SEO copywriting is what you write on pages that have to do two things at once: rank for a query and get the visitor to act. Product pages, service pages, landing pages and category pages all live here. A blog post can rank and inform; a commercial page that ranks and doesn’t convert has done half its job.
This post is about that commercial half: headlines, subheads, calls to action and copy people can scan. For general advice on writing search-friendly articles, our SEO writing tips cover the ground, so they aren’t repeated here.
Is SEO and copywriting the same thing?
No. They overlap, and the overlap is the useful part. SEO decides whether the page is found: which query it targets, whether it matches the intent behind that query, and whether the title and headings make the topic obvious. Copywriting decides what happens after the click: whether the visitor understands the offer, trusts it and takes the next step.
The difference between copywriting and SEO shows up when one is done without the other. Pure copywriting produces clever headlines nobody searches for. Pure SEO produces pages that repeat the phrase and say nothing. SEO copywriting starts from the query and then writes for the person who typed it.
The search side: match the query before you write a word
Before any copy, decide what the page is for. A query with commercial intent wants options, prices and reasons to choose; an informational one wants an answer. Writing sales copy for an informational query, or a guide for a buyer, is the most common mismatch. Our guide to search intent sets out how to read it from the results page.
Then make the topic obvious in the places search engines and people both look: the title, the main heading and the subheads. Our posts on heading structure and writing meta descriptions cover the mechanics. A good content brief settles query, intent and angle before the writer starts, which saves a rewrite later.
The reader side: people scan, so write for scanners
The best-known evidence here is old, and worth knowing as such. In “How Users Read on the Web”, dated September 30, 1997, Jakob Nielsen of Nielsen Norman Group answered his own question in two words: “They don’t. People rarely read Web pages word by word; instead, they scan the page, picking out individual words and sentences.” In that study, “79 percent of our test users always scanned any new page they came across; only 16 percent read word-by-word.”
That is a classic study, not a current figure. But NN/g’s later review, “How People Read Online: New and Old Findings” by Kate Moran (April 5, 2020), drew on studies “spanning 13 years, involving over 500 participants and more than 750 hours of eyetracking time” and concluded: “People still primarily scan, rather than read. Scanning all of the text on a page, or even a majority, is still extremely rare.”
What the 1997 test changed, and what it found
Nielsen’s team wrote five versions of the same site and measured usability against a promotional control. The four measures were “time, errors, memory, and site structure”. These are usability gains from one test, not conversion rates or sales lifts, and neither NN/g article is about rankings.
| Version | What changed | Usability improvement |
|---|---|---|
| Control | Promotional writing style | Baseline |
| Concise | About half the word count | 58% |
| Scannable | Layout built for scanning | 47% |
| Objective | Promotional claims replaced with neutral language | 27% |
| Combined | Concise, scannable and objective together | 124% |
How to use SEO in copywriting for commercial pages
Put the search side and the reader side together and you get a short working method for any page that has to rank and sell.
Headlines that state the offer
Nielsen recommended “meaningful sub-headings (not “clever” ones)”, and the same goes for headlines. The searcher’s words, plus the specific benefit, beats a pun. Moran’s review adds “front-loading” information “in the structure of our content, as well as in subheadings and links”, so the first words of each heading should carry the meaning.
Lead with the conclusion
Nielsen called it “the inverted pyramid style, starting with the conclusion”. On a product page that means what it is, who it is for and the key reason to choose it, above everything else. Use “one idea per paragraph”, because “users will skip over any additional ideas if they are not caught by the first few words in the paragraph.”
Cut the marketese
This is where SEO copy most often fails. “Users detested “marketese”; the promotional writing style with boastful subjective claims (“hottest ever”).” Nielsen’s explanation: “promotional language imposes a cognitive burden on users who have to spend resources on filtering out the hyperbole to get at the facts.” And “credibility suffers when users clearly see that the site exaggerates.” Replace adjectives with facts: what it does, what it costs, what is included.
Make it scannable, and the call to action obvious
Use “highlighted keywords”, “bulleted lists” and, in Moran’s words, “bulleted lists and bold text” with “plain language to keep content concise and clear”. Then make the next step a clearly labelled button, not a paragraph. Highlighting keywords means bolding the words a scanner needs, not repeating the query; our post on keyword stuffing explains where that line is, and the landing page SEO guide covers page structure.
Earn trust with evidence
Nielsen also noted that credibility “can be increased by high-quality graphics, good writing, and use of outbound hypertext links.” On a commercial page that translates into real product photos rather than stock filler, specific claims you can back up, and links to documentation, specifications or terms where a buyer would want to check. “Web users are busy: they want to get the straight facts.” Give them the facts and the case makes itself.
How to learn SEO copywriting
Practise on pages that already exist. Take a commercial page, read the top results for its query, and rewrite it in three passes: cut the word count, restructure it for scanning, then strip out every boastful claim. Those are the three changes in Nielsen’s table, and they are cheap to try.
Then compare your version with the original on two questions. Can a scanner tell what the page offers from the headings alone? And does every claim survive the question “says who?” If the answer to either is no, keep editing before you publish.
The limitation is important. NN/g’s evidence is about how people read and how usable a page is, not about rankings or conversion rates. The 1997 gains came from one test on one site, and neither article gives an ideal word count, keyword density or reading level. Whether a rewrite sells more on your site is something only your own testing can show.
Frequently asked questions
What is SEO copywriting?
Writing for pages that need to rank for a search query and persuade the visitor to act, such as product, service and landing pages.
What is the difference between copywriting and SEO?
SEO decides whether a page is found for a query; copywriting decides whether the visitor acts once they arrive. SEO copywriting combines both.
Do people read web copy word by word?
Mostly not. Nielsen’s 1997 study found 79 percent of test users always scanned new pages, and NN/g’s 2020 review said people still primarily scan rather than read.
Does scannable copy rank higher?
NN/g’s research is about usability, not rankings, so it does not show that. It shows scannable, concise, objective copy is easier for people to use.
The takeaway Win the click with intent and clear headings, then keep the visitor with short, scannable, factual copy. The hype you cut is the part readers were skipping anyway.
