur SEO copywriters think that repeating the keyword as often as possible increases their chances of ranking well in the SERPs. Even if that was true (and it’s not), this method completely overlooks the fact that you need to actually convert visitors into customers. Keyword-stuffed copy doesn’t convert. Don’t just write for the search engines; write for your ideal customer as well.
3. Making word count a priority—One SEO myth that just won’t die is that there’s some magic word count you have to hit if you want Google to rank your page properly. Some people say that you need at least 250 words; others believe it’s 400 words. The truth? It doesn’t matter. Just search for any phrase, and look at the top results. The word counts are all over the place. Instead of focusing on hitting a certain word count, just focus on writing clear, concise copy, no matter what the length.
4. Not being focused on the consumer—One of my favorite copywriting tools is the We We Calculator. The purpose of this tool is to ensure your web copy is focused on the customer…not you. See, customers are selfish. They only care about how your products and services will benefit them. Your copy needs to use the word “you” as often as possible. Limit the use of “me”, “we”, “us”, etc. because no one really cares about you.
5. Writing copy that’s difficult to scan—Eyetracking studies show that online users tend to scan content rather than read it. They scan in an F-shaped pattern, trying to get the gist of your copy as quickly as possible. This means you need to write copy that’s easy to scan. How can you do this? Use short paragraphs, short sentences, bulleted lists, and bolded text to highlight important information throughout.
6. Having a weak call to action—How can you expect your website visitors to take action if you don’t tell them what action you want them to take? One thing I’ve noticed is that too many copywriters are afraid to sell. They’re constantly demeaning sales-y copy, and they’re always trying to tone down their copy. Look, I’m not saying your copy needs to read like a Billy Mays infomercial script, but let’s cut to the chase, you’re selling products and services. So, sell them! You need to have a clear, strong call to action that motivates visitors to take action now. Keep your call to action brief, and only ask visitors to take one action so you don’t overwhelm them.
7. Not being credible—One of the biggest challenges companies experience when selling online is that customers just don’t trust them. With every word you write, you should be working toward building your credibility. Use statistics whenever possible, and it’s always a good idea to include testimonials on your website.

Take a look at your website copy. Are you making any of these mistakes?

About the Guest Author:

Gagandeep Singh works for a conversion rate optimization company Invesp and blogs about landing page templates, conversion rate optimization, SEO and affiliate marketing.