Entries Tagged 'copywriting' ↓

As a business owner you want and need customers.

Ideally those customers will be of the happy variety that come back time and time again and bring all their friends along too.

But how do you make sure your website and customer service can generate that level of customer satisfaction?

When shopping online, people want speed, simplicity and a warm and fuzzy feeling once they’ve completed their purchase.

Other than tracking them all down and giving them a hug, how can you achieve this through your website?

Here are a few ideas.

Speeding it up

Your customers want to reach your site, find their product, and add it to their shopping basket and pay. So making that process as slick and fast as possible is essential.

Let’s start at the beginning.

1. Loading your site

Your website must load as quickly as possible because your customers aren’t going to hang around waiting for you. By reviewing all the images on your site and compressing them you’ll shorten the load time.

2. Payment

Jumping to the final stage of the buying process, you’ll need to offer a range of payment choices. Paypal is a must as it’s fast, safe and very convenient.

Simplicity

A mistake made by many companies is that their website is full of images, graphics, text and adverts making it impossible for the reader to navigate because there’s so much going on they don’t know which way to turn.

Keeping your site simple eases navigation and understanding.

3. Review your text

How readable is your text? By slightly increasing your font size you’ll make your site more readable.

4. White space

There’s nothing worse than a website that contains masses of solid text. You might think it conveys to the reader everything they need to know but that’s rather counterproductive because they won’t read it.

If you want someone to look at your site, its content has to be attractive. You can achieve this by:

• Shortening your paragraphs (5 lines or less)
• Add bulleted lists to highlight benefits
• Use sub headings
• Use images

But make sure you mix all these elements up to add variety and interest to your page.

Warm and fuzzy

This is probably the hardest one to achieve. How do you give them that warm and fuzzy feeling?

5. Social media

I’m assuming you’re using social media within your marketing strategy (if not why not?) so make sure you monitor your Twitter stream and Facebook page so when customers  ask questions about your products you respond to them quickly.

The other site of this is you’ll also be aware of compliments that come through your social media accounts (because you’ll be monitoring them) so make sure you say thank you.

There’s also a possibility that you’ll also get the off negative comment but because you’re monitoring your social media accounts you’ll be able to instantly make contact with the customer and put the situation right.

6. Get personal and obvious

Many companies get so wrapped up in looking professional they end up projecting a cold and impersonal image.

Customers want to buy from someone they like so by creating a website that shows your personality rather than a stale corporate image will get you noticed.

Being obvious doesn’t mean plastering your website with “buy now” in big red letters. Obvious means making your navigation simple to use so anyone can find their way to the page they want. There’s nothing worse than finding a website that sells the product you want but being unable to fathom out how to buy it.

7. Be chatty

When creating the copy on your website please don’t ‘we’ all over it.

Now sure what I mean? Well it’s quite simple. Take a look at your website and count how many times the word ‘we’ appears. In an ideal world there won’t be any.

Your customer couldn’t give two hoots about you; they want to know what you are going to do for them. So review your content and change the focus. If you’re not sure how to do that, find a professional copywriter who can do it for you. You’d be amazed at the difference it will make. You will instantly become:

• Approachable
• Customer-orientated
• Trustworthy

So there you go, 7 simple but effective ways you can change your website’s effectiveness overnight.

Try them out and come back and tell us how you got on. Do you have any other ideas? If so leave a comment below.

How do you feel when you search for something and find yourself on a landing page?

• Do you navigate away before you’re sold something?

• Do you hang around and have a read?

• Do you sigh and head back to your search result list for a real website?

People react differently to landing pages. To some they just scream BUY ME NOW because let’s face it, they expect to sell you something.

So how do you build trust and convince people you’re genuine and that it’s a good thing that they’ve landed on your page?

In previous posts I’ve already looked at what you should have on your landing page and what you can do to improve your conversion rate, so now I want to look at how you can encourage your visitors to trust you. After all, if there’s no trust there won’t be any sales.

How to gain trust

Most people don’t like being sold to. A landing page is there to sell (or gather leads etc.) so you’ll have to work hard to gain your visitors’ trust.

There are three main ways you can do this:

1. Testimonials

The good old testimonial – what would we do without them?

People like to hear how other people felt about buying from you. They want to know if the product worked how the customer service was etc.

Ideally the testimonials you use on your landing page will be linked to the product or service it is offering. That way you can convey all its benefits in your copywriting and your testimonials can back it up with real examples from happy customers.

2. Trusted logos

Are you or your company a member of an industry regulatory body, local business group or do you have some sort of certification relating to your product/service?

If the answer is yes, add their logo to your landing page. This will help establish trust because you’ll be seen as a bona fide company.

3. Privacy policy

This is very important if you’re looking to capture email addresses on your landing page.

No one wants to sign up for something only to be bombarded by emails from third parties.

Make sure you either have a few sentences outlining your privacy policy or link to your privacy policy page within your main website. If you do the latter make sure the link opens the page in a new window because you don’t want them to leave your landing page.

These simple tips will help you gain the trust of your visitors. Do you do anything else? If so please share it by leaving a comment.

Last year I was asked by the Guardian On Line to take part in their Q&A forum about how to become a freelance copywriter.

Well, that discussion was such a success I was asked to take part in another Q&A session on How to break into Copywriting.

You can follow the discussion here and learn from myself and other copywriting experts how to get into copywriting and other copywriting issues.

A lot of great stuff came out in the forum so if you’ve ever considered looking at copywriting as a career it’s well worth a look.

A good product review can contain information on any product or service, giving potential customers the confidence to purchase those products and obtain those services. Customers read reviews and testimonials to get the facts they need before working with a company. So how can you guarantee that your future customers are getting the information they need about your company?

Build Trust

Customers want to know they are purchasing a quality product and that they will be receiving the best customer service available. They read product reviews in search of proof of factual and proven information that can help them with their purchasing decision. Knowing exactly what other clients have experienced with a company gives them the necessary background information on what to expect from that company’s products and services. For example, if you are writing a review for online creative writing schools, be sure to include information on course materials as well as additional resources such as financial aid services.

Your product review page should do more than provide general information on your products and services. Make sure that you give future customers personal experiences, preferably by including high quality and well-written product testimonials received from your other customers and partners. Readers will be more likely to trust your product review when it provides extensive information on all facets of the company.

Be Unbiased

Although the goal of your product review is to provide potential customers with positive information about your products and services, refrain from only including the advantages. A one-sided review can decrease the credibility of the product and cause suspicion about the company in general. When you include any possible disadvantages of the product in your review, your readers will consider you to be a trustworthy information source. Be unbiased, but make sure to highlight the advantages of the product and include disadvantages that do not have huge consequences. Customers will use your advice to purchase the product you reviewed if the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.

Use Spell-Check

Correct grammar, punctuation and spelling adds credibility to your product review and helps ensure that the review converts readers into new customers. A product review that is void of typos proves to the reader that it was written by an educated and reliable individual, giving the reader the confidence to become a customer.

Be sure to recognize common mistakes such as the difference between “its” and “it’s” and when to use “your” or “you’re.” Proper punctuation placement is also important to maintaining credibility in your product reviews. Know when it is appropriate to use a comma and when a period should be used to avoid run-on sentences. Write your product review in a Word document or other template if you have difficulty with spelling – never submit a review without proofreading it first.

Keep Writing Product Reviews

One positive review can lead to an increase in sales. However, the more positive reviews that are posted online, the more likely your sales are going to increase. Having multiple positive reviews about your products gives potential customers even more background information about the quality of your products and services. Consistent positive reviews prove that you have a reliable company that manufactures high-quality products, which will help build your client list and increase your sales.

David Murton has been helping companies build and maintain their online relationships with customers since 2006. He is also a professional writer and blogger, with a particular interest in the open source Drupal platform. On a more personal note, David is an avid piano and accordion player, drawn especially to music of the classical and romantic periods.

The author’s views are entirely his own and may not reflect the views of FreelanceCopywritersBlog.com. If you are interested in producing a Guest Post for this blog, please get in touch with your ideas.

A while ago I was asked by the Guardian On Line to take part in their Q&A forum about how to become a freelance copywriter.

Following the success of that session I have been asked to take part in their next Q&A session on how to break into Copywriting tomorrow, 5th April 2011.

The discussion will take place between 1pm and 4pm and there will be a panel of experts available for you to throw your questions at including yours truly and my fellow scribes Tom Albrighton and Ben Locker. So if there’s anything you want to know feel free to hurl your questions at us and we’ll do our best to answer them for you.

We do have to type quite fast so please excuse any typos you may come across and make sure you aim all your really tricky questions at Ben and Tom – they love ’em.

So if you want to learn more about how to break into the world of copywriting drop by tomorrow’s Guardian Q&A session between 1 and 4pm and ask away.

See you there.