While the technical aspects of your website such as site speed and UX are crucial, no SEO strategy is complete without top-notch copywriting. Long gone are the days when websites could stuff their articles with keywords and use other black-hat SEO strategies to boost their rankings.

Search engines are becoming smarter, and are getting better at doing what they’re intended for: to serve the user. That means that if you provide your readers with valuable and relevant content, the search engines will reward you for it with a higher ranking.

Good website copywriting can boost your rankings by encouraging backlinks, lowering bounce rate, and providing relevant value to your readers. Whether you’re an SEO, freelance copywriter, or any digital marketing professional, these 7 copywriting books will help you write copy that will boost your content quality and search rankings.

 

1) The Copywriter’s Handbook: A Step-By-Step Guide To Writing Copy That Sells by Robert W. Bly

4.5 Stars on Amazon

This comprehensive guide to copywriting is a must-have handbook for advertising beginners and veterans alike. It hits on the basic points of copywriting that helps marketers to write content that persuades, engages, and converts. While following a handbook for writing may go against the notion that writers should always “think outside the box,” the book states it best: “before you can break the rules, you have to know the rules.”

 

Here’s an excerpt taken from the Amazon summary:

“This is a book for everyone who writes or approves copy: copywriters, account executives, creative directors, freelance writers, advertising managers . . . even entrepreneurs and brand managers. It reveals dozens of copywriting techniques that can help you write ads, commercials, and direct mail that are clear, persuasive, and get more attention―and sell more products.”

 

2) Everybody Writes: Your Go-To Guide to Creating Ridiculously Good Content by Ann Handley

4.6 Stars on Amazon

Everybody writes, and everybody’s writing can improve. That’s what Ann Handley drives home in her time-tested guide for creating compelling content. This book breaks down the principles of good writing and emphasizes that the best content isn’t necessarily the most complex or even grammatically perfect. Copywriting is intended to entertain, but also inform the reader. That means that clarity and cohesiveness is just as important than flowery language.

 

Here’s an excerpt taken from the Amazon summary:

“Our writing can make us look smart or it can make us look stupid. It can make us seem fun, or warm, or competent, or trustworthy. But it can also make us seem humdrum or discombobulated or flat-out boring.

That means you’ve got to choose words well, and write with economy and the style and honest empathy for your customers. And it means you put a new value on an often-overlooked skill in content marketing: How to write, and how to tell a true story really, really well. That’s true whether you’re writing a listicle or the words on a Slideshare deck or the words you’re reading right here, right now…”

 

3) All Marketers are Liars: The Underground Classic That Explains How Marketing Really Works–and Why Authenticity Is the Best Marketing of All by Seth Godin

4.3 Stars on Amazon

The product or service you’re selling doesn’t have to be something that the consumer already has in mind. The marketer’s role is to convince the consumer that their product or service will make the consumer’s life easier or better in some way. This book is a great reminder that marketers don’t sell products – we sell stories. Godin dives into the authentic writing that persuades audiences that the product, service, or feature that you’re selling them will fit into their already existing worldview.

 

Here’s an excerpt taken from the Amazon summary:

“As Seth Godin has taught hundreds of thousands of marketers and students around the world, great marketers don’t talk about features or even benefits. Instead, they tell a story—a story we want to believe, whether it’s factual or not. In a world where most people have an infinite number of choices and no time to make them, every organization is a marketer, and all marketing is about telling stories.”

 

4) My Life in Advertising and Scientific Advertising by Claude C. Hopkins

4.6 Stars on Amazon

Marketing has no purpose unless it’s tied to real results. Written in 1923,  Hopkins’ philosophy of forming marketing strategies around measurable results still stands as relevant as ever today. He was one of the first marketers to implement test advertisements, measuring his campaigns’ effectiveness to maximize ROI.

 

Here’s an excerpt taken from the Amazon summary:

“Gain a lifetime of experience from the inventor of test marketing and coupon sampling — Claude C. Hopkins. Here, you’ll get two landmark works in one, and discover his fixed principles and basic fundamentals that still prevail today.”

 

5) Ogilvy on Advertising by David Ogilvy

4.5 Stars on Amazon

What better way to learn about advertising than the “Father of Advertising” himself, David Ogilvy. Ther brain behind several iconic advertisements, Ogilvy distills his time-tested advertising methods for memorable and profit-driven campaigns into this essential copywriting book.

 

Here’s an excerpt taken from the Amazon summary:

“A candid and indispensable primer on all aspects of advertising from the man Time has called ‘the most sought after wizard in the business.’”

 

6) Tested Advertising Methods by John Caples

4.5 Stars on Amazon

John Caples, a pioneer in effective copy-testing techniques, shares his findings in this readable classic. Advertisers can find 35 proven headline formulas, as well as best practices for call-to-actions and running marketing tests.

 

Here’s an excerpt taken from the Amazon summary:

“A legend in advertising for more than 60 years, John Caples still serves as a guide to generations of creative marketing people. Now his classic work on how to create successful advertising has been updated by respected advertising consultant Fred Hahn.”

 

7) Copy Logic! The New Science of Producing Breakthrough Copy (Without Criticism) by Michael Masterson & Mike Palmer

4.4 Stars on Amazon

Anyone who has written copy knows that sometimes improving your existing content is more effective than scrapping and starting over completely. Masterson and Palmer, both respected copywriters, share step-by-step how to turn out clean, captivating copy.

 

Here’s an excerpt taken from the Amazon summary:

“In this book, direct-marketing expert Michael Masterson and master copywriter Mike Palmer reveal their methodical, step-by-step process for turning ‘B-level’ copy into control beating ‘A-level’ copy in just 24 hours.”

 

Want more recommendations for books that will up your marketing game? Check out our list of the top 8 Recent Digital Marketing Books!