SEO Copywriting – Target Your Market, Target Your Keywords

One of the keys to successful SEO copywriting, and marketing in general, is to identify your market. We always hear this and it sounds like a bore and a chore, but targeting a market is actually kind of fun.

And you can have a few target markets. “Women Entrepreneurs,” for example, seems pretty broad to me. It turns out women can do quite a few different things, and there are a lot of them out there. But if you work with “Women Publishers” or “Women Filmmakers”, you’ll appear more specialized.

Segmented, focused targeting is more effective that scattershot attempts at reaching your audience.

So how does this apply to SEO copywriting?

Your first step in developing an SEO strategy is simply about researching your competition. That means networking, reading blogs and newsletters, and searching the internet…stuff you’re already doing.

The easiest way to search for information about your competitors is to enter typical keyphrases your market would search under. What would your ideal client type in to find your services?

Be careful here. Someone looking for a keynote speaker might start by typing in “Keynote speakers NYC” and they’d get a lot of useless stuff about how to hire a speaker, etc. But that’s where most of us stop with the keywords. And that’s a mistake. Because the next search your prospect will try is something like “keynote speakers on business leaders“. Much more specific, but still, a little too broad (just try entering that phrase into Google). So then an increasingly impatient prospect might type in “Keynote speakers on women business leaders NYC”. Now that’s much more focused, and will give you great information on your real competitors.

What are those websites saying? Is there something you really like or dislike? How can you apply what works to your own marketing and SEO writing?

In summary, think more deeply about your market and what your ideal prospects are looking for. Don’t stop at your first or second notion.  In your writing, incorporate keyphrases naturally, without artifice, and your writing will be much more compelling to the search engines.

If you’re interested in getting your website ranked higher, quickly, take a look at MainStreetROI’s SEO checklist. It’s free, comprehensive and it works.

SEO CHECKLIST