SEO copywriting: how to write copy that works for Google, for AI and for your readers

A business owner sends us the page for his main service, and it’s a scene we see often. It’s nine hundred words long. The phrase “compressor maintenance Turin” appears eleven times, once even inside a list of towns at the bottom. The first paragraph says the company has been a leader for thirty years and offers tailor-made solutions. What it actually does, where and how quickly, you find out halfway down the page, if you get that far. The page is on page four of Google and no AI cites it. He asks whether he should add more keywords.

The short answer: no, he should take some out. SEO copywriting is the work of writing copy that answers a specific question well, so that Google shows it, AI cites it and people read it to the end. You start from the searcher’s intent, open with the answer, use headings that say what’s underneath and paragraphs that stand up even when read on their own. The keyword is there to make you understood, not to be counted. AI can help with drafts and checks, but experience, data and voice stay with the writer.

In this article we talk about the craft: how to prepare a piece, how to build it, how to rewrite it. For how generative engines choose their sources, see our guide to GEO; for how to recognise the intention behind a search, see our article on search intent.

What is SEO copywriting, and what isn’t it?

SEO copywriting is writing in the service of a search. Someone asks Google or ChatGPT a question, and the copy has to be the best answer they can find: clear for the reader, understandable for a search engine, easy to quote for an AI citing a source.

It isn’t a separate genre: it’s the rules of good web writing, with a little extra attention to headings, structure and words. It isn’t technical SEO, meaning speed, indexing and structured data. And it isn’t advertising copywriting. An ad has to stop someone who’s busy doing something else. SEO copy speaks to someone who has already asked a question and is waiting for an answer. That difference changes everything, starting with the first sentence: in an ad it can be a provocation; here it has to be the answer.

Where do you start, before writing a single line?

You start from the question, not the keyword. A keyword is the shorthand for a question: “compressor maintenance” might mean “who can do it for me?”, “how often does it need doing?” or “how much does it cost?”. Those are three different pieces of copy. Working out which one you need is the work of search intent, and the SERP almost always tells you: if page one is full of guides, Google expects a guide; if it’s full of company pages, it expects a service page.

Then, before the outline, we write a five-line brief. We do it for every page, even the ones that seem obvious.

Brief question	Example for a service page
Who’s reading?	The plant manager at a manufacturing company
What’s their question?	“Who can maintain my compressors without stopping production?”
What do they already know?	They know the machines and don’t have time to read theory
What should they be able to do afterwards?	Request a site visit or a quote
What proof can we offer?	Response times, brands serviced, area covered, a real case

The last line is the most important and the one most often left empty. If we have no proof to offer, that is, a figure, an example, direct experience, the copy will say the same things as a hundred others. Google, in its guide to helpful, reliable, people-first content, asks exactly this: whether the content provides original information or analysis and adds value compared with other sources. When that line stays empty, the solution isn’t to write better. It’s to go and talk to whoever in the company knows the product.

How do you structure copy that gets read, ranks and gets cited?

With the answer at the top, headings that work as a table of contents and paragraphs that each carry one idea. It’s the same structure a reader in a hurry needs, that Google needs to understand what the page is about and that an AI needs to extract a passage.

This isn’t a recent discovery. In 1997 Jakob Nielsen observed that 79% of the participants in his tests scanned pages and only 16% read them word by word. His advice was: subheadings that say something, one idea per paragraph, the conclusion first. Today, the one scanning the page isn’t only a person.

The short answer at the top

The first paragraph answers the question in the title in three to five sentences. The rest of the copy comes afterwards, in support. Journalists call it the inverted pyramid: you start with what matters most, so that anyone who stops early has still got the point.

Writers often worry about “giving away” the content. The opposite happens: people who find the answer straight away trust you and stay for the details.

H2 headings as questions, when the question exists

An H2 phrased as a question works when it’s the question the reader would actually ask: “How often does maintenance need doing?” is better than “Frequency of service visits”. It reads on its own, makes sense outside the page, and matches how people query Google and AI.

Not every heading has to be a question. A list of steps, a comparison table or a section on mistakes works well with a statement heading. The rule is a different one: someone who reads only the headings should understand what the page says. If the list of H2s doesn’t tell the story of the copy, the headings are decorative.

Paragraphs that stand on their own

A citable paragraph has an explicit subject, a statement and, where needed, a figure or a condition. It doesn’t need the previous paragraph to be understood. The words that break it are always the same: “as mentioned above”, “this aspect”, “this solution”, “the latter”.

A clarification, because there’s a lot of advice going around on this. Google, in its guide to optimising for generative AI features, writes that you don’t need to break content into little pieces for AI to understand it better, and that there’s no ideal length. So we’re not talking about fragmenting the copy. We’re talking about writing it clearly: each paragraph says one thing, and says it fully.

Title tags and meta descriptions: what do you write and what does Google decide?

The title tag is the headline that appears in search results; the meta description is the text that sometimes appears below it. They’re the two lines that decide the click, and they’re also the ones Google reserves the right to rewrite.

Element	What it’s for	What Google says	How we write it
Title	Saying in one line what the page is about	No fixed limit, but it gets truncated; avoid repeated text and excessive keywords	Main information at the start, keyword once, brand name at the end after a separator
Meta description	Summarising the page for someone deciding whether to click	Has no length limit and is used only when it describes the page better than the body copy	Two specific sentences, with a concrete detail: area, timescales, who it’s for
H1	The page’s visible headline	One of the sources Google uses to generate the title in results	Can be longer and more conversational than the title tag

If the title tag doesn’t describe the page well, Google replaces it with the H1, a heading or the anchor text of links pointing to the page: that’s why it should be written together with the H1 and the opening. And the snippet is often taken from the body copy, so a clear opening also serves as a back-up meta description.

An example, made up for the sake of illustration:

• Before: “Home – Rossi Srl”
• After: “Compressor maintenance in Piedmont and Lombardy | Rossi Impianti”

The first tells someone who doesn’t already know the company nothing. The second says what, where and who, in that order.

How many times should the keyword be repeated?

No number. The keyword goes wherever it would be needed anyway to make yourself understood: in the title tag, the H1, the short answer, a subheading if it comes naturally and the anchor text of internal links pointing to the page. The rest of the copy uses the words a knowledgeable person would use talking to a customer.

Keyword density percentages are a habit from another era. In its spam policies, Google lists keyword stuffing among prohibited practices: forced, unnatural repetition, lists of towns and regions the page is trying to rank for. Our business owner’s page, with its list of towns at the bottom, is almost a textbook example.

Variants matter more than repetition. “Service”, “overhaul”, “filter and oil change”, “machine downtime” are the words of the trade, and Google recognises them: the AI guide mentioned above points out that its systems understand synonyms and intentions, and that there’s no need to chase every search variant with a dedicated page. Precise terms signal expertise better than a repeated phrase.

A simple check: read the copy aloud. If at some point the keyword sounds odd in your mouth, it’s there for the engine and not for the reader. Take it out or rewrite the sentence.

Three rewritten paragraphs: before and after

The examples that follow are made up for the sake of illustration, numbers included. They’re meant to show the method, not to give technical guidance. Each corresponds to a different type of page.

Service page

Before:

For over thirty years our company has been a leader in the compressed air sector, offering innovative, tailor-made solutions for every need. Thanks to our team of highly qualified professionals, we guarantee an excellent compressor maintenance service.

After:

We carry out scheduled maintenance on screw and piston compressors of all makes, in Piedmont and Lombardy. One of our engineers comes to your plant at the intervals set by the manufacturer, changes filters and oil and measures leaks in the network. If the compressor stops unexpectedly, we’re on site within 24 working hours.

What changed: the first version talks about the company, the second talks about the work. It has what, where, how and how quickly. “Leader”, “innovative” and “excellent” have gone, because nobody can verify them. The 24 hours, on the other hand, can be verified, and that’s why they convince. If the company can’t promise a response time, that sentence isn’t written: you write what’s true.

Article

Before:

As we saw in the previous paragraph, this aspect is very important. In fact, the frequency of service visits depends on numerous factors that need to be taken into account to avoid problems.

After:

A screw compressor generally needs servicing every 2,000-4,000 operating hours: the exact interval is in the manufacturer’s manual. For a company working a single shift, around 1,800 hours a year, that means a service every one to two years. Hot or dusty environments shorten the interval.

What changed: the first paragraph can’t be cited, because without the rest of the page it says nothing. The second answers the question “how often should a compressor be serviced?” even when extracted on its own; it has an order of magnitude, an example that makes it concrete and an exception. It’s the kind of passage an AI can quote and a reader can forward to a colleague.

Product page

Before:

Light and comfortable men’s running shoe, ideal for running. Running shoe perfect for training and racing. Buy your running shoe now!

After:

A road shoe for long training runs and the half marathon. It weighs 255 grams in a size 42, has an 8 mm drop and a soft midsole, designed for people who run more than 30 kilometres a week. For 10 km races, a stiffer model from the same line is a better fit.

What changed: “running shoe” appeared three times and said nothing. Now there’s weight, drop, use and who it’s for. There’s also who it isn’t for, which looks like a commercial risk but is actually the sentence that builds trust: it helps customers choose, and customers who choose well return fewer shoes.

What tone of voice should SEO copy use?

The brand’s own, applied with discipline. Tone of voice isn’t an adjective (“we’re informal but professional”). It’s a set of repeatable choices: how you address the reader, which words you use and which you don’t, how long sentences are, whether you joke and about what.

For each client we translate it into a table that anyone writing for them can use. An example, again made up:

Choice	We say	We don’t say
How we address the reader	Informally, always (in Italian, the “tu” form)	Formal on one page and informal on the next
How we talk about the company	“We do”, “we’ve worked on”, “at the plant”	“We’re leaders”, “excellence”, “solutions”
How we give numbers	With the unit and the context: “24 working hours”	“Super-fast turnaround”
Technical terms	Yes, explained the first time	Acronyms never spelt out
Sentence length	One sentence, one piece of information	Chains of subordinate clauses

Tone doesn’t conflict with SEO; quite the opposite: copy with a recognisable voice is harder to confuse with others, and the same goes for how AI describes a brand: we’ve written about this in our article on staying a recognisable brand in the age of AI.

Service page, article or product page: what changes in the writing?

The reader’s question changes, and so everything else changes too. The method is the same, but a service page written like an article doesn’t sell, and an article written like a service page doesn’t get read.

	Service page	Article	Product page
Reader’s question	“Do you do what I need? Can I trust you?”	“How does it work? What do I need to know?”	“Is this the right product for me?”
Opening	What we do, for whom, where	The short answer to the title’s question	Who it’s for and in what situation
What it must contain	How we work, timescales, proof, FAQs	Explanation, examples, sources, cases	Technical data, use, limitations, comparison with similar models
Typical mistake	Talking about the company instead of the work	Circling around the answer	Copying the manufacturer’s description
Where it leads	Contact or quote	Service page or another article	Basket

The service page

People who arrive here are choosing who to trust with a problem, and they want to know what happens after they get in touch. The FAQs at the bottom are the objections the sales team hears every week, written down once and for all.

The article

It’s judged on how well it answers. A good article has a thesis and at least one element you can’t find elsewhere: our own data, a case, a selection criterion. It’s part of a wider plan, which we cover in our article on content marketing, and becomes material for other formats through content repurposing.

The product page

It’s the shortest copy and the one where precision matters most. The manufacturer’s description is identical on dozens of sites; a few sentences from someone who knows the product are enough. On a large catalogue, start with the products that sell most and those that get the most questions.

Can you write with AI without losing quality?

Yes, if AI acts as an assistant and not as the author. We use it every day, at specific points, and every piece we publish goes through a person who rewrites it, checks it and signs it.

For Google, what matters is the purpose, not the tool. Its spam policies call scaled content abuse the production of many pages made mainly to manipulate results, by any means, generative AI included. The helpful content guide, on the other hand, suggests asking “who, how and why”: who wrote it, how the copy was produced, for what reason.

Where AI helps us

• The outline. We ask it what questions a reader would have on the topic, and compare its list with ours. Often a question we’d forgotten comes up.
• Variants. Ten versions of a title tag or meta description, from which to choose one and rewrite it.
• Checks. Sentences that are too long, repetitions, unclear passages, paragraphs that don’t stand on their own.

For how to write instructions that produce useful results, see our article on prompt engineering for marketing.

Where AI can’t replace the writer

• Experience. The model has never been inside a factory and has never spoken to a customer.
• Your own data. Response times, results, cases: only the company has them.
• Facts. Every number, name, price and regulation must be checked against the source. An AI writes with the same confidence whether it’s right or wrong.
• Voice. Left to itself, a model tends towards the average, and the average is exactly what a brand doesn’t want to sound like.

How we review copy that started with AI

Like copy from a junior colleague: we remove empty adjectives, check every figure against its source, add the example only we can give, and rewrite the opening until it really answers. If, at the end, the copy could sit on a competitor’s website just by changing the name, it isn’t ready.

Mistakes to avoid

Starting from the keyword instead of the question. The same keyword can hide three different questions. Choose which one before writing, by looking at the SERP.

Putting off the answer. Introductions on the history of the sector and phrases like “in this article we’ll look at” make readers leave before the point.

Counting repetitions. Keyword density isn’t a goal. Forced repetitions make the copy worse and fall within the practices Google considers spam.

Writing adjectives instead of facts. Everyone writes “fast”, “reliable”, “quality”. Only those who have them can write a timescale, a measurement, an example.

Publishing what the AI wrote. A generated draft is a starting point. Without fact-checking, experience and the brand’s voice, it remains copy anyone could have produced.

Checklist before publishing

• The brief has all five lines, including the proof we can offer.
• The first paragraph answers the title’s question in a few sentences.
• Each paragraph has a single idea and makes sense even when extracted from the page.
• The title tag has the main information at the start and is different from every other page’s.
• The meta description describes this page, with at least one concrete detail.
• The keyword appears where it’s needed and doesn’t sound forced when read aloud.
• Every number, name and regulation has a verified source.
• There’s at least one element you can’t find elsewhere.

Want copy that gets found and cited?

We write service pages, articles and product pages starting from what people search for and from an interview with whoever in the company knows the work. It’s part of our SEO service, together with the technical side and digital PR. When the goal is also to get cited by AI Overviews and ChatGPT, we rewrite the opening and structure of the main pages using the GEO method.

You can book a call with Federico or write to us using the contact form.

Frequently asked questions

What is SEO copywriting?

It’s writing web copy designed to answer a specific search, so that Google shows it, AI cites it and people read it. It combines the rules of good writing with specific attention to search intent, headings, structure and keywords.

How long should SEO copy be?

As long as it takes to answer well, and no longer. Google states that it has no preference regarding word count and, in its guide to generative AI features, writes that there’s no ideal length. A product page can stand on five sentences; a guide may need three thousand words.

Does the meta description affect rankings?

It isn’t what moves a page up, but it does influence the decision of someone choosing whether to click. Google uses it only when it describes the page better than the body copy; otherwise it generates the snippet from the content. That’s why it’s worth writing a specific one for every important page.

Does Google penalise copy written with AI?

Google assesses quality and purpose, not the tool. It considers spam the production of many valueless pages made mainly to manipulate results, with AI or by any other means. Copy written with the help of AI, checked and enriched by someone who knows the subject, has no problem simply for having been written that way.