Why Copywriting is the Most Important SEO Skill, and How I Proved It

There was a time when the role of the copywriter was to just write the websites main service pages, with the requisite keywords craftily sewn into the copy. It was the developers responsibility to apply their HTML wizardry to trick the search engines into pushing the website onto peoples screens. However, as Googles algorithms have evolved so have the responsibilities of the copywriter.

Google increasingly ranks sites based on who is providing the most relevant information and with the most high quality back-links. For achieving both of these aims good quality copywriting is key.

Your websites copy has never been a more significant, central pillar to your search marketing strategy. Copywriting is what will attract search engines, as well as consumers. Copywriting is the glue that holds your SEO playbook together.

Search marketing guru Lee Odden recently hosted a poll to assess what SEO skill was the most important. Lees readership is certain to include some of the most experienced and savvy search marketers around. His polls results should provide an accurate insight into the search industrys thinking.

Here are the results at the time of writing, but please check Lees original post for the latest figures. I dont think anybody will be surprised by the result, and judging by the comments section nobody was:

Copywriting (30%)
Keyword analysis (13%)
Marketing strategy (10%)
Web analytics (10%)
Online research and search (8%)
Traditional link building (8%)
Social media for SEO (5%)
Online PR for SEO (5%)
Account management (3%)
Creative and design (3%)
Coding (2%)
Sales process consulting (1%)
Media and link buying (1%)
Server side issues (0%)
Blog marketing (0%)
Blackhat skillz (0%)

Steven Bradley, another SEO specialist, offered his insight into the poll. He assessed that although no discipline on its own is the answer, copywriting is the central skill needed to drive most SEO tactics. As the industry moves increasingly towards link building and visitor retention, the importance of good copywriting is only set to continue.

Internet marketers have long advocated how copywriting is the most important element of your website. Only your words will truly engage with visitors and persuade them why they need your product or service. Internet marketing is now venturing into the realms of engagement, online PR and blogs; copywriting has never been a more crucial skill for getting attention and effectively marketing yourself online.

Lees SEO skill polls result couldnt be more appropriately timed judging by my own recent experience of search marketing.

In the last week there has been a slow trickle of visitors reaching my website for my key search term copywriter. It would appear that Google has seen it fit to push my website onto page 2 of their UK search results.

Reaching the higher echelons of UK copywriter websites is now within my grasp. If I can raise my game and post to the Crucible more often, I might be able to turn this trickle into a flood of targeted traffic, bursting into a torrent of phone calls when I have clawed my way onto page 1.

Googles decision to promote my business revolves around the copywriting (or technically speaking the content) that has gone into the Copywriters Crucible.

If I hadnt started blogging then my website would probably have remained treading water in the outer reaches of search results, a place that receives so few visitors and such little attention that it becomes a virtual graveyard of failed businesses.

Simply by posting once a week on subjects relevant to my business, and that I hoped would interest other people, I have been able to overtake my competitors near-static websites, sat complacently watching the world go by.

Copywriting and blogging has been the fuel that has kept my website vibrant and healthy. Writing regularly is what has given my website the wind to power my search marketing strategy, and hopefully eventually sail my way onto Google UKs front page.

The search term copywriter is the lighthouse by which people will find me. Now my website has nearly reached the shoreline of page 1s search results I will soon be able to dock and wait for business to arrive, rather than be stranded out at sea without even a paddle.

(Matt Ambrose is a freelance copywriter from the UK. You can find out more about Matt on his website http://thewritewords.me.uk or his blog 'The Copywriter's Crucible' http://thewritewords.me.uk/blog)

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