23 Amazing 5-Minute SEO Copywriting Tips to Boost Site Traffic

Are you looking for fast, five-minute SEO copywriting fixes?

Here’s a list of 23 amazing SEO writing tips that can boost site traffic, increase conversions and help you gain great Google positions. Best of all, trying a tip will take five minutes or less. Enjoy!

Change a Title

Is a page positioning well, but people ignore it on the search engine results page? It may be time for a Title makeover. Try keeping the same keyphrase focus, but tweak your Title so it reads more like a headline. Compelling Titles see great click-through rates, so experiment with what works.

Change a meta description

So many people ignore the meta description because it’s not important for positioning. Don’t be one of them! A great meta description paired with a killer Title is like a one-two marketing punch on the SERP. Why not tweak a boring description to something that screams “click me” from the search engine results page?

Check one page’s analytics

Some people immediately overwhelm when they log into Google Analytics. If you’re one of them (or if checking analytics keeps falling to the bottom of your to-do list,) try this SEO copywriting tip. Check the analytics for just one page (preferably one that’s important to your conversion flow.) Is the bounce rate too high? Should you change the Title? Make notes of what you’d change.

Brainstorm blog post ideas

The more post ideas you have in your back pocket, the better — especially for those days when you don’t know what to write. Take five minutes and brainstorm as many blog post ideas as you can. You may come up with 17 really bad ideas and three good ones. That’s OK.

Optimize an old post

Many companies started blogging long before they worried about optimizing their posts for SEO. If that’s the case for your site (or your client’s site,) spend five minutes optimizing an old post. It’s amazing how just a few optimization tweaks can make a huge difference in positioning.

Check out BuzzSumo for article ideas

I. Love. BuzzSumo. It’s a great way to discover new article ideas and see what’s getting shared. Plus, it’s a great way to see who linked to and shared a particular post. If you love geeky content data presented in a non-geeky way, you’ll love BuzzSumo.

Email an influencer

Most people contact influencers only when they want something. Instead, try writing a non-pushy note like, “Hey, I really liked your latest post/book/podcast. Thanks for taking the time to create it.” This tip won’t drive immediate site traffic, but it could be the start of a great friendship — and perhaps a site mention down the line. If nothing else, sending a nice note will make your favorite influencer’s day.

Experiment with blog post headlines

Have you wondered if your headline was all that — or just so-so? CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer helps you write headlines that drive traffic, shares and search results. Simply type in your headline, and the analyzer scores it on wordiness, sentiment analysis and how easy it is to skim your headline. Easy.

Experiment with social post headlines

Are you cross-posting the same copy to Facebook and Twitter? That may not be the best move. BuzzSumo recently released a study outlining the most popular headline trigrams (three-word phrases) for Facebook and Twitter. Hint: What pulls on Facebook doesn’t work as well on Twitter. Check out the study — the data may surprise you!

Pick a post for repurposing

Did you pen a popular post? Don’t let it hide in your “archives” section. Instead, consider ways you can repurpose your post as a SlideShare PPT, tweets and more. Plus, you can increase your site visits if you link back to your original post.

Post to (or join) a new LinkedIn group

LinkedIn is fantastic (and often underutilized) for B2B marketers. If you’ve lurked in a LinkedIn group for awhile, post a question, a blog post or comment on another’s post. If LinkedIn has been off your marketing radar for awhile, log in and find a group related to your field. Sure, LinkedIn is often a long-play content marketing strategy. Yet, many people (including me) report receiving leads — and sales — attributed to LinkedIn alone.

Do some competitive sleuthing

You never want to copy your competitor’s keyphrase or content strategy. At the same time, competitive information is always nice — and may give you some ideas about how to move forward. A quick competitive analysis in SEMRush will provide lots of data you can deep-dive into later.

Follow a new thought leader

It’s easy to build an “influencer bubble” and forget to expose yourself to new experts. New, smart people are entering the industry all the time — and there may be some “old guard” folks you haven’t heard about. Pick one new person to follow on your social network of choice. You may pick up a bunch of great (and new) information!

Make a list of outstanding content tasks

What’s the biggest SEO content challenge? There’s so much to do and track. Instead of letting those to-do’s float around your head, spend five minutes and make (or update) your list. As an added benefit, you may not wake up at 3 a.m. freaking out about your content tasks any longer.

Add structured data markup to a web page

Don’t be afraid of structured data! Google makes marking up a page easy with it’s Structured Data Markup Helper. All you need to do is follow Google’s (easy) instructions — and Google will automatically generate the schema.org markup for the page.

Check for duplicate content

Many sites that have been “locally SEO’ed” have duplicate location-specific content pages. If this sounds like your site (or your client’s site,) count the number of duplicate pages and put rewriting them as a “to do” on your outstanding content task list. You’ll want to rewrite those pages as soon as possible.

Tweak an image alt tag

Is image SEO important to your site? Choose a page and see how you can make your good image alt tags even better. Remember a great image alt describes an image in a non-spammy way — so check for keyphrase stuffing and make any necessary corrections. (Thanks, Brandon John Smithwick)

Writing local content? Try this tip.

When’s the last time you logged into Google’s Search Console? Search Console is a treasure-trove of SEO content marketing data. You can check out click-through rates, positions, see your most linked content and more! You can glean a lot of information in just five minutes.

Read a trade publication post

Keeping up with industry news — whether it be SEO, your professional vertical or your client’s industry — is incredibly important. It’s also overwhelming. If you struggle with finding the time to keep up, try to read at least one article a day. Work up to as much time as you can comfortably carve out of your schedule. Chances are, you’ll learn at least one actionable traffic-driving tip you can use on your site (or a client’s site.)

Comment on the post

Granted, there is no SEO benefit here, but this tip could drive traffic. First, bloggers love (sane, well thought out, intelligent) comments. But more importantly, commenting can help you build a relationship with the blogger and other readers. Maybe not right away (because that would be weird.) But over time, people will get to know your perspective — and possibly contact you for more information.

Find question-oriented search terms

People type (and speak) questions into Google all the time. A great way to figure out what people are asking is by using the research tool KeywordTool.io. Yes, you’ll see more data if you sign up for the paid subscription. But, you’ll still see a lot of tasty information if you try their “questions” tab for free.

What other 5-minute SEO copywriting tips would you add to the list? Post your comment below!

Photo thanks: Davooda | Dreamstime.com