X

SEO copywriting: How to dominate search results in your area

Leading SEO copywriting agency 42group explains why the death of SEO copywriting is overstated. SEO content still provides a cost-effective strategy to create a lasting and sustainable advantage – but only If you use it intelligently. How? Let’s show you…

Whatever you do, you want your customers to know you’re the best, right? SEO copywriting is a key tactic in a comprehensive digital marketing strategy to provide visibility for your business among your core customers.

It’s not going to be easy to dominate your niche, especially if you operate in a highly competitive area. But you don’t need this to be successful. Instead, it’s about identifying high-value opportunities and targeting them with high-quality content that delivers value.

Who is this article for?

If you’re already creating SEO content at-scale and according to an agreed and well-defined strategy, this isn’t for you. This blog post is targeted at start-ups, SMEs and organisations setting out on their content journey.

If you’re looking for more in-depth SEO copywriting and content tips and insights, check out our blog page.

Is SEO copywriting dead?

The death of SEO has been overplayed as the rise of generative AI (those platforms that use LLMs to generate content, basically) isn’t getting the results expected. Why? Because search engine algorithms are becoming more sophisticated and specialised – analysing content for quality, consistency and authority. (This is commonly called EEAT, but it’s more than that.)

If you’re starting out in SEO copywriting today, you may think you’re at a disadvantage. But you’re not. Your website isn’t encumbered by hundreds or thousands of pages of poorly written content that can confuse search engines.

You’ve got an empty blog that’s ready to be filled with high-quality content that’s targeted, clear and focused on your keywords and core audience.

So, no. SEO isn’t dead – but the tactics and tools you’ve used in the past might be.

SEO keyword research: What do customers want?

SEO keyword research is as simple as logging into keyword planner or asking ChatGPT, right?

If this is your approach, you’re making the first mistake.

These keyword search tools provide the basics to work from. It’s a great start, but the most successful keyword strategies incorporate more sophisticated ways to generate insights, including:

  • Social listening: Social media conversations are a fantastic way to learn about the pain points, problems and priorities of customers. Learn from those in your niche. Don’t limit your social listening to your sector, you can learn about wider consumer trends to identify insights. You can use tools like Brandwatch or Hootsuite to monitor social media conversations.
  • Focus groups: This isn’t cheap, but focus groups are an amazing way to get beyond the superficial and get into the details.
  • Structured interviews: Interviews are like focus groups on that they’re qualitative but are much more intense – and that’s a good thing. Interviews with product owners, sales teams, SEO suppliers, and (if possible) with customers can all contain SEO nuggets. You can also use these interviews as the basis for content pieces, too.
  • Reviewing reviews: Reviews can tell you a lot about what people don’t like about your product or service. Often negative reviews are caused by misunderstandings – insights you can use to create content.
  • Competitor analysis: Look at what your competitors are doing and do it better. Competitor analysis involves more than copying content ideas, it’s about identifying gaps and exploring (and exploiting) opportunities. Tools like Ahrefs or SEMrush help you identify what competitors are doing well and where their gaps lie.
  • Exemplar content: Find the best pieces of content (not necessarily the highest ranking) and analyse them to understand why they’re so successful. This is a great exercise for writers, content creators and SEO experts as it enables us to spot what’s wrong with our existing content and, most importantly, how to put it right.
  • Future mapping: So much keyword research looks to the past, using existing high-ranking content as the basis for recommendations. But past performance is no indicator of future success. (Just look at HubSpot.) Spend time with customer teams, insider, experts, sales teams and more to look at future trends, identifying untapped opportunities where you can get in there first with content.

This is a long list and it’s expensive, right? Aside from the interviews and focus groups you can do all this at home with a few hours of desk research.

SEO isn’t a single process, it’s an ongoing process of refinement. If you can only do some Keyword planner research or ChatGPT prompting, then go with it. When you start to see results you can invest more in the process and build a better – and more effective – SEO strategy.

Build a content strategy for customers

A single piece of content won’t have any impact. Sorry, we said it.

What you need is a targeted and focused plan of content that’s going to build relevance around your core search terms.

We’re not going to rewrite a piece we’ve already done. Here’s our guide to creating an SEO content strategy.

An SEO content strategy will provide you with a single source of truth for technical teams, SEO content writers, number crunchers (who can set and analyse content some KPIs) and leaders.

Your SEO content strategy should be more than a list of content titles, it should contain:

  • Audience personas
  • Targeted keywords
  • Content plan for each core audience
  • KPIs
  • Content briefs
  • Content calendar
  • Technical SEO guidance
  • Internal linking guidance

Again, this seems like a huge – and costly – piece of work. But it doesn’t need to be. You can sketch out a quick content plan and work in an agile fashion, building your content strategy while generating content. It’s not the best way, sure, but it’s a practical approach for businesses that want to see results.

Fighting for high-value SEO keywords

Want to rank on page #1 for SEO copywriting? Or SEO content? Or SEO blogging? These are, in our industry at least, some of the highest value – and highest competition – keywords. You’re competing with HubSpot (remember them?), Neil Patel and a whole range of companies and bloggers with decades of history and huge budgets.

The lesson is that ranking for high-value keyword is super-tough. That doesn’t mean you can’t achieve amazing things with great content, but

Should we fight for high value keywords? Yes, but if you’re a start-up don’t make this the core of your strategy first-up.

Instead, we recommend start-ups and those beginning on an SEO content journey focus on two areas:

  1. Niche search terms
  2. Local SEO

What are they and what do they mean? Let’s take a look.

Unlocking value with niche search terms

Let’s take our SEO copywriting example.

We can take the headline key search term and see that competition is massive. But most of the people (including you, perhaps) are searching for information on how you can create SEO content or manage SEO copywriting projects.

If we want to tap into the commercial search queries, we need to start thinking about what people are searching for:

  • SEO copywriting agency
  • Freelance SEO copywriter
  • Best SEO copywriter

These are great, but there is also serious competition for these. Should we target them? Yes, but we need to look more broadly to pick up some of the other search terms out there.

If we consider those in the purchasing journey (digital marketers, web developers and other SEO writers who may be struggling with volume), let’s look at how we can use educational content to add value to their lives.

We can look at

  • How to write SEO content
  • Creating an SEO copywriting strategy
  • What is SEO blogging?
  • How much does an SEO blog cost?

These are all ultra-targeted at driving clicks and conversions. Let’s add a few keywords that demonstrate authority to search engines:

  • SEO copywriting trends for 2025
  • Can AI replace SEO copywriters?
  • Is SEO copywriting worth it in 2025?

This is a completely made-up SEO keyword strategy that has no basis in evidence, but even so, you can see how we need to move beyond the high-value keyword terms to identify value for your audience.

As you get more into the niche, it should become easier to rank. The logic is:

Lower search volume = lower competition

The purpose of your keyword analysis is to identity these opportunities. You can see from this how the more advanced and in-depth the keyword search approach you take, the greater the likelihood you’ll find new, low-competition areas for content creation.

Local SEO: The secret to success

Ranking for high-value search terms is hard – especially if you’re trying to compete in a globally competitive niche.

Take our SEO copywriting keyword. Let’s discard those information providers, software companies and free guides because they’re not our competition.

Drilling down into the commercials here, we can see there’s a huge – and motivated – audience locally.

Local SEO is, for many service businesses, the best way to pick up search traffic. We can see large search volume for:

  • SEO copywriting agency (area)
  • SEO copywriting agency near me
  • Best SEO copywriting agency in (area)

You can carry this on until you exhaust yourself and your fingers.

In the past, agencies would recommend creating specific service pages linked from your homepage for this. That can work, but it can confuse navigation – another ranking factor. It also looks messy and a bit 2008. So, we recommend using your blog as the way to connect with local search results (and local searchers).

Here’s a useful guide on how GPs can use local SEO. It’s written for healthcare organisations, but the principles can be applied to any business.

How to dominate search results in your area

Time, strategy, investment in great content and a little luck. These are the core

Despite what agencies will tell you (or promise you) there’s no shortcut to SEO success. It takes time to established yourself, get your pages to rank and send the right signals to Google that you’re publishing high-quality, audience first content with value.

Strategy is basically what this guide is all about. You can’t assume you have the answers of insights without doing your research. The more time you spend understanding your customers, the more successful your content will be. Don’t be afraid to get really specific if your customers want that type of content.

Good quality content costs money. If you’re not prepared to pay for it (or write it yourself) you won’t get results. AI simply can’t create content with value for your readers. And nor can cut-price content mills or foreign writers who you pay peanuts too. This isn’t us being critical of either, they have their place, but long-term, sustainable content results come with an investment.

Luck, too, plays a part. Algorithms, like humans, can be quirky. Sometimes a beautifully written, expertly researched and totally targeted blog post won’t rank. But a short, snappy and dashed off post will. Why? Who knows.

There’s no cheap and easy way to dominate local search. Instead, it’s about doing the right things consistently.

When all is said and done, concentrate on creating high-quality content which provides value to readers, and you’ll succeed. Even if you don’t get the highest rankings, you’ll be creating content that improves the internet for everyone.

Connect with an expert SEO copywriter

Contact 42group


Want to connect with your customers?

Get in touch!