You’ve got a blog. It’s OK. Just OK. You’ve been writing a post every now and then, usually when there’s something to write about, like you’ve got a sale on, or you felt inspired to share something about the company you’re running.
But something’s changed: you got tired of seeing competitors in your space getting traffic, leads and money from your customers because they’re been publishing good content. You want to make a change. There’s just one problem: where do you start?
For one thing, there seems to be a subtle but distinct difference between SEO content writing and SEO copywriting. Huh? Like, words are words, right? Yes, but words are powerful. The key is knowing when to use which one. Sit down young padawan. I’m about to take you on a little journey…
SEO Content Writing vs SEO Copywriting: The Differences
Let’s tackle it sensibly: at the end of the day, these two different types of writing have very similar goals. They are there to move your customer closer to the end goal, hopefully to buy something from your website. The specific way that this is done is by writing SEO optimized content that Google likes and will therefore be more likely to put higher up in their SERPs.
SEO content writing takes a more educational approach. You’re using content to educate and gradually bring your customer around to seeing things from your point of view.
This works best when the topic you’re writing about is complex and people ask a lot of questions about it. It could be a “fuzzy” topic like relationships, or a more concrete topic like financial advice. People won’t just trust anyone on this.
They’ll trust someone who knows what they’re talking about, someone who will take the time to teach them what they know.
SEO copywriting on the other hand is for the other end of the spectrum. The topic at hand isn’t as complex. It is what it is. The key here isn’t that you just have to say that “it’s beer” and people will rush into your website and buy it by the carton. You still have to persuade people as to why yours is what they want. But they don’t want to read an essay about it.
In both cases, prospects read your words. In both cases, it’s about getting them to take action. It’s the manner of content that makes the difference.
SEO Content Writing Examples
Call me lazy, but you don’t have to go very far to see examples of SEO content writing. This blog and all the posts in it I specifically write with an SEO content strategy in mind. I’m not simply writing content for the sake of ranking in Google, my goal is to be useful and to teach and educate people on a topic I know a bit about.
Other websites that do well in this area are ones like Hubspot, which writes a lot about CRMs and how to manage companies better using their software, or any of the wide variety of travel websites that show people how itineraries for beautiful destinations around the world, Lonely Planet being one of them.
SEO Copywriting Examples
For SEO Copywriting, look for more tangible, “hard” products. You’ll see a lot of good SEO copywriting in e-commerce. There are hundreds, maybe thousands of pages for each individual product. Each one of them can have some search volume and there’s opportunity for sales to be made if the webmaster can rank for certain keywords.
The bigwigs come to mind, Amazon.com and eBay.com. Granted, they may not do much of the SEO copywriting themselves, it’s up to the individual vendors to optimize their copy to attract people even within the marketplaces they operate in, so it’s like a nested SEO within a wider SEO. They aim to rank highly in their marketplaces, but also get a slice of Google’s SERPs pie.
Does this make sense, what the differences are? If there’s anything you’re not sure about, let me know and I can go into it in more detail. But hopefully you know what might work better for you and your website now.