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I’ll be honest, when my colleague sent me an email saying that the coschedule title analyser had given my title a low score and I should improve it, I was not impressed. How can a computer know more than a writer about what is and isn't going to persuade someone to click on a title? I was proud of the title, I liked it. Her email went onto tell me that I should analyse all of my titles with this machine and improve them for better readability. I dismissed the advice. I think I spent about 30 minutes checking out the tool and decided what can it know and moved on. Six months later, AI technology is popping up more and more in content creation. It’s starting to get my attention and I’ll be honest, does make me slightly concerned. If a machine can write my content, what am I here for? I still rely on content writing as a form of income. I imagine a lot of other writers and copywriters are having similar questions and fears. How long will it be before a robot is doing our job. Research a little bit online and your fears will not be squashed! By the looks of it in the media we are all going to be out of a job next week. But, how much of that is realistic, or just hype? It’s in the best interest of the AI technology companies & their investors to create a lot of buzz and “positive sentiment” as an AI robot might say. They want companies to feel like if they don’t jump on this technology straight away they will be left behind in the dust - their competitors speeding ahead as they adopt AI into their strategies. So, I did some research of my own. Going into the research adamant that a robot was going to take away my job, and worse my only true passion. A writer writes because that’s what they are on this planet to do. Take away the reason to write, what has a writer got left? However, after completing this research I feel better - and I hope after reading this you might too. This isn’t going to be a scientific study I’m afraid. I’m a writer, not a scientist. I’m also obviously bias because I don’t want robots to take away my job, or my passion. But, I don’t think those things mean I shouldn’t have a voice on this matter. If anything we need more voices on the other end, For this unscientific study of AI technology & copywriting I focused on a tool, Atomic AI, which is pitched as a tool to help marketers write better. It does this by telling you if you are writing for the right level of audience and scores you accordingly. I wanted to look at its scoring system, relative to how many shares a piece of content got. The premise being, if a piece of content scores higher, then it should be shared more. That’s what the tool is helping writers with. To write for their audience better, make a deeper connection in order for them to share or engage with the post, which is what every marketer wants as a result from their content. For this study, I’m going to look at the same website. Because, as we know the size of an audience has a direct impact on how many shares an article will get. Yes, so does a million other factors. This is not scientific, remember. I’m also going to use the blog content of a website I admire and respect for their copywriting. Kopywritingkourse.com As with every single blog out there, some content does better than others. Some content gets a higher level of engagement from the audience. This is what we are always trying to improve on. To identify what it is that makes our content great + try to replicate that greatness for future posts. So, let’s see if content that got a lower level of engagement on Kopwritingkourse.com, gets a lower score on Atomicreach.com The Pages I Chose From The Homepage Of The Blog > 1. https://kopywritingkourse.com/airbnb-listing-description/ - 73 shares 2. https://kopywritingkourse.com/create-advertising-that-sells-david-ogilvy/ - 223 shares 3. https://kopywritingkourse.com/billboard-advertising/ - 116 shares Now Let’s see what each one gets as score from Atomic. 3. https://kopywritingkourse.com/billboard-advertising/ - 116 shares Let me explain what these screenshots from Atomic mean.
So, for each piece of content you have to select a readability level. After playing around with it all afternoon I’ve realised that more of the online content, even on the larger blogs try to write for a reliability level “knowledgable”. Hot Tip: This is actually in itself an important takeaway. Initially I assumed that all of the top blogs in my industry were focusing on writing for an academic audience. It turns out, knowledgeable is the level they are all going for. In a sec I’ll explain what this means! There are 5 levels in Atomic.
The basis of this tool is that it will tell you if you are writing at a level your audience can understand. So, I select knowledgable for these three pieces of content. Then, the tool will score the piece based on the setting. The way it calculates it is basically how advanced are the words you are using. For example, Original: Located in north Austin, this bulletin targets traffic heading north towards Pflugerville, Round Rock & Georgetown, avoiding traffic on I-35. "avoiding”, is set as knowledge level specialist, one level above where we are aiming. So I can click the word and choose one more suitable for my audience. Changing these words will increase the scoring of the piece overall. When I click "avoiding" I am told it can be switched to shunning, shirking or squashing. Improved: Located in north Austin, this bulletin targets traffic heading north towards Pflugerville, Round Rock & Georgetown, shunning traffic on I-35. Clearly this word doesn’t improve the sentence, it just doesn’t feel right. It feels way too dramatic. I SHUN THE TRAFFIC - who shuns traffic?? Anyway, that gives you an idea about what the readability level does and how it applies to the text. I don’t think the tool is particularly great at coming up with accurate synonyms. HOWEVER, it is useful to know at what level you are writing at. We are always trying to write in an approachable way. To cut the jargon and get straight to the point. But how do you actually know that this is how you are writing? I believe this is one way to find out, so just for this reason I suggest you log on for free and check it out. Further than that though, I fail to see how this tool is useful long term. Good for competitor research, and for checking your writing style, but is this robot going to take my job. NO. At least right now I'm safe. The second thing this tool does is gauge emotion. Emotion looks at the language used and gives a score from calm to exciting. The premise being that more emotional language gets shared more often. To be honest, I don’t know how it works this score out. Previously, tools would categorise the types of words used and then assign either positive or negative to those words and create the score from there. But that caused issues, because sometimes a seemingly negative word can actually be used in a positive way. For example the sentence: The skateboarder executed a toe grab 360 and it was sick. The words ‘executed’ and ‘sick’ are usually used in a negative way, but in this sentence the statement is positive. The tools would not be able to accurately know this. With Atomic AI this sentence is scored as ‘exciting’. Exciting can be either negative or positive. That's all I really have to say on it at the moment. I don't really understand how this is particularly usful aside from the fact that I'll know if my writing is sending my audience to sleep or not. Let’s move onto the scores that Atomic gave these three posts and see if the score is reflective in the number of shares it received. Post 1 > Shares 73 > Atomic Score 74 Post 2 > Shares 223 > Atomic Score 74 Post 3 > Shares 116 > Atomic Score 76 The scoring is pretty similar across all three posts. Post 2 was the post about David Ogilvy, which if you read it, is actually a word for word copy of one of their copywriting adverts. Shouldn’t this be the benchmark for copy, being that it was written by the most famous advertising agency of all time, and a living legend? In fact, Post 3 got the highest score. What I’m unclear about on this tool though is why. What happened to those two points, does that really matter? Or is this tool more useful for writers who have a lot of learning to do? Maybe I put in text that was too high quality. In summary, after doing this research I am not worried about my writing job (just yet anyway). There is so much hype about these tools. This is just one, there are more on the market. I don’t want to completely discount all of them. Some might be useful. But what I do want to highlight is the need to go on a try them for yourself before getting so concerned and worried. So far I’ve been disappointed by what these tools can do, which makes me feel a whole lot better. Hopefully you are too. I'd love to know your thoughts in the comments. Have you tried any of the new AI tools out? What are your thoughts?
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The primary goal of a good SEO Copywriter should be to captivate and influence a targeted human audience and attract search engine rankings with content that informs and answers common queries in a unique and engaging manner.
In other words, the content has to do more than just read well – it has to be tailored around specific topics and phrases to rank highly for popular search terms and keywords. Therefore, excellent copy consists of content that is both written well and developed with search engine optimisation (SEO) in mind. Let's look at seven actionable copywriting techniques you can use to push your content to the top of the search engine result pages (SERPs) 1. Start with a Show-Stealing Title When you're initially coming up with the topic and outline of the content, the very first step will be formulating an eye-catching, click-provoking title. Fortunately, if the title is good enough to persuade people to click on it, Google's algorithms will recognise this positive organic traffic trend as an indicator that your page is a useful resource deserving of higher rankings. Here's a step-by-step example illustrating the typical SEO-oriented title creation process: 1. Think of a basic way to describe your topic. For example: Methods for Improving a Blog Post Title Check point 6 and make sure you include your longtail keyword research at this stage. Look for keywords which have less competition but describe the topic you want to cover in detail.
2. The above “title” is actually more of an extremely bland and vague description, so the next step is to spice it up using buzzwords/keywords, adjectives, lists, mystery/curiosity, benefits/advantages, and other persuasive tactics.
Except in this step you'll come up with a couple of variations like: 5 Title Tweaking Techniques that Promote Higher CTR Multi-Tiered Guide on Creating Blog Titles Like a Pro 3. Now list your prospective titles using a headline analyser (CoSchedule's is the most popular) and refine from there. These tools are very straightforward and highly insightful ways to make a good title great. Virtually all successful SEO Copywriters use a similar process to the three steps mentioned above. 2. Keep it Simple, But Not Short and Sweet To develop content that can accommodate the average attention span and patience of an online reader, you'll want to stick to certain formatting guidelines. Sentences and paragraphs should be straightforward and uncomplicated. However, the content itself should be full of useful, entertaining, and engaging information. Furthermore, the outline should be as comprehensive as possible. By keeping the attention of readers with succinct and effective messages, yet delivering a piece that covers every aspect of a topic, you'll position the page as a go-to resource that will attract inbound links and high rankings. Knowing that, here are a few steps you can take to make sure you're implementing this technique: 1. Pretend like you're having a conversation and use a relaxed vocabulary. There's no need to be extra fancy – just convey your point without adding extra fluff. 2. Once you're ready to write in a conversational tone, next you'll want to create an all-inclusive outline that covers every possible facet of the main topic. This is sometimes referred to as the skyscraper technique – outdoing the most comprehensive pre-existing resource. Many brands have begun simplifying their content while aiming to provide more informative value within fewer words. Writing in this style makes your content easier to scan and digest.
3. Using Google's Autocomplete Suggestions to Fill a Demand
One of the best ways to propel a page straight to a #1 ranking is to find a common search query that hasn't yet been answered definitively by an authoritative source. Questions and how to phrases are the best kinds of phrases to look for because there are a lot of them that have only been discussed on forums or user-maintained question/answer sites like Quora. Luckily, it's easy to find these terms just by typing an incomplete phrase into Google and waiting for the Autocomplete suggestions to pop up. Here's how: 1. Visit the home page of Google.com. Start typing a query related to your niche and pay attention to the suggestions that appear as you type each letter. If the suggestions feature isn't enabled, see Google's page on activating auto complete. 2. Another option is to use a Google suggest keyword scraper tool like the one at keywordtool.io in order to build large lists of suggested search terms. The best part about this technique is that many marketers neglect to use it to their advantage, so it's a largely untapped source of SEO topics. 4. Compile Massive Lists to Become a Popular Resource If you've ever seen the top 30 or top 100 lists on blogs, you know that they rank particularly well on Google. This is because the most exhaustive resources tend to be linked to within blog posts and on social media based solely on their usefulness. Here are a few steps you can take to build better lists than the competition: 1. Use a content map or brainstorming session to write down a predefined number of topics or tips. 2. Once you have your list, search for similar lists online and double check to make sure you're covering everything that they include as well. 3. Once you have a solid list, try to condense the most important facts and sound advice on each point while keeping each one short and easy to read. For example, we put together a list of the top places to find guest posts and included in our guide; How Do I Find Blogs Which Accept Guest Posts 5. Use Longtail Keywords Tapping into a new set of keywords that haven't been targeted by other marketers puts your brand in a unique position to thrive in its own lane, with less competition. Here are some steps you can take to achieve this:
Many brands have boosted their popularity by inventing new buzzwords that didn't previously exist, so that's another idea worth considering.
6. Utilise Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI)
If your brand isn't yet taking advantage of LSI, it's time to get started as doing so will help you rank for obscure terms that you might be completely overlooking. 1. Study this guide on LSI. 2. Implement, rinse, and repeat. LSI is now common practice among leading SEO agencies after becoming a hot topic following the Panda and Penguin updates that placed an emphasis on content quality. We hope you've picked up some new techniques! Let us know in the comments below. Do you have something to add? |
AuthorWritten by Cheryl A Clarke Chief Happiness Officer & Content Marketing Freelancer @ Ginger Marketing (unless stated otherwise) Blog CategoriesPopular content marketing postsTotal Social Media Share Count
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“Successful SEO is not about tricking Google. It’s about PARTNERING with Google to provide the best search results for Google’s users.” – Phil Frost, Main Street ROI
“Successful SEO is not about tricking Google. It’s about PARTNERING with Google to provide the best search results for Google’s users.” – Phil Frost, Main Street ROI