SEO copywriting training - Lesson 3.1 

What to write about   

Table of contents 

Learning objectives 

1. The ideal writing process 

2. Writing for your audience 

Example: GuitarGuru 

Example: GuitarGuru (2) 

Advanced: Audience profiles 

3. What’s your angle? 

Example: GuitarGuru (3) 

4. Create more focus 

Example: Marieke’s post about link building don’ts 

Key takeaways 

 

Learning objectives 

In this lesson, you’ll learn: 

● what an ideal writing process consists of; 

● how to find out who your audience is for each individual post or 

page; 

● how to adapt your use of language to account for your audience; 

● how to find out what your audience is looking for in a text; 

● how to determine the angle of your text; 

● how to make sure your text is focused and effective. 

 

1. The ideal writing process From this module onwards, we’re going to start working on the actual writing 

process! An ideal writing process consists of three phases: 

 

1. the preparation phase 

2. the writing phase 

3. the editing phase 

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As you can see in Image 1, the writing itself should only take about 20% of 

your time. The real work lies in the preparation and editing phases, both 

40% of the process. We’ll go through these phases one by one in the next 

modules. 

 

 

Image 1: An ideal writing process 

 

 

2. Writing for your audience In the previous module, we asked you to think about your mission and your 

audience. That’s preparation too but in a more general sense. In this 

module, you’re going to ask yourself similar questions, but on a different 

level: the level of one specific text.  

 

When it comes to the audience of your texts, there are basically three 

questions you have to ask yourself: 

 

● Who is going to read this? 

● What do you know about your audience? 

● What is your audience looking to find? 

 

Let’s explore these questions one by one. 

 

Question 1: Who’s going to read this? 

The first question you should consider when preparing a text is: who’s going 

to read this? This will allow you to cater the text to your readers’ needs. If 

you’re a good student, you’ve already thought about your audience in 

relation to your site in general. Now, you should think about your audience 

for each individual post or page that you are aiming to write.  

 

Of course, many of your posts and pages will be aimed at roughly the same 

or at least a similar audience. After all, most sites target a specific niche that 

attracts a certain audience. But you should always consider your audience 

when writing a new post or page. After all, different pages can attract 

different groups of readers. 

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Example: GuitarGuru 

Let’s introduce Laura, a twenty-something-year-old girl who’s been into 

guitars since she was a kid. She has a blog about guitars, called GuitarGuru. 

On her blog, she writes about her favorite guitarists, the ‘guitar lifestyle’, new 

gear, and tips and tricks for playing the guitar. For her site in general, she 

aims at writing for an audience of fellow guitar-lovers.  

 

After some research, Laura has decided she wants to write an extensive 

article on learning to play the guitar. She’s come up with the focus keyphrase 

‘learning to play the guitar’. Now, Laura has to think about the audience she 

wants to reach with this particular article. She could be aiming to write an 

article for people who don’t have any experience with musical instruments at 

all. But she could also write for a more experienced audience. For example, 

people who’ve played an instrument before, know the basics of music and 

know how to read musical notes.  

 

 

Question 2: What do you know about your audience? 

If you’ve determined who your audience is, you should ask yourself what you 

know about your audience. Are they familiar with the topic you’re going to 

write about? Are there things you need to explain in more detail because this 

is a difficult or unfamiliar topic for them? And how can you adapt your use 

of language to account for your audience? Consider what suits your 

audience when it comes to: 

 

● the words you use; 

● the difficulty of the text; 

● the tone of voice.  

 

On a different level, you should also find out what your audience gets 

excited about, how you can relate to their world, and how you can engage 

them. For example, your audience could be the kind of audience that wants 

a quick answer and then moves on. But they could also be the kind of people 

who like to take a deep dive into a specialist topic. These audiences need 

different texts. It’s up to you to find out what your audience wants and 

needs. The definition of a good text depends in large part on the audience 

reading it.  

 

 

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Example: GuitarGuru (2) 

Laura has decided to aim her article about learning how to play guitar at an 

audience with no to little experience with playing musical instruments. It’s 

going to be a beginner’s guide to learning the guitar. This means she should 

take this into consideration when writing her article. She needs to start at 

the very beginning: which guitar to get, and where to buy one. Then, she 

needs to explain the basics of music. Because her audience has no 

experience with playing instruments, she should try to use as little difficult 

words as possible. If she has to introduce new terms that her audience 

probably doesn’t know, she should define those terms so her audience 

understands what she’s trying to say. 

 

 

Advanced: Audience profiles 

How do you make sure you have a clear view of who your audience is? 

Ideally, you want to make an audience profile (also called: persona) which 

captures some important characteristics of your target audience. You could 

also have multiple audience profiles if you have a diverse audience. You can 

use this profile, or these profiles, as a basis to determine whether your 

ideas, angle, and words will resonate with your audience. 

 

The easiest way to make an audience profile is to analyze your current 

audience. Try to collect the information you need to fill out the template 

shown on the next page. Of course, you can add more information. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

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Demographics.  

● age 

● gender 

● job title 

● industry 

● education 

● location 

● income 

● family 

● bio (shorthand) 

● hobbies & interests 

 

Mindset.  

● what are their goals? 

● what are their problems, 

frustrations or needs? 

● what type of solutions do they 

want? 

 

 

Personality.  

● extrovert vs. introvert 

● order vs. freedom 

● thinking vs. feeling 

● judging vs. perceiving 

 

Motivations.  

● incentive 

● fear 

● achievement 

● growth 

● power 

● social 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Template 1: Audience profile or persona template 

 

The most effective way to find out what your audience is like, most of the 

time, is by asking them. Reach out to your audience through social media or 

surveys and find out who they are, what they like, and what they want. If you 

don’t have much of an audience yet, you could invest in getting to know your 

potential audience. For example, by visiting conferences or other kinds of 

meetups that deal with topics your audience might be interested in. You 

could also look at what your competition does. There are lots of possibilities, 

and all of them are hard work. However, actively targeting your audience, 

and catering to their needs, is a big part of a successful content SEO strategy. 

And therefore, knowing who you’re writing for will go a long way in 

determining your approach to writing content. 

 

 

Question 3: What is your audience looking to find? 

When you have a pretty clear idea of who your visitors are, there’s still one 

important thing you need to determine: what are your visitors looking to 

find, as they’ve typed in a search query and clicking your result? 

 

We’ve already touched on search intent in the previous module about 

keyword research. Search intent is about finding out why people are 

conducting a specific search. Are they searching because they have a 

question they want to be answered? If so, what kind of answer do they 

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expect? They could be looking for a very detailed answer, but they could also 

be trying to find one that is crisp and clear and saves them time. Or do they 

want to buy something? If people search for information, you don’t want 

them to land on your product pages (at least, not immediately because you’d 

scare them away). If people want to buy your product, you shouldn’t bore 

them with long articles but lead them to your shop. In other words: you 

should make sure that the content of a page fits your audience’s search 

intent.  

 

Type of intent  People want to... 

informational intent  find information on a specific topic 

navigational intent  access a specific website by entering the term in a search engine 

commercial intent  do research before making a purchase 

transactional intent  buy something, after doing their commercial intent searches 

 

Table 1: Types of search intent 

 

Find out your audience’s search intent 

So, how do you find out your visitors’ search intent? The words people use in 

their search queries will give you clues: 

 

● If people use words like ‘buy’, ‘deal’ or ‘discount’, it’s very likely they 

want to buy something. The same goes for very specific product 

names.  

● People looking for information can use words like ‘how to’, ‘best way 

to’, or questions like ‘what is ...?’  

 

However, keep in mind that it’s not always easy to interpret your visitors’ 

search terms, and you could also misinterpret things. Therefore, we think 

that it’s better to ask your visitors directly about what they are searching for 

on your site. You could make a small survey that will pop up as soon as 

people enter your website, allowing you to provide just the right response to 

that intent in your copy. This is crucial because visitors who find what they’re 

looking for are more likely to click through and become returning visitors.  

 

 

  

 

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3. What’s your angle? We’ve discussed your audience and how to best cater to them. However, we 

haven’t focused on you and what you are going to write about. So that’s 

what we’ll discuss in this section.  

 

You’ve determined your keyphrase and you know who you’re writing for. 

Does that mean you can start writing? Well, no, not yet. Although that’s what 

most people think and what most people do, you have to stay in the 

preparation phase just a little bit longer. You have to turn your keyphrase 

into a story with a unique angle, so you’ll stand out from the crowd.  

 

Make sure your copy is original 

You need more than just a keyphrase to write an original article. So, even 

when you have a list of keyphrases, there’s still work to do. Effective SEO 

copy is inspired. It covers an angle that others haven’t yet covered, or haven’t 

covered as effectively as you will. It also has a tone of voice that catches the 

eye of the reader. It presents information in a way that is different from 

everyone else. It is, in short, original. But being original can be hard. Where 

do you start when you have a lack of information? 

 

Method 1: Search for your keyphrases 

Your keyword research could be an excellent starting point. Search for the 

keyphrases you came up with and see what other people write. Can you 

add something new to the current results? What do you have to offer? There 

could be questions that haven’t been asked and answered before, 

experiences that haven’t been shared before, or your personal view on the 

matter. Think about whether you want to write something that will fit in with 

the current results or rather something that will be entirely different. This 

could be a smart strategy to stand out.  

 

 

Example: GuitarGuru (3) 

If Laura searches for her focus keyphrase ‘learning how to play the guitar’, 

she’ll see the search results shown in Image 2. When analyzing the results, 

it’s clear that most of the results focus on a basic guide for beginners. 

Therefore, it could be a smart idea for Laura to change the audience she’s 

aiming at and write a guide for people who have more experience in music. 

Another great angle for Laura could be to specify the type of guitar, so write 

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an article specifically for learning how to play acoustic guitar or electric 

guitar. Lots of opportunities for Laura! 

 

 

Image 2: Search results when searching for ‘learning to play the guitar’ 

 

 

 

Method 2: Use keyword research tools 

The tools that helped you pick your keyphrases in the first place, could be 

useful for inspiration as well. For example, the Google Adwords Keyword 

Planner, Yoast Suggest, Google Trends, and your internal search engine are 

great for coming up with ideas. Another great tool is AnswerThePublic, which 

generates questions and provides you with a list of popular prepositions for 

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your keyphrase. By the way, the process of coming up with ideas is not 

always strictly separated from the process of selecting new keyphrases. On 

the other hand, doing keyword research could also lead to creative new 

ideas. It’s up to you to find a balance between the following two questions: 

 

● What do I want to write about? 

● What do I want to rank for? 

 

Method 3: Real life 

Your keyword research is definitely not the only thing you can use to find 

inspiration. What about taking real life as your point of departure? For 

example, you could refer to: 

 

● Events, exhibitions, or shows that relate to your business or mission. 

You could even visit the event yourself and write about the 

experience.  

● The news. Stay tuned in on different news sites and write posts in 

which you incorporate your view on the news in your niche. 

● Stories that are closer to you as a person. Listen to your clients, 

colleagues, friends, and family. What problems do they encounter in 

life? How do they cope with them? What about funny anecdotes or 

brilliant quotes? Personal stories could help spark your imagination. 

You could also consider writing about your story and relate to the 

audience in that way. Of course, you should respect the privacy of 

your friends and always ask for permission before you publish 

something personal, or they will eventually stop being your friends. 

 

Method 4: Interact with your audience 

Another way of starting your creative journey is by interacting with your 

audience. Go talk to them at events. Or join social media groups or forums 

related to your niche. Comments on your own social posts or your blogs 

could also be excellent starters for new posts. Your followers and readers 

might have questions, add nuance, or give their opinion. Use these kinds of 

comments to create new posts in which you answer a different question 

about the same topic or write about it from the perspective of a different 

group of people.  

 

 

 

 

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Method 5: Get inspired by fellow bloggers 

The tips we’ve shared before are not very difficult, but still, there will be days 

that you just can’t think of anything original to write. There’s no spark, you’re 

just staring at your screen. Now what? You could try to prevent this from 

happening by following bloggers that provide you with a constant flow of 

inspiration. Create a list and take it with you all the time. Write down new 

ideas the moment they pop up in your head. Make sure you don’t copy the 

ideas of other bloggers, though. And always give credit where credit is due. 

 

 

4. Create more focus When you’ve come up with an idea and an angle that you like, it’s time to 

answer two other questions about your text that are going to make your text 

even more focused and effective. Let’s explore those questions. 

 

Question 1: What do I want to achieve with this text? 

The first question you need to answer is: why do I want to write this text? 

What do I want to achieve with it? In general, we distinguish three different 

purposes a text can have. You could want to: 

 

1. Convince your audience 

In this case, you could simply give your opinion about something. 

Then, the main aim is to convince readers of your statement – for 

example, that Yoast SEO is a great plugin. You can even try to 

persuade your readers to do something, like buying your product or 

visiting your event.  

 

2. Inform your audience 

Other texts are written to inform readers. For example, on yoast.com 

we have posts about the new Yoast SEO releases. In those posts, we 

inform the readers about the exciting new features of the plugin and 

the bugs that we fixed.  

 

3. Entertain your audience 

You could also write an entertaining text. For example, a travel blog 

in which you describe all the cool things you experience during your 

trip to New Zealand. 

 

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However, the lines between these three purposes aren’t always clear-cut. 

Different articles on your website can have different purposes. Moreover, 

one article can have more than one purpose. For example, you may be 

writing posts about your experience as a blogger. In your texts, you could 

provide fun personal anecdotes, and include useful tips about blogging and 

even convince people to buy something.  

 

Still, it helps to determine the main purpose of your article when preparing 

your text. This will help you shape your article in terms of structure and 

style. Keep in mind that it’s generally easiest to rank for informative articles 

because these articles are more likely to answer the question your visitors 

enter your site with. 

 

Question 2: What is the message of my text? 

The next question you have to ask yourself is: what is the message of my 

text? What do you want your readers to know or do after they have read 

your text? You should formulate that main idea in one sentence.  

 

To accomplish this, it might help to see your text as an answer to a question. 

Try to think which question your text is going to answer. Can you answer 

that question in one sentence? Then, that’s your message. Usually, you 

should communicate the message of your text in the first and last 

paragraphs of your post.  

 

It’s especially important to make your message explicit if you write web 

texts. It helps your readers grasp your main idea from the start and this will 

increase the likelihood that people keep reading.  

 

Sometimes, you will not be able to formulate the message of your article 

until you have done some research. In that case, take the central question 

(the question you are going to answer in your text) of your piece and come 

up with a number of sub-questions. Find answers to all these questions by 

using books and online sources, or by doing interviews. After this, you 

should be able to formulate your message. 

 

 

Example: Marieke’s post about link building don’ts 

In this post by Marieke about link building don’ts, she clearly formulates the 

main idea of her post in the introduction of her text (Image 3). The main 

message of this text is that if you want to improve your ranking in the long 

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term, you should use a holistic SEO strategy, and avoid certain link building 

tactics. 

 

 

 

Image 3: Introduction of a blog post by Marieke clearly stating the main message 

of the text 

 

Marieke also ends her blog post with her main message. In the conclusion of 

her text, she repeats that your link building strategy should be in line with a 

holistic SEO perspective.  

 

 

Key takeaways 

● An ideal writing process consists of three phases: 

1. the preparation phase; 

2. the writing phase; 

3. the editing phase. 

● For every article you write, you need to determine the audience 

you want to reach. Then, you should adapt your use of language to 

account for your audience and find out your audience’s search 

intent.  

● It’s crucial to find an original approach to your content. We’ve 

discussed five methods to gain inspiration and get those creative 

juices flowing: searching for your keyphrases, using keyword 

research tools, taking real-life as your point of departure, interacting 

with your audience, and getting inspired by fellow bloggers. 

● Once you have a unique angle, make sure you determine the 

purpose of your text and formulate a central message. This will 

allow you to write a focused and unique piece that will be pleasant to 

read and will leave your readers satisfied. 

 

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