
SEO website copywriting involves crafting content that engages your audience and provides clear signals to the search engine algorithm that helps your site to rank highly in results pages.
That’s the basics of it. SEO copywriting is a challenge as you must ensure the site is accessible, engaging and original while containing relevant keywords you want to rank for.
Leading SEO website copywriting agencies like 42group can help you to manage this process. An expert UK SEO copywriter can find the balance between capturing clicks through keywords and keeping your audience captivated.
How do we do it? We’re going to break the process down into 4 stages:
- Concepts
- Writing
- Editing
- Optimising
(We tried to find four things that ended with ‘ing’ but ‘conceptualising’ sounded too pretentious.)
In this article on SEO website copywriting, we’re going to explain the methodology we use. It’s not magic, but it does work – and is working – for businesses, brands and organisations in all sectors.
Let’s get to work…
What is SEO website copywriting?
You want your website to rank in search engines? Of course you do – but it’s not always easy. Your website needs to provide Google with all the signs, signals and information it needs to recognise, index and rank your website.
For Google to rank your site it needs to understand what your business does, your specific niche, ideal customer segment, geographic area and speciality. The content on the key pages of your website (homepage, landing pages, core service pages, etc.) are strong signals for Google. They’re not the only ones, you’ll also need to build backlinks, regularly publish high quality content and deliver a fast, responsive and rewarding user experience.
This is a vital part of the process that helps you to focus on the core service you offer, your customer group and keywords.
We can use the example of an SEO copywriting agency website homepage to explain.
- Brand name: 42group
- Audience: Existing and new clients, SEO agencies, digital marketing experts
- Proposition: 42group is one of the UK’s leading SEO website copywriting agencies
- Core service: SEO copywriting, SEO content, SEO blog writing, SEO website copywriting
- Customer segments: Healthcare, science, tech, charities
- Keywords: SEO copywriting, SEO content, SEO content agency, SEO copywriting agency, SEO copywriter
- What do you want them to do? Learn more about what 42group does, get validation we’re a real business, learn why we’re a trusted SEO copywriting partner.
- Where do you want them to go? Click on service pages, access case studies, click on a block or contact us
This is a good exercise to start your own SEO copywriting processes. You can see how we’re using this process to help us focus.
It may seem excessive, but you should do this process for every page. Before you begin writing, you should have a clear idea of the purpose, audience Every page on your site that you want to rank should have a clearly defined audience, simple proposition, handful of keywords and defined actions.
We know that some of this is part of the UX process, but in many cases (especially in small-scale or low-budget SEO projects) you won’t have a dedicated UX resource. It’s also a useful skill to have in your SEO copywriting toolkit.
There’s so much more we could say in this section, but there’s no need to at the moment. Let’s get on with the first stage in the process: SEO website copywriting concepts.
Step #1: SEO website copywriting concepts
In the early days of the internet, people built simple websites and chose basic domain names like www.SEOwebsitecopywriting.co.uk. (You can actually buy this domain for the monster sum of £0.01 should you wish.)

Today, we’re much more esoteric. We’re all about brand building, aren’t we? (What does 42group mean?)
Creating website copywriting concepts is all about chucking ideas on a page. Let’s take a homepage (the 42group one, for example). We’ll break it down in stages:

The first thing you see is a full-page animation. This is about brand building. We’re showcasing what we do with the cool geometric shapes, retro-futuristic Tron vibe that we paid lots of money for. You’ll see a strapline that captures what we do. (This isn’t a H1, but a H2 – which is important). This page is about building expectation, learning about the brand and our core offer: building human connections.
Scroll down and you’ll see a brand proposition and, even further down, our H1. You can also see examples of our work and further down the page link to amazing blogs like this one you’re reading now.

How did we do such amazing work? When we created the content for this page, we went through literally 60 or more iterations to find the words that would work.
Like many website projects, we created the page design and structure first. (This is diametrically opposed to the ‘content first’ web-design approach that we don’t subscribe to.) This provides the boundaries, barriers and constraints in which we were able to get creative.
We didn’t want to impact the strong brand aesthetic to try and shoehorn in extra keywords, key phrases or additional content that so many SEO agencies attempt to do. We’re confident in the strength of our brand, our content, customer interest, sector speciality and ability to build backlinks. We don’t need our content to say too much.
So, what are the lessons here for creating concepts? Here’s our approach:
- Understand the purpose of the page: People click on the 42group site because they know who we are and what they do. It’s a motivated search, so they’re going to rapidly by build an image of the brand, seek validation that we’re offering the services they want and create a connction. That’s the purpose of the homepage. Dig deeper (into the service pages, case studies or blogs and the detail increases). The purpose of the page is clear and the proposition is simple.
- Create content that captures attention: Every agency pretty much syas the same the same thing (we’re great at creating content). So you have to find an angle to stand out. For us, in a world where AI and tech is taking over, we focus on building human connections. Bingo. That’s our strapline.
- Simply the UX for better SEO: Being too creative can obscure meaning confused your audience and algorithm. The site is, by design, simple, clear and super-duper fast. We know our audience wants answers immediately and we provide them.
- Build up your story: You can think about website content as a dialogue. The strapline builds interest, but the reader wants to clarify they’re in the right place. The H1 tells them what we do and who we do it for. The services break it down, enabling the reader to self-select and click through. The case studies provide validation and answer the biggest question every new client has: can I trust them to deliver? The information is structured and presented in a logical and conversational way. Try it, it works.
These techniques can help you to develop several unique concepts that you’ll need to test with your internal stakeholders, SEO experts and (if you’ve got the time and money) external audiences.
When working on SEO copywriting projects, we’ll typically do an A/B or even A/B/C concept approach, providing several copy routes with different tones, structures and styles (conversational v corporate, for example) to give the customer a chance to see the difference and to choose where they feel most comfortable.
During stage #1, we’ll agree on a TOV for the web pages with the client. For large projects, we’ll codify this in a set of guidelines. For smaller ones, we’ll use the pages as templates and then apply the same style across the whole site. It’s time to get writing…
Step #2: Website SEO copywriting
Every page should have a purpose and every page needs a plan. This is fundamental to successful SEO website copywriting. For each SEO copywriting project we create a content tracker that enables us to manage the process. Everything is visible, accessible and clear.
Here’s one we created for a recent SEO content project:
Under the ‘Resources’ link, you’ll find a brief for each page containing all the details above (see the What is SEO copywriting? section).
As well as this basic information, we’ll also have details on the internal links required, CTAs, contact forms and any other information that’s essential to the page’s UX and the whole website SEO. In some cases, the SEO stuff (like page title and meta) will be completed for us, in other cases, we’ll do it.
Alongside this, we’ll have several page template designs that we can access. We’ll use these to create sample page layouts. These layouts (usually created in a format-free platform like Google Docs) provide the basis for us to start the creative work.
At this stage, we’ve got everything we need to get started, so we do…
We’re not going to provide a description of the writing process. What you’ll notice is that we do a huge amount of pre-planning before we start SEO copywriting. This is vital to ensure the content created is agreed at your audience, will work within the design constraints you have and contains all the essential elements to deliver a great user-experience while delivering clarity for search engines about the purpose of every page.
Step #3: Editing website SEO content
The SEO copywriting process should be done in an agile way, with section sprints. At the end of each section, you can review with your client, get feedback and refine your content.
The editorial process should be collaborative, with open documents enabling an exchange of comments, views and opinions. Of course, not all of these will be valid or relevant, but you should always capture and acknowledge them.
We edit SEO content in batches. This enables us to make changes to all pages if someone identifies an issue in grammar (Oxford comma, being a good example), product name or specific style point (like capitalising job titles).
The editorial process for us is split into two phases. The internal edit, where another SEO writer in the team reviews all work and the external editorial process, which is done in partnership with the client. Each stage is as important as the other and can’t be condensed or skipped.
The editorial stage is about ensuring there are no errors. (We’ll get on to optimisation in a second…)
During the editorial process, you (or the client or digital marketing agency) may choose to build the pages. It’s also about seeing how your copy and content sits on the page. Sometimes, what works on a white sheet of (digital) paper doesn’t work online. It could be too long, or too short. Words can hang over lines, or it simply doesn’t scan well.
Sometimes the editorial process can take almost as long as the writing process, particularly if you have multiple stakeholders. However long it takes, don’t get frustrated or be tempted to take shortcuts.
Step #4: Optimising content for SEO
Isn’t the editorial process also about SEO optimisation? Yes, but the editorial process is a one off; the optimsiation process doesn’t stop.
There are two stages to this:
- Pre-launch optimisation
- Post-launch optimisation
Prelaunch SEO content optimisation is about reviewing all aspects of your content through an SEO lens. This process will involve an SEO expert who will, in partnership with a writer, assess all aspects of a page/section/website, including:
- Title
- Tags
- H1
- H2s (and the rest)
- Keyword placement
- Keyword variation
- Page structure
- Length
- Content quality
- UX
- Page speed
- Responsive display
- Analytics & tracking
…and more.
Part of this is to check that all the essential elements are there. In some cases, your SEO lead may suggest changes and improvements.
It’s important to balance the needs of readers against the importance of incorporating keywords. What’s right? Only you can decide.
SEO doesn’t stop. In fact, things are changing faster than ever before, with updates to the Google algorithm impacting SERPs. We work with our clients for the long-term, offering an ongoing SEO content review and optimisation service.
We’ll use analytics information to see where your page is ranking, understand how users are finding your pages/site, what they do when they get there. WE can also use tracking software that captures site visits, enabling us to understand user behaviour. Together, the analytical data and real-world user examples enable us to identify key areas where we can improve your site, either through technical SEO improvements, UX updates or content optimisation.
SEO website optimisation is an ongoing process that never really ends. You’ll need a partner that you can trust to work with you to deliver the impact you want. Who?
42group: Your SEO website copywriting partner
Yes, if you’re looking for an SEO website copywriter, 42group is the perfect partner. We’ve got almost to decades of experience crafting content for businesses like yours. Get in touch today.