Follow these 7 tips from a digital copywriter and rank higher in search engines

Do you want advice from a team of expert digital copywriters? Then you’ve come to the right place!

If you’re new to the world of digital marketing, then wrapping your head around search engines can be tricky. As soon as you start to understand, the rules change, and you have to start from scratch. With so much to consider, how can you possibly get it right?

Well, don’t worry, you’re not in it alone. Our expert team of digital copywriters are here to break it down for you!

What are organic search results?

Organic search results are pages that appear in search engine results pages (SERPs) without the help of paid advertising.

Each search engine (like Google, Bing and Yahoo) has its own individual algorithm. This algorithm determines where a page is ranked in a SERP.

To rank higher in a SERP, you need to think about SEO.

What is SEO?

If you’re a digital copywriter yourself, you’ll already know a thing or two about SEO.

But if you’re new to the world of digital content marketing, one of our digital copywriters is here to explain.

SEO is short for ‘search engine optimisation’. It refers to the way search engines rank your content in their results pages. There are certain techniques you can use to increase your chances of featuring at the top of a SERP. It’s all about creating content that’s SEO-friendly.

When websites post SEO-friendly content, they’ll rank higher in the search results.

How do search engines rank our content?

Learn from a digital copywriter: how do search engines work?

There are three primary functions:

1. Crawling 

Crawling refers to how search engines find new content to include in their SERPs. Search engines send out ‘crawlers’ to scour the web for different websites, blogs, PDFs, images and videos.

Content is selected through keywords and links. Then, they follow the URLs in those websites, creating a path of linked content. 

2. Indexing 

After the crawling process, search engines store their findings in an index.

3. Ranking 

When someone makes a search, the search engine scours through their index to find relevant content. Search engines decide which content is best for answering the searcher’s queries. The higher a website is ranked, the more it is deemed relevant by search engines.

So now you know the ins and outs of search engine ranking. But how do you actually get your content to rank higher in a SERP?

Here at Vocal, we know a thing or two about SEO. That’s why one of our digital copywriters has put together this list of tricks to get your content noticed.

Follow our digital copywriter’s 7 tips and get ready for your ranking to climb!

1. Use keywords in your content

There’s a reason why our digital copywriter has placed this tip at number one. If you want to rank well in search engines, you absolutely have to use keywords.

Keywords are so important for SEO because search engines use them to find and rank your content. Remember the crawling process? When a search engine sends out crawlers, they’re looking for content that contains relevant keywords.

When a keyword is repeated throughout a piece of content, search engines assume that it’s relevant to that search term. So, when someone searches for a word or phrase, the search engine knows which content to show them.

Do you want search engines – and your audience – to view you as an expert in your field? Then you must remember to make use of keywords in your content.

Hint from our digital copywriter: include the keywords in the title and first line of your blogs for higher rankings!

But be careful not to fall into the trap of keyword stuffing. Keyword stuffing is when you overload your content with keywords, just to rank higher in SERPs. You might think it’s an easy way to include the keyword, but keyword stuffing won’t impress the search engine. In fact, you might be penalised as a result.

And don’t get so carried away with using keywords that you forget about the quality of your writing. After all, if you want to be a digital copywriter, the writing needs to come first. While using keywords is important for higher rankings, your content still needs to sound good. If it doesn’t sound good, then it doesn’t matter how high you rank. Your audience won’t stick around if your content is hard to read.

2. Make use of internal linking 

Our digital copywriter’s next tip for ranking higher in search engines is to make use of internal linking.

What do we mean by this? Well, when you write your copy, think about how you can link to other content on your website. Can you find any connections between your new blog and your existing ones?

Let’s look at an example:

Say you’re writing a blog about life as a digital copywriter. You look through your published content and find a blog about SEO. If you’re writing about life as a digital copywriter, chances are you’ll have mentioned SEO – how could you not? Look through your blog and when you find a reference to SEO, link to a relevant blog on your site!

You might be thinking, ‘but what difference does it make?’

Well, when a crawler (remember the crawling process?) finds a website, it scours the page for links. If you’ve included links to other pages on your website, the search engine will have access to these pages. And they’ll be stored in the search engine’s index, ready to be passed on to search engine users!

3. Link to other websites 

The next tip from our digital copywriter is to link to other websites.

You might be thinking, ‘but isn’t sending people to other websites bad for my business?’

We get why you would think that. Why would you want to send potential customers elsewhere? But when done properly, external linking is a great way to increase your search engine ranking.

Make sure you only link to relevant, trustworthy sources. The last thing you want is to send your audience to an unsafe website! And if you link to a completely random website, your audience will question your brand’s credibility.

Avoid linking to your competition. You don’t want to send your customers directly to your competitors and lose out on a sale. Or put money in someone else’s pocket!

4. Increase your page speed

If you’ve never considered your page speed before, don’t worry! Our digital copywriter is on hand to offer some advice.

It’s simple really. If the pages on your website take a long time to load, your audience won’t be happy. Some might be willing to wait, sure, but most will return to the SERP and find an alternative page. When this happens, your rankings will start to drop, and search engines might stop suggesting your website to users. Do you see the problem here?

So how can you stop this from happening?

To improve your page speed, you should remove any unnecessary content or pages from your site. You can also compress your images. The smaller a file size, the less likely it is to slow down your website.

Here are some more tips from a digital copywriter for increasing your page speed:

• Enable browser caching.
• Delete unnecessary plugins.
• Reduce your server response time.
• Limit the number of redirects.

Don’t worry if you start to feel overwhelmed! There are plenty of tools out there to help you fix your slow-moving website.

5. Think about your site’s URL structure

If you’re a digital copywriter and you want to rank higher in SERPs, you need to think about your URLs.

The structure of your site’s URLs can really make a difference to your SERP ranking. The search engine needs to know what your page is about. If your URL is clear and focused, the search engine is more likely to recommend your site.

How can you improve your website’s URL structure?

• You should use short URLs.
• Include the keywords in your URLs.
• Make your URLs look clean and focused by removing unnecessary and irrelevant words.

Our digital copywriter’s top tip! If your URLs aren’t clear enough for people, they aren’t clear enough for a search engine either.

6. Shorten your sentences 

When you’re a digital copywriter, it can be tempting to let your words flow across the page. After all, you want people to see your talent, right?

But when it comes to SEO, long sentences just won’t cut it.

Search engines prioritise content that is clear, accessible and easy to read. That’s because they want to provide their users with answers as quickly as possible. So, if your content is full of long-winded sentences, you won’t rank highly on a SERP.

You need to keep your sentences short and simple. Our digital copywriters recommend keeping sentences at 20 words or less. If you keep this in mind when you’re creating content, all of your sentences are sure to be SEO-friendly.

7. Be consistent with your content 

Do you want to make it as a digital copywriter? Then you need to be consistent with your content.

Simply creating SEO-friendly content isn’t enough. To see results from your copy, and to maintain your SERP ranking, you need to publish regular content.

Why is it so important for SEO?

If you’ve managed to build an audience through SEO best practices, you want to keep that audience, right?

But if you forget to post new content, your audience will soon grow bored of checking your site for updates. They might think that you don’t care enough to post, and quickly move on to another website.

Well, the same goes for search engines.

Search engines try and find answers to people’s questions. So, if you are inconsistent with your posting schedule, you won’t be deemed a trustworthy, authoritative source.

If you want to rank higher in SERPs, you need to publish content on your website on a regular basis.

Want to learn more from our digital copywriters?

If you found our SEO tips helpful, why not check out our site?

At Vocal, we’re a loud creative agency that’s crazy about content. If you want to increase your SERP ranking, get in touch with a member of the team. We’re experts in creating SEO-friendly content. So, sit back, relax and get ready to watch your rankings soar!

Looking for something else? Check out our range of services and see how we can help.

It’s about to get loud! Contact Vocal and watch your business grow.