SEO for Button Copy & CTAs
SEO is extra credit for business owners & plays a vital role in just about every piece of copy we write—including buttons & CTAs.
Do you ever find yourself wondering if SEO is important for button copy? Let me skip to the helpful part: yes. SEO plays a role in just about every single piece of copy and buttons are no exception. If nothing else, including keywords in your CTAs makes them pop more—makes them more fun to read—and therefore makes more people want to click on them! This is a short-n-sassy one, so press play & let’s get this show on the road!
With this podcast episode:
Uncover the hidden benefits of focusing on SEO with your calls-to-action.
Discover the most basic way to include more keywords in button copy.
Learn which CTAs are the most overused.
Don’t forget you can submit a question that will get answered in an upcoming podcast!
Mentioned Resources:
5-min keyword research tutorial
Connect w/ Brittany:
This episode of The Basic B podcast is brought to you in partnership w/ Leah Bryant Co.! Help me reach more service providers like you by following the show & leaving a rating or review on Apple & Spotify!
The unedited podcast transcript for this episode of The Basic B podcast follows
Welcome back to the short and sassy segment of the Basic B podcast. These episodes usually at least will be 10 minutes or less. They're going to be super actionable and they're going to be about a variety of topics. Today I am sharing about SEO for button copy and CTAs, also known as calls to action. So what do we actually want people to do? So let me start by sharing with you what button SEO even is.
I'm really skilled with on-page SEO and that's one thing that I really love sharing with business owners like you. So with button copy and with button SEO, I'm actually talking about having a keyword strategy and SEO strategy for the words that you put on those buttons and where we're sending people as well as even just the calls to action, the overall overarching call to action for that webpage. So
That is what I am talking about and why it matters, why you should even care about having an SEO strategy for your calls to action and for your button copy is because we want the right people taking that next best step. We want them taking an action to work with you, to get into your world, to learn more from you, to get to know you better. So whether that is signing up for your
Brittany Herzberg (01:33.044)
buying a digital product or signing up to work with you, filling out an inquiry form for example. We want the right people to get to you to even get to your page which is one reason why having an SEO strategy even for buttons and calls to action is really helpful because it's another opportunity where you can put the keywords and where search engines like Google
will pick it up and realize, oh, this is what this person does. This is what they're all about. This person is looking for that. Let me put this web page in front of this person. So it's all very strategic. It's all very intentional and thoughtful. And even buttons matter.
And the whole reason this topic even came to mind is because I'm working on a project right now where I'm writing web copy for a company. And I've written 8 out of the 9 pages so far and something that keeps coming up is button copy, calls to action, where are we sending them from this page?
So I was, you know, drafting all of these pages, thinking through all this copy, combining all the SEO research and all these things. And like, I really need to share this with other people because other people like you might not have worked with a copywriter before, might not have worked with an SEO copywriter before or an SEO agency or something like that. So I really just wanted to spend some time sharing with you how you can improve the button copy on your existing website. Or maybe you're currently rewrit-
writing your website or you have a service provider who's helping you with this right now you can just kind of start to be thoughtful about it. So there's a three-step process that I want to walk you through for improving SEO for button copy and for calls to action. We're gonna start with something that might seem overwhelming, might seem obvious, but it's critical to the rest of the process. So we want to figure out what the point of that page is. What is
Brittany Herzberg (03:34.986)
Again, like I said earlier, are we sending people to a podcast? Are we asking them to join an email list? Are we inviting them to go read another blog post? Are we, you know, sharing a digital product with them or a service? What is that thing? And what from there, what action do we want them to take? What is that call to action? So what is the goal of the page? What's happening on this page? Let's take a blog post, for example.
Let's say I want to write an entire blog post about how to hire an SEO copywriter. I'm going to have the whole point of that page be all about how and when and why someone would want to hire an SEO copywriter. The next step I want them to take that call to action I'm going to give them is to hire me as their SEO copywriter. So...
Think through that journey of what are you sharing on that blog post, on that webpage, and then where do you want them to go next. A good rule of thumb is to really just keep it simple and have one call to action. Give them one next step.
And from there, so we've identified the goal of the page, we've identified where we want to send them next, now we want to include keywords in the copy, in the button copy, in that call to action. And I will make sure that I link, I have a five minute keyword research tutorial on YouTube so I will make sure that I link that in the description. Whether you are listening to this or watching this, I'll make sure you can get that. But it starts with...
figuring out again, figure out the point of the page, figure out where we wanna send them next, and then we want to be really thoughtful about the keywords that we want to use. So you would do keyword research, you might have a keyword list already that you or a service provider has created for you, and you can figure out what keywords to include in the button copy. So if we are sending them to, okay, let's stick with the same example for the sake of my brain. Let's say I've got that blog post about how to hire an SEO copywriter.
Brittany Herzberg (05:45.502)
and I want them to then be excited about and be interested in hiring me as their SEO copywriter. For me in my process, I would send them to my contact page where I have an inquiry form. So I would want to say things like, you know, this I never great on the fly, maybe I'll improve with that, but I would want to say things like, hire Britney as your SEO copywriter on the button because then I or contact Britney.
to become your SEO copywriter. Again, this is very lame, not well researched keywords that I would be putting in my calls to action, but that's the kind of thing you want to include. Keywords that would make sense for where you want to send that person. If I want to write a blog post about, you know, the Basic Bee podcast, I would say, tune into the Basic Bee podcast and have that on the button and then people would go and listen, go to that page and then they could listen or watch.
the episodes from there. So I really want to use the keywords again that make sense for the destination, that make sense for that call to action. Where are we sending them? What do we want them to do next? Those are the keywords that we want to use. Not learn how to hire an SEO copywriter because that would bring them to the blog that they're already reading. Hopefully that makes sense. We don't want to use the keywords that make
that line up with where they already are. We want to use keywords that line up with where we want them to go. What is that next page? What is that next step? Where are they going from this blog post or from this webpage? And I know I keep reiterating that, but I really want to drive that home. So let me walk you through some examples of SEO copy for buttons and calls to action. Instead of saying things like,
learn more, click here, or even about us, I would invite you to swap that for something like I want to get found online. That is a big get found online is a big keyword for SEO copywriting, for content marketing, for SEO strategy. I might also say something like give me SEO help. SEO help is another keyword that is highly searched. Or we could say
Brittany Herzberg (08:08.482)
Build a dreamy coaching business. Right, if I am a business coach, or if I am wanting to be a business coach, I could send them somewhere that makes sense. I could send them to an inquiry form. I could send them to learn more about the program that I have. Show me the B2B marketing services. If I'm on a homepage and I want to learn more about these B2B marketing services, and I'm going to go to the services page,
this makes sense. This was one that I actually pulled from the draft of the web copy I'm writing for my client. Last example, meet the content marketing team. Instead of just saying about us, meet the content marketing team. Instead of meet the team, we add in content marketing. That is the keyword there. So how can you take some keywords and weave it into what you already have or include it in copy that you're currently writing?
or maybe you want to go and revamp all of your buttons on your main website pages or you're writing a blog and you want to be really thoughtful about what you're including, just think through how you can incorporate some keywords. It does not need to be complicated. They do not need to be like super long pieces of copy, but they should include one keyword. So there's a lot more like this that lives inside two different things. This is my call to action for you in case you didn't catch that subtle shift.
One is the SEO basics checklist. This is my free SEO resource. It is built to be used by solopreneurs or supported CEOs. So whether you're working by yourself, you're just a copywriter like me and it's just you, or you're a copywriter like me and maybe you have a VA and a junior copywriter, this can be used for either type of business. And I'll make sure that that's linked below. And then the SEO basic bees newsletter is my email list.
and I send weekly emails. I usually send two emails. My goal is to email on Wednesdays and Fridays and to have one of them be kind of like a recap email. Maybe I'm like reminding you that I had a guest interview somewhere or I'm reminding you that I dropped a blog this week or I'm telling you where I guest taught. That was something I mentioned in last week's email. So there's that. Plus there's also SEO tips, copywriting tips, tips together, social proof, storytelling tips, things like that.
Brittany Herzberg (10:35.818)
So what I would like to know now is what would you like to learn next? And seriously, I want you to DM me, find me on Instagram, tell me what you would like to be able to do or what you wish you knew so that I can create content around that.
Brittany Herzberg (00:04.418)
Seriously, DM me on Instagram, tell me what you wish you knew or want to know what to be able to do so I can create content around that. And let me know how you fare with the button in the CTA SEO tips that I just shared.