Whether you’re starting out and setting up an online presence or looking to create some new marketing materials, your success will be determined by their content.
Is your message engaging? Does it really give the reader what they want? Does is make them say “Wow, I really need that. How do I buy?”
Because that’s what it comes down to – the words you use have to attract, convince and convert.
I can do that…can’t I?
As well as working with individuals and companies directly, I also work with a number of graphic and web designers. When talking to them we always end up having the same conversation—they often find it hard trying to convince clients of the need for professional copywriting.
Why?
Well their thought process follows this pattern:
I have a limited budget…
I don’t know who to do HTML so I need a web designer…
Design is not in my skill set so I need a graphic designer…
I have no idea where to source great images from so I’ll pay someone else to do that…
Writing? Hey I can write I’ll do that myself.
Big mistake
So what happens next?
Someone in your company gets lumbered with the task of writing your sales copy. Here’s the problem:
It is unlikely they have experience in writing sales copy
They take ages to write it because they don’t have the time which holds up the whole project
The finished copy tends to fall into the category of ‘it’ll do copy’
It is very difficult to write about your own company because you’re too close to it. To write effectively you have to distance yourself from your business and write it from your customers’ point of view. Your readers want to know how your product or service is going to benefit them. So your copy must be written for your customer.
What a copywriter will do for you
When you hire a professional copywriter they will get to know you, your business and your product/service.
They’ll put themselves in your customers’ shoes and create structured copy that addresses their needs, sells the benefits and talks to them directly.
Your website copy will be optimised for the search engines so it will attract targeted traffic. The content will convert those visitors into buying customers. And the copy will tell them what action they need to take to buy your product.
Your brochureswill sell not just inform. They will convince the reader your company is the one they should deal with. No longer will they be used as a mat for their coffee cup.
Your case studies will entertain, inform and sell. Your press releases will engage and attract new business. Your email marketing will be opened, read and acted upon.
Does that really sound like a waste of money to you?
Yes we can all write, but creating eye-catching, compelling and powerful sales copy is a difficult skill to master.
So next time you are looking to create a new website or piece of sales copy, don’t try and go it alone. That piece of writing, whatever form it may take, will be the first impression the reader gets of your company – hire a professional and make sure it’s the right impression.
As an internet marketer you are spending hour upon hour producing content to promote your business and help build links.
You have a list of topics as long as your arm and every spare minute you have is spent producing blog posts, articles and website copy.
Your dedication is admirable.
Once you’ve uploaded your fantastic value-laden information and hit publish…
…absolutely nothing happens.
No tweets (not even a re-tweet), no comments, no nothing.
Immediately you think “Argh! My writing must really suck.”
But before you enrol in a writing class, just stop and think for a moment. Your writing style is probably perfectly fine, but what about the structure?
You may look at your work and think how proud your old English Teacher would be—stop right there. That’s your problem. When writing for the web and an online audience, you can forget just about everything learnt during your school days.
You need to spend less time writing and more time thinking about how you structure your work.
Writing for an online audience
There is a peculiarity about writing for the web—most people will only scan a web page rather than read every word.
That’s because they are searching for information and if they can’t find it quickly, they’ll move on to another website.
So the trick is engaging your readers and getting them to stay with you until the bitter end.
How do you do that?
1. Snappy
Your writing should be relatively short (long enough to cover your subject). So if you’re writing about a very complex issue it may be worth breaking it down into several posts. Not only will that make it much easier for your reader to follow, it will also encourage them to return to your site for your subsequent posts.
Also when you’re writing start with your conclusion—sounds odd, but by doing that you are immediately giving your readers what they want. Once you’ve done that, follow up with supporting evidence point by point.
2. White space
Does your finished article, blog post or web copy look like a page from a novel?
If your text is in one long, or several long paragraphs it won’t look very inviting.
Lighten it by increasing the amount of white space on your page. Break it down into small paragraphs (no more than 3 or 4 sentences each).
Or go really mad and use a single sentence paragraph.
3. Sub headings
While you’re following step 2, insert some informative sub headings between your paragraphs. This will help your reader get the gist of your post while they are scanning the page.
4. Bullets
Using bullet points creates interest
Highlights important points
Are instantly scan-able
Draw the reader’s eye as they break up the rest of the text
5. Links
Don’t only use your post to generate links to your own website. If you have researched your content well you’ll probably have an external source to link to. This will show your reader that your information is well considered (and it may also generate a link from your source too).
6. Bold
Use the bold function to pick out important concepts within your post. These, coupled with the sub headings, should help your reader fully understand the topic you are covering and whether it will be of interest to them.
But don’t go mad—you don’t want to confuse your reader.
7. Numbers
Some people have said that the days of the numbered posts—such as “8 Top Tips to Improve Your Copywriting” are gone. But reader’s still love them.
They help to grab attention and, once reading, retain your reader because they’ll want to make sure they learn everything.
8. Check and check again
Before hitting the publish button, read through your work and make sure it makes sense. Do the headings and bolded words make sense and convey the overall concept of your work?
Of course this read-through should also pick up any typos and other errors.
So there you have it—writing informative posts is one thing, but if you want people to read them they must be presented in a way that:
In my role as a copywriter I have harped on frequently about how your website copy should address the needs of your reader. It should be benefits focused and not focused on you.
As a business owner, I know you won’t be able to help yourself. You’ll need an outlet somewhere on your website to shout about you and what you’ve done. As I tell all my clients, that’s what the ‘About Us’ page is for.
It’s your opportunity for the limelight; an opportunity to sell you as a person – so don’t waste it.
Do people really look at the About Us page?
Yes, they do.
It’s an inherent need in all of us to know who we are buying from. We want to know the face behind the business. We want to be reassured they are someone we can trust. And that’s why the About Us page exists. So don’t blow it.
Meaningful
How many times have you read someone’s About Us page only to be completely perplexed. Often you find them written is a very dull and technical way.
Why?
Your reader isn’t going to be impressed just because you know a few technical terms and long words. If your page is to have impact, make the content meaningful. Tell them simply who you are and what your company is about.
Be yourself
Remember what I said earlier? This is your opportunity to sell you as a person. So why do so many people show a stock photo on the About Us page rather than a photo of themselves? Why are you hiding?
If you’re a larger business include a photo of your team. Your reader wants to know who you are so show them.
Be real
Write in a friendly conversational style. Tell your reader why you started your business. The process you went through to develop it into the company it is today. Make it a human interest story – but make sure it is real. Don’t try and pull the wool over your readers’ eyes.
Don’t hide
If you have contact details on this page make sure they are real and accessible. Include a valid email address and telephone number. Show your address and a map – people like to know where you are. If this information is missing they’ll want to know what you’re hiding.
Back it up
To add extra weight to your claims about your business and its service, add in testimonials or sound bites from happy customers. But make sure you reference them – a testimonial without a name is worthless.
The About Us page is very important. It may not be your main sales page but it is there to show your reader who you are and why they should do business with you. So use it to show your human side and connect with them.
Before I get into the nitty gritty of this post I want to clarify something. It saddens me to say the term ‘keyword density’ hasn’t yet been confined to the rubbish bin.
It is a term that’s still freely banded about by ‘SEO experts’ who claim to understand the inner workings of Google. Well if they did, they would know that ‘keyword density’ is nonsense.
Its origins come from this kind of mindset:
“The more I mention a phrase the higher the keyword density; the higher the keyword density the more relevant my page will be to Google. Therefore the more keywords I can cram into my copy the better.”
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
By thinking this way you completely disregard the competition from other pages – so what do you do? Take a look at them, work our their keyword density (total number of words divided by the number of times your phrase is repeated – expressed as a percentage) chuck in a few more instances of your keyword so your density is higher and, bingo! You’ve created the spammiest website known to man.
As a result all legibility, usability and clarity diminish.
If you are a die-hard KD fan and think I’m talking a load of c***p, let me ask you this – if KD was how the search engines calculate the relevancy of your web page, surely all you’d have to do is fill your page with your keywords. But if you did that, no one would use the internet because it would be full of gibberish. Hello? Are you getting it now?
The search engines aren’t stupid. Keyword density is useless – it totally ignores the contextual relevance of your page to your subject matter let alone internal links, back links, navigation, usability etc.
So how do you create SEO copywriting that the search engines love?
Its semantics Jim but not as we know it
Your keywords (and the quality of your keyword research) are important. But you don’t need to stuff your copy with them. When writing naturally you automatically build meaning by using keywords, synonyms, verbs and nouns.
Of course, placing your keywords in optimum places is very important – META tags, title tags, headings (H1 etc), navigation and links. But that alone won’t indicate to the search engines what your page is about.
For example, if you’re writing about ink, you have to give Google some help so it can determine how you are using that term.
The answer is semantics.
How to research related words
There are 2 ways you can go about researching related words. You can either guess, or you can use the Google Tilde Search.
I find the latter works best.
So how do you use it? Well simply type your keyword into Google immediately preceded by the tilde sign (~). You will then see several pages of results with the related terms in bold.
Going back to our word – when you search “~ink” Google shows us the following terms:
Inkjet
Cartridge
Inks
Toner
Paint
Pen
And that’s just from the first two pages of the search results.
Then all you have to do is drill down by picking the relevant terms and doing a Tilde Search on those too. Eventually you will have a list of related words that, when used within your text, will enhance the SEO on your website.
Why you need to know this
I should think that’s pretty obvious!
By using semantics within your website copywriting, you will be boosting the relevance of your pages in Google’s eyes. And the more relevancies you show, the higher your rankings.
But remember, this will only work in conjunction with a well planned SEO strategy.
Your writing has to perform a number of functions simultaneously:
It has to attract traffic
It has to be interesting
It has to capture your readers’ attention
It has to persuade
It has to convince
It has to make your reader buy
As I said, it has to perform a number of tasks which is why you must create powerful website copy that is capable of satisfying all of these needs.
If you merely start writing about your business, awards you have won or your premises you’re not going to capture your reader.
The women’s Rugby World Cup is happening at the moment and the following video illustrates my point. We’ve all seen the All Blacks perform their menacing Haka before every game. Their gesturing, shouting, tongue sticking-out and other shenanegans would certainly make you think twice before approaching any of them.
But I recently saw the Black Fern’s version (that’s New Zealand’s female rugby team) – it’s not quite so scary:
Don’t get me wrong, I still wouldn’t like to face them on a rugby pitch. The closest I get is watching my son on a Sunday morning play for Ipswich – and that’s close enough. But to me it’s more akin to mums at a disco trying to recapture their youth by trying to remember dance steps to the hits of the 80s. Their movements seem to be too gentle to strike fear into the hearts of their opponents.
It’s the same with your web copy. You are competing with a huge number of other businesses on the web so you have got to create copy that will make you stand out from the crowd. And that means just one thing – write about your reader.
Tell them what they want to hear
As people browse websites, they are looking for one simple piece if information – what you’re going to do for them. They aren’t interesting in anything about your company. They are totally self-centred.
So make sure you tell them what they want to hear. If you do, and you address them directly and state the benefits immediately your website will stand out from the crowd.
Why?
Because I see far more sites with bad copy that revolves totally around the company than good sites that address the reader directly and show them precisely how they will benefit.
The easy way to good copy is to find yourself a good freelance copywriter. As they are not directly involved with your company they will be able to look at your products and services from a customer’s point of view. Even if you are the best writer in the world, if you try to write your own copy you will find it very difficult to distance yourself from your company and be completely objective.
Why do you need to know this?
Quite simply because you want your website to:
a) Attract visitors
b) Get people to buy
And the only way you are going to do that is by creating copy that is focused on the reader, tells them what your product or service will do for them (the benefits), and then tells them what to do through a strong call to action.
Whether you’re starting out and setting up an online presence or looking to create some new marketing materials, your success will be determined by their content.
In my role as a 
