Marrying Your Keyword Analysis with Website Content
Is SEO copywriting stunting your creativity? Copywriters passionate about communicating the story behind their products must do so within the limits of the keyword analysis for their sites. They find themselves playing an alternative version of mad-libs - crafting sentences around two provided keywords that will increase traffic to their site based on search engine queries and top rankings.
The following are some challenges and recommendations on copywriting with keywords:
Use Keywords as an Opener to Your Product Description
If you’re working on the general website copy to describe your product or service, you will find that keywords often describe a general product category such as “sleeping bags for backpacking.” How would you spin this keyword if you were hoping to promote the launch of your first sleeping bag for backpacking? It’s a minor grammatical detail, and the lack of flexibility can be frustrating - you can’t pluralize a singular word (or vice versa in this case) to fit your sentence structure.
Here, your keyword should open your sentence or paragraph. Use it as an opportunity to educate your consumer base about the product category in general and to give them shopping tips before introducing your own product. For instance, “Sleeping bags for backpacking ought to be...” If you can spare the “real estate” for copy on your site, incorporating this general information then juxtaposing it with your product offerings and differentiators will make your brand stand out as an industry expert and resource - one that values customer service as much as sales.
Working Around Character and Word Limits
If you are working with limited characters and words (as is the case with GoogleAds), you need to weigh whether including the keyword is worth the space. If the ad is centered around a promotion or sale, the copy should prioritize that action item first - such as “Enter Promotion Code...” or “Free Shipping with...” For each campaign, work with your marketing team to develop a hierarchy of priorities of most important to least.
Promotion
Keyword
Product Offerings
Product Function
Brand
This list will vary from company to company - for instance, if your brand is well known then brand name within the ad should be prioritized higher on the list. Creating this guideline as a team will allow you become more focused in your limited copy length - and provide you with a template to test various permutations and measure results in your ad campaigns.
The Big Picture: Keyword Analysis as an Indicator of Overall Product Strategy
Now, don’t completely change your product line because the keywords do not fit 100% with what you have to offer. However, if you begin noticing a pattern in the keywords that deviate from your current strategy - it’s probably worth investigating. For instance, if you currently offer a line of battery-powered flashlights and you notice that search queries are leaning towards an eco-friendly rechargeable light, the trend might present a new opportunity in your product development.
Rather than viewing keyword analysis as a limitation for writers, marketers should use it as a tool. Copywriters will have to become masters of succinct messaging and manipulators of sentence structure to weave keywords into organic and compelling copy. More importantly, begin with a solid sense of your company’s product strategy, communicate this to your copywriters so that the keywords alone do not take command of your message.