Copywriting and SEO go hand in hand. Here are my tips for introducing SEO services to help you grow your business.
You’ve been copywriting for a few years and know the benefits of SEO. You’re thinking of offering SEO as an extra service for your clients, but the thought of working alongside an expensive SEO agency isn’t appealing.
And although you know a fair bit about SEO, you don’t have the time or the effort to do the service yourself.
I’ve had a few clients in the same position- they’d like to offer their clients an extra service for additional value and to earn more revenue and grow their business.
Fortunately, there are options that let you introduce SEO as a service without it being a financial burden on your business.
Here are some ways to incorporate SEO services into your copywriting or content writing business.
Tips for introducing SEO services in your business
It’s not for everyone
Not all of your clients will require SEO.
During your discovery call or client briefing, you’ll get to know your client and their business and will know whether an SEO strategy is a good idea or not.
SEO is only one marketing tool!
What will give your clients the best results?
Ok so I’m a bit biased here as I’ve worked with copywriters for almost 5 years, I love writing too and I started this business as a blogger.
But I know from first-hand experience that a good starting point for SEO is on-page SEO.
While technical, on-page and off-page SEO are all vital, on-page SEO is what usually works best for clients. You’re already writing great copy and content for them, so it makes sense to start with optimising content for SEO.
Offering an optimisation service means that you’re not starting with the full SEO gamut. You’re starting with something that complements your existing business.
And how could I not mention- to save you time and stress you can outsource keyword research to me. You don’t need to worry about dealing with the data and complexity of picking a primary keyword to target for each page or post. I do it all for you!
To help you keep track of all the on-page SEO elements, I’ve created a free On-page SEO Checklist and an Optimisation Planner Spreadsheet. Click below to sign up to my email list and download your freebies.
Work with a web developer
You have your on-page SEO sorted, but what about everything else?
Technical SEO can be intimidating, and there are technical things that I don’t even bother doing myself because I don’t have the time and expertise to do it.
That’s why I recommend using a trusted web developer who has SEO experience. They can look after things such as setting up your client’s schema markup and making sure the website doesn’t have any technical errors or speed issues.
Build a great business relationship with a web developer and they may refer copywriting clients to you.
Use your existing client base and network
You’re familiar with building backlinks to a website and how this helps boost your client’s authority in the eyes of Google. But how can you offer this as a service for your clients?
Use your existing client base and network to help you with off-page SEO.Do you work with clients whose businesses complement each other? Do you write for a particular niche industry such as health and wellness or the legal industry?
Use this to your advantage and see if you can create a collaboration between two of your clients. See if a client is interested in writing a guest post (or paying you to do it) for another client who will link back to their website.
Is there existing relevant content that your clients can link to and from?
If you’re an Australian business, Janet from Front Page Web Writing has created a Facebook group for Australian businesses to help each other with their off-page SEO. To join the group, please click here.
Use PR strategies to get your clients featured in the media– whether that’s published on a media site, a guest on a podcast or a guest speaking event a local business event. Often the media outlet will promote your client’s business and link to their website and social media accounts.
One final word
Offering SEO as an additional service doesn’t have to be complicated and expensive.
Start with what you know and are comfortable with, preferably on-page SEO as it ties in perfectly with your copywriting services, and then expand from there.
Try not to take on all of the SEO tasks yourself- you’ll need to, at some point, engage the services of another business to free up more time so you can focus on what you do best: writing for your clients!
If you need help with learning SEO, I run a free 5-day “SEO Sleuth Challenge” where I teach people the basics of SEO in an easy to understand, supportive way.
I also offer keyword research services for copywriters, as well as SEO audits and competitors analysis services.
Latest posts by Nat Alleblas (see all)
- 42 Helpful Content Ideas For Service Businesses - August 19, 2022
- 7 time-saving Excel tips for keyword research - August 18, 2022
- Should you outsource SEO or do it yourself? - August 7, 2022
No Responses Yet