Talking about SEO copywriting does not necessarily mean simply repeating the usual theories on keywords, related and search intent. There is also room for creativity and persuasion. Some idea? Here’s the SEO copywriting cliffhanger.
The SEO copywriting cliffhanger is a technique that allows those involved in the drafting of texts for websites, blogs, landing pages, and other online content to achieve two major objectives: to create texts suitable for the objectives of search engine optimization and to maintain high public attention. Following a growing tension on the page.
Before continuing with the cliffhanger technique, one point needs to be clarified: SEO copywriting does not mean paying particular attention to writing and inserting some combinations of related insurance keywords in some specific point following secret techniques.
In reality, it is a common opinion that the work of writing for search engines is perfectly comparable with the good activity of web writing.
Only that you have to pay attention to the preliminary analyzes (such as the study of your competitors on the results page and the keyword research) that allow you to understand what people want from your content.
Here, this is SEO copywriting: analyze, discover, respond in the best possible way. Cliffhangers also fit into this balance. Do you want to explore this very interesting topic to create truly persuasive and engaging content?
The Topic Of This Post
- 1 What are cliffhangers in communication?
- 2 Why is this element persuasive?
- 3 Some useful examples of cliffhangers
- 4 Here’s the SEO copywriting cliffhanger
- 5 Do you want to use cliffhangers in your copy too?
What are cliffhangers in communication?
The cliffhanger refers directly to the English translation: hang on the cliff, on the mountain. Figuratively speaking, it simply means an element to hold onto. But in marketing, it means so much more.
The cliffhanger is a persuasive communication technique – both in copywriting and in multimedia – that allows you to close an information block with a particle capable of keeping the tension high and pushing the user to continue. Or to return when there is a fragmentation of the content as happens, for example, in TV series.
Why is this element persuasive?
Public attention is limited. This applies to both the online and offline universe. Who writes the screenplay of a TV series must foresee a path of increasing tension until the end of the script that leads to a climax that takes the user from one point to another increasingly intense.
And which ends with a final step. This serves to maintain attention and allows him to retrace his steps.
This is even more important on the web since, in principle, we can consider that the human being has the attention of 8 seconds. And a resource, if badly studied, offers a series of perfectly useless stimuli. And which have the purpose (not foreseen) to shorten the attention on the web page even more.
Some useful examples of cliffhangers
Before addressing the concept of SEO copywriting cliffhanger, it is worthwhile to give some concrete examples of good use of this strategy for good offline and online communication, multimedia or not.
Above we have some examples of video cliffhangers. Let’s focus on the world of writing, what does this element look like?
Sentences that are characterized as elements of tension are found at the end of a paragraph or page. They are often short, high-impact elements. They stimulate the need to continue reading and this is precisely the task of a cliffhanger text: to push you to continue.
This happens in two ways, according to the basic rules of literature: the hero of the final scene is in a dangerous situation and the narrative stops or an event occurs that undermines the entire structure of the storytelling. But how does this apply to online writing?
One of the fundamental rules is to keep the attention high and you can also do it in the titles. Just respect the rules of SEO copywriting.
Here is the SEO copywriting cliffhanger
Why is there a link between cliffhangers and SEO writing? Simple, you have to go beyond the simple enumeration of useful topics to complete an article, a page, or a landing page.
When we do keyword research work, we identify the fundamental topics to be addressed in content to make it complete, useful, adhering to the needs of very specific search intent.
Then we complete the title tag (hoping that Google does not rewrite it), write the meta description, identify the various H2, H3 and H4.
But this compilation risks becoming an automatism in which each paragraph becomes an independent compartment. This is a problem because you would have to work in the opposite direction.
That is, making everything more fluid and smooth, pleasant to read. But also interesting. The basic idea is that you don’t have to trade optimization for style. This can also be practiced with good use of textual particles at the end of paragraphs. Eg:
- Do you agree with this idea?
- In your opinion, what happens in these cases?
- Do you know what happens next?
- The result of these actions?
As you can see, these are simple steps that allow you to create a discursive path within the text. On the one hand, you can keep the attention high, on the other you create a direct path to the user, in which you address the reader and make him participate: a protagonist who has full right to express himself and participate in the construction of meaning.
Example of a title capable of immediately grabbing attention.
As you can see from this image, even the headlines can be used to work in this direction and immediately attract the attention of the public with an unsettling element, dissonant concerning logic.
But when you decide to cliffhanger SEO copywriting you need to be able to evaluate the importance of a title in the balance of search engines. So, you can use a more informative, simple, and straightforward title tag and then leverage an H1 to grab attention and keep it.
In this way, a web page can be persuasive but maintain good optimization for Google, in full cliffhanger SEO copywriting style.
Do you want to use cliffhangers in your copy too?
The rule is simple: try to think of your content as a short story, a short story, something you want to use to keep the reader’s tension on the edge.
Attention, you do not have to become a crime writer and compete with Agatha Christie: the important thing is to use this literal artifice, together with other elements such as rhetorical figures and cognitive biases, to make reading more enjoyable and copy more effective. SEO aspect.
