Copywriting Makeover: It’s What You Say AND How You Say It, Part 2 of 2

by Karon Thackston © 2007 http://www.copywritingcourse.com/keyword

In Part 1 of this series, I introduced you to Announce It!, an online candy-bar-wrapper manufacturer that was seeking professional help with their search engine copywriting. Facing an audience that consisted primarily of women who were purchasing favors for special occasions, Announce It!’s copy had to be spot-on with its communication. The primary problems were that the copy did not convey a sense of excitement or answer all the questions customers might have. It also focused too heavily on the company rather than communicating with the site visitor.

Let’s see how the changes were worked into the copy and what the results were.

The Rewrite

You can see the original copy at: http://www.copywritingcourse.com/customcandybarwrapper-original.pdf
and the revised copy at: http://www.copywritingcourse.com/customcandybarwrapper-new.pdf.

Headlines are one of the most important elements of advertising copy and of search engine optimization. The original web page didn’t have any type of headline — a fundamental mistake that needed to be corrected. The introduction of the text now begins with using a keyphrase and stating a benefit. The headline reads:
Creative, Custom Candy-bar Wrappers
Designed To Make Your Event a Hit!

Since Announce It!’s keyphrases all deal with candy-bar wrappers, it’s obvious that visitors who find this site are already familiar with the general product. (At least to the point of knowing what a custom candy-bar wrapper is.) The question they still have is, “Why should I buy from Announce It! instead of all the other candy-bar-wrapper sites?”

As the visitors read on through the copy, they find reassurance that their idea of using custom-designed candy-bar wrappers is a good one. Visitors are also provided with several benefits available from Announce It! that other companies don’t offer. For the sake of scan-ability, bullet points are used to further highlight differentiating factors about Announce It!. (Low minimum orders, free color proofs, free photo inclusion, etc.) This all helps to clearly explain why this site is the better choice over others the visitor may have gone to previously.)

Because the product itself is graphic, it was important to retain the product images used on the original home page. Certainly, customers would expect to see samples of the wrappers. However, to create a greater impact, each image was captioned with a short bit of occasion-specific, persuasive, keyword-rich copy. For instance:

“Custom candy wrappers are a truly creative way to send your retiree off in style.”

The finished product now speaks directly to the site visitor, sounds more professional, outlines important benefits and uses keyphrases in an appropriate way so as not to hinder the natural flow of the copy.

The Results

The results showed improvements in both conversions and rankings. According to Announce It! their conversion rate quadrupled! They also report, “[The copy] has really made a difference in the way the site is perceived and how the customer reacts. I have gone from a one-person operation to a full-fledged business with five employees. The traffic and orders continue to increase every year!”

You couldn’t ask for much better than that!

Copy not getting results? Learn to write SEO and online copywriting that impresses the engines and your visitors at http://www.copywritingcourse.com. Already know how to write, but need help using keywords? Get Karon’s report “How To Increase Keyword Saturation (Without Destroying the Flow of Your Copy)” at http://www.copywritingcourse.com/keyword.

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Copywriting Makeover: It’s What You Say AND How You Say It, Part 1 of 2

by Karon Thackston © 2007 http://www.copywritingcourse.com/keyword

The old cliché is wrong. All our lives we’ve heard, “It’s not what you say, but how you say it.” That may occasionally be true, but for the most part it’s what you say AND how you say it. Case in point: Announce It!, a custom candy-bar-wrapper manufacturer, had copy on their home page that was acceptable. It mentioned pretty much all the important things a site visitor would need to know about ordering candy wrappers. Yet the copy wasn’t pulling as well as it should have been.

The Problems

The target audience consists mostly of women. In addition, these women order favors for special occasions. That means (stereotypically speaking) you have people who ask a lot of questions and are especially cautious of buying something they can’t touch, feel or see (in person) for use at a major life event. Communication (what the copy says as well as how it says it) is vital.

The text had to convince women that they could trust Announce It! to produce something they would show off in front of all their family and friends for important occasions such as birthdays, graduations, anniversaries, weddings, showers and more. That meant answering the questions these women have as well as instilling confidence that their party favors would be the hit of the event.

Technically, the copy was OK. But it lacked excitement. No, not hype… excitement. It needed to reach out to women and make them feel welcome while also reinforcing that Announce It! was the perfect solution for them. You can see the original text here: http://www.copywritingcourse.com/customcandybarwrapper-original.pdf

From a search engine standpoint, the site was bouncing around a good bit. According to the site owner, “For a long time, I held the #1 position for many of my keywords. As search engines evolved, my site started bouncing. It was time to hire a professional.”

The Solution

The plan was to make the text more inviting and supportive while providing information that was easy to immediately identify. I wanted to help Announce It! differentiate itself from other candy-bar wrapper and favor sites. That meant making important benefits clearly visible. In addition, a glimmer of excitement would be added to the copy to get the women in the mood to buy.

A complete change of focus for the copy would also happen. Rather than “we” and “us” the copy would be directed toward the visitor while still communicating important benefits about buying from the company.

Lastly, correcting an elementary mistake would help the copy read better and assist with SEO. The hope with SEO was to give Announce It! some stability, as it had a history of bouncing back and forth between the first and second pages in the SERPs.

The overall goal was to increase conversions for this site. As the site owner herself said, “Without conversion, your rankings don’t mean as much. You really have to convert the visitors once they get to your page.” Oh so true!

In Part 2 of this series, we’ll look at the rewrite and the results of this copywriting makeover so you can see firsthand what effect the changes had for Announce It!

Copy not getting results? Learn to write SEO and online copywriting that impresses the engines and your visitors at http://www.copywritingcourse.com. Already know how to write, but need help using keywords? Get Karon’s report “How To Increase Keyword Saturation (Without Destroying the Flow of Your Copy)” at http://www.copywritingcourse.com/keyword.The old cliché is wrong. All our lives we’ve heard, “It’s not what you say, but how you say it.” That may occasionally be true, but for the most part it’s what you say AND how you say it.

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As-Is or Individually - What’s the Best Use of Keyphrases?

by Karon Thackston © 2007 http://www.copywritingcourse.com/keyword

There has been a debate about the use of keywords for years. Many SEO copywriters will tell you that using keyphrases in their entirety is the best practice for getting high rankings. Others insist it really doesn’t matter — that as long as all the individual words within the phrase are used, your copy will do its job. Before we get into whether keyphrases are best used in their entirety or as individual words, let’s sidestep for just a minute to talk about the inner workings of information-retrieval systems (aka search engines).

Straight From the Mouth of Google

Search engines are all about words. That’s their very nature. In fact, Google gives advice to searchers about how to get the best results. Its own Webmaster Guidelines state (among other things):

“Think about the words users would type to find your pages, and make sure that your site actually includes those words within it.”

Taking it one step further, the Google Help Center offers this piece of advice to those using its engine:

“Google looks for the search terms you choose, so ‘luxury hotels Maui’ will probably deliver better results than ‘really nice places to spend the night in Maui.’”

On that same page we also find:

“By default, Google only returns pages that include all of your search terms… Keep in mind that the order in which the terms are typed will affect the search results.”

But it’s not just Google’s website that leads in this direction. The patent filed by Google in March 2005 discusses the background of this invention. A couple of key passages for copywriters to note are:

“…identifies relevant documents based on a comparison of the search query terms to the words contained in the documents.”

and

“Typically, the search engine (Google) accomplishes this by matching the terms in the search query to a corpus of pre-stored web documents. Web documents that contain the user’s search terms are considered ‘hits’ and are returned to the users.”

And, last, but certainly not least, we look to a scientific paper written many years ago by Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page (founders of Google) entitled, “The Anatomy of a Large-scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine.” In it, they describe the core differences between Google and other search engines at the time.

What do the creators of Google say is at its core?

That it “has location information for all hits and so it makes extensive use of proximity in search.”

So, what does all this mean? While you can use the terms of a keyphrase individually, your best bet, by far, is to use the phrase as-is. Why? Because Google (and other engines as well) makes extensive use of proximity. That means Google breaks every Web page it indexes into individual words. It tracks location information for all the hits it stores in its database. Then Google tracks where on the page the words are located in relation to each other.

Again we ask, “Why?” For the sake of relevancy. And we all know Google walks, talks, eats and sleeps relevancy. Take this phrase for example: Apple Laptop Computer.

If you typed that phrase, as-is, into a basic search engine, it could easily return results that include:

• apple orchards
• apple pie recipes
• computer repair
• computer tech support
• used computers

and millions of other, completely irrelevant results. If the engine uses proximity, however, and is looking for the entire phrase (or at least the words as close together as possible and in the same order if possible), you get results that actually deal with the Apple-brand laptop computer. It’s because of all the aspects listed above that Google is able to return highly relevant results. Those include:

• Attempting to match the words in the search query with the words on the page.
• Returning only pages that include all the search terms.
• Looking at the order in which the words are typed.
• Matching the terms in the search query to the terms in the document.
• Making extensive use of proximity.

Can You Do Both?

Will it hurt to use the words within the search phrase individually as long as you also use the phrase as a whole? Absolutely not. In fact, it may even help to do both and to also use a few synonyms and complementary words as well. But remember, you want the keyphrase (or phrases) used as-is more times than not.

Copy not getting results? Learn to write SEO and online copywriting that impresses the engines and your visitors at http://www.copywritingcourse.com. Already know how to write, but need help using keywords? Get Karon’s report “How To Increase Keyword Saturation (Without Destroying the Flow of Your Copy)” at http://www.copywritingcourse.com/keyword.

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Stop the Slaughter of Innocent Copy!

by Karon Thackston © 2007 http://www.copywritingcourse.com/keyword

It’s one of the worst things to ever happen in the search engine copywriting field: the discovery of keyword density. I won’t venture off into a discussion about whether keyword density is still a valid measure of search engine optimized (SEO) copywriting success. I will say, however, that the mere introduction of this concept led to the mutilation and destruction of innocent copy all across the globe. Without any regard to flow or customer experience, website owners around the world began shoving keyphrases into their copy like wild men. The results have been disastrous! Otherwise wonderful content has been utterly destroyed. This slaughter of innocent copy must stop!

All joking aside, the realization several years ago that keyword density was a factor in search engine rankings instantly transformed the landscape of copywriting for the engines. That lone concept lit a fire under people who absolutely butchered their copy for the sake of the engines. A pity really because it doesn’t have to be that way.

Keep It Sounding Natural

One primary goal is to write copy so that the keyphrases are virtually undetectable when read by someone with no knowledge of SEO. One vital step in making this happen is to carefully research and select your keyphrases.

If you’re writing a page about wedding gowns, it would be complicated to include keyphrases such as “wedding reception music” or “wedding caterers.” The amount of traffic these terms might bring would be offset by the awkward fit with the focus of your page. Instead, opt for phrases that lend themselves directly to the topic of wedding gowns.

One common mistake many site owners and newbie copywriters make is to replace every single instance of a generic key term with one of their chosen keyphrases. Doing this in moderation is certainly acceptable, but frequently copywriters get carried away with tragic results.

For example, you would not want to have the following copy on your site:

Whew! I get tired just reading that! Not only is it extremely annoying to read, but also many of the phrases are used incorrectly, making it look as though there are typos on the page. Not a pretty sight!

To keep your copy sounding as natural as possible, you need to think outside the keyword box. Most often, people believe that writing in a similar manner as the example above is the only way to use keywords in copy. Not true! In fact, far from it.

Let me share three of my favorite tips with you for creative writing with keyphrases.

Don’t Use Keyphrases To Describe Your Products/Services

That’s right, I said DON’T use keyphrases to describe your own products or services. Instead, use them to describe what your product or service is not, or what it is similar to or what it is better than.

An example of this is any keyphrase that begins with the word “cheap.” “Cheap insurance,” “cheap sunglasses,” “cheap software” – the list is endless. It’s simply not a good idea to call your own product cheap. Yes, I understand that people are looking for cheap things, but that is because they don’t want to pay a lot. When THEY call your product cheap, it is in relation to price. When YOU call your own product or service cheap, it degrades the product or service’s perceived value.

Instead, let others know that your product is NOT cheap. For example:

Unlike cheap travel insurance offered by other underwriters, our policies have provided long-standing, publicly held companies with a history of exceptional customer service. You get affordable coverage and peace of mind.

The phrase is highly relevant to the page, you get to attract lots of visitors, and the copy is set to convince them that “cheap insurance” isn’t what they really wanted after all.

How about this one? I got an email from a student asking me how to use the phrase “doggie litter box” in his copy even though that was not what he was selling. His product was a replacement for the doggie litter box, so I suggested he use the phrase in exactly that way. Here’s what I would have done:

Here’s a great solution for that messy doggie litter box. Attractive, compact and easy to use even in the smallest apartments, [Name of Product] is destined to replace the doggie litter box forever!

See? You aren’t calling your product a litter box; rather you are positioning yourself against it to show how you are better.

Add A Word

Another frequent stumbling block for SEO copywriters is the use of phrases that seem to end abruptly. In these cases, simply add a word to the end. Here are two examples.

The phrase “web design for small business” seems out of place because, most often, we would use the plural term (small businesses) when we were writing. To correct the problem, just add a plural word to the end of the phrase. Perhaps you might talk about web design for small business startups or web design for small business owners. You get the idea.

Break It Up

When the phrases get too long, it is often best to break them up. Search engines don’t pay attention to standard punctuation marks or line breaks. They read right through periods, commas, semi-colons and the like without hesitation. That means you have a lot more flexibility than you might think.

One keyphrase I had to work with was “Texas Hill Country real estate.” That would get pretty cumbersome if it were left as it is seen there. But by breaking it up with some punctuation, it sounds perfectly natural. Here’s how it can be done.

There is no more beautiful place than the Texas Hill Country. Real estate listings in this area are filled with stunning homes that …

Do you see what happened? I broke the phrase up using a period. In the eyes of the search engines the phrase is still intact. They don’t even notice the period. That period, however, causes the reader to take a mental pause and helps alleviate any repetitive feel to the copy.

If you take the time to look at SEO copywriting as an art rather than an assembly line task, your content will sound more natural, will convert better and will help prevent further additions to the already overcrowded collection of tortured copy everywhere!

Having trouble with natural keyword use in your copy? Karon’s guide “How To Increase Keyword Saturation (Without Destroying the Flow of Your Copy” can help with 11 easy ways to incorporate keywords. Find it at http://www.copywritingcourse.com/keyword.

Back to Web Copywriting Index It’s one of the worst things to ever happen in the search engine copywriting field: the discovery of keyword density. Otherwise wonderful content has been utterly destroyed. This slaughter of innocent copy must stop!

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3 Simple Rules for Creating an Effective USP

by Karon Thackston © 2006 http://www.copywritingcourse.com

You have one, whether you know it or not. Everybody does. There is something unique about your business; you just have to discover what it is. And therein lies the problem. Most business owners and managers don’t understand how to create a truly unique selling proposition (USP). There are specific criteria to consider in order to get your message across clearly and succinctly.

1. Define Your Uniqueness

   Just as the name suggests, a “unique” selling proposition must explain how your company or offer is unique. It’s easy if you have a product that’s new to the marketplace. Everything about it is unique. But what about those companies that have been around for quite a while? Or products that have a great deal of competition? Uniqueness might be more difficult to define.

   Internet access, for example, is very ordinary. The most recognized features are price and speed. But the world leader in Internet access, AOL, has built its reputation based on ease of use. Starting in its earliest days, AOL landed and kept millions of users because they were spoiled. Everything they needed was in one place. No need to have an Internet service provider (ISP) and use a separate email program and a separate browser and a separate instant messaging program. It was all included. Forget that AOL charged twice as much as everyone else, was famous for dropping the connection and had pitiful customer service. They made it easy and that’s what early surfers wanted.

2. Be Specific

   I once landed on a website that presented the following USP at the top of every page. See if you can guess what type of business it was. The USP read something to the effect of, “Helping people live better, healthier lives more efficiently.” Got any ideas? It was a company that provided kitchen equipment of all sorts. The common denominator was that this equipment was primarily used by those who wanted more natural foods. Canners, grain mills, bread machines and the like would be found at this company.

   Do you see how the USP defines their uniqueness in a very specific way? They do help people live better, healthier lives. But the kicker is that they help their customers do this more efficiently. Grinding your own grain for flour, canning your own vegetables and baking your own bread takes a lot of extra time. Most naturalists would be delighted to find products that help them do this in less time.

3. Keep It Short

   USPs are not introductory paragraphs. They are generally a short sentence or two. Don’t ramble. The more concise you are, the better your results will be.

To give you a good idea of what works, let’s look at a few examples

Good USPs

Practically everybody knows the M&Ms’ USP, which also happens to be their marketing slogan: “Melts in your mouth, not in your hands.” How about Domino’s Pizza? Originally, they took the pizza delivery industry by storm with a guaranteed delivery time. Their USP was “We deliver hot, fresh pizza in 30 minutes or less or it’s free.” Their marketing slogan was very similar to their USP. And who could forget Burger King’s USP of quickly giving the customer a handmade burger with whatever they wanted on it. The marketing campaign featured the “have it your way at Burger King” slogan and jingle. All of these are very descriptive, specific and short. Also, they are easy to remember.

If you’ve created a new product or service, ask yourself why. Was it to fulfill needs customers were voicing? Was it to plug a niche nobody else was giving attention to? Those can be the basis for strong USPs.

Make a list of features and benefits. Ask customers what they like best about your company, your product or your service. Compare your offer to what the competition has available. All of these can be excellent brainstorming techniques that may jumpstart your thinking. Before long, lots of unique aspects will come to mind, giving you the basis for writing a strong, descriptive, specific USP.

Copy not getting results? Learn to write SEO and online copywriting that impresses the engines and your visitors at http://www.copywritingcourse.com. Be sure to also check out Karon’s report “How To Increase Keyword Saturation (Without Destroying the Flow of Your Copy)” at http://www.copywritingcourse.com/keyword.

Back to Web Copywriting Index

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Copywriting Makeover: Facts vs Fantasy

by Karon Thackston © 2006 http://www.copywritingcourse.com

Time for a pop quiz! Name three products that sell better when a facts-based approach to copy is taken. Just off the top of my head I’d say computers, fax machines and microwave ovens. Now, name three products that sell best when the copy is romanticized. Travel, fur coats and jewelry are good examples. Knowing when to use facts and when to use fantasy was a problem JuliesJewels.com had on one particular website page. Let’s see how approaching the copy differently brought this e-commerce company greater success.

The Problems

One of the hardest things to learn as a copywriter is which focus or approach to take with copy. There are general guidelines to follow, but experience will tell you that there are almost as many exceptions as there are rules. However, in the case of JuliesJewels.com’s Moissanite jewelry page, it was obvious we had a clear lack of — and a clear need for more — emotion.

For those who may not be acquainted with Moissanite stones, they were originally created in a laboratory by a Nobel Peace Prize-winning scientist. They are made of a replicated mineral that was originally found in a meteorite that crashed to earth thousands of years ago. However, unlike cubic zirconia (CZ), they are extremely hard and do not form a cloudy appearance over time. Moissanite offers the brilliance of a diamond without the flashy price.

Now, the guideline goes: If you have a product that is unfamiliar to the marketplace, you will want to educate your site visitors while you sell to them. However, sometimes “educate” gets confused with “provide facts.” This was one problem Julie’s page suffered from.

As I read the original copy (which you can see here: http://www.copywritingcourse.com/juliesjewels-moissanite-original.pdf) terms like “replica” and “lab” and “wholesale” struck me as cold and undescriptive. Yes, they were absolutely true, but they completely disregarded the wonder and enchantment brought about by one of these manmade diamonds.

While a few words like “beauty” and “lustrous” were included, they did little to help a man feel proud and confident that he was choosing a gorgeous piece his wife or girlfriend would swoon over. It didn’t evoke any emotions in women who lack the funds (and the desire!) to spend thousands on diamonds yet still dream of jewelry that was is unique as they are.

Another challenge was the page’s so-so performance in the search results. Considering how horribly competitive most jewelry terms are with regard to search rankings, Julie’s positioning for this page wasn’t too bad. The Moissanite jewelry page usually bounced between positions 11 and 30 on the major engines. However, the goal was to push the page as high as possible while driving visitors deeper into the category.

The Solutions

The key points that needed to be made on the Moissanite jewelry page were these:

1. Moissanite is the next best thing to a diamond, closely replicating a diamond’s luster, vibrance and quality.
2. Unlike CZs, Moissanite jewels are rare, not a victim of a flooded marketplace.
3. While not considered “cheap,” Moissanite is definitely affordable.

To prepare myself for writing this page, I looked over the various other pages of the Julie’s Jewels site. I wanted to dream a bit about the earrings, rings, necklaces and other pieces I that included Moissanite stones.

As I clicked from page to page, I took notes about what I saw, what I felt and how I reacted to the pictures of the jewels. I also went to various diamond websites. Since Moissanite is almost as hard as diamonds and since it so closely resembles the characteristics of diamonds, many of the adjectives used to describe diamonds would also be applicable to Moissanite stones.

Lastly, I thought about who would be buying these gemstones and why. Perhaps a man who truly wanted to impress his fiancé, but who didn’t have the money to pay for a one-carat or two-carat diamond ring. Maybe a woman who wanted a pendant that was truly exceptional, but didn’t care to pay the extensive markup usually found on diamond jewelry. While the reasons might vary, the common denominators were that beauty and quality mattered as much as price. Once I had a good grasp of the target audience and the products, I set out to write a new category page.

In Part Two of this series, you’ll see how the rewrite unfolded and what those changes accomplished for Julie’s Jewels.

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Opening Sentences That Close the Sale

by Karon Thackston © 2006 http://www.marketingwords.com

It’s one of the best pieces of copywriting advice I’ve ever been given. “As often as possible, start your paragraphs with sentences that hook readers and drive them deeper into the copy.” Why? Because - after the headline - the first sentence in any paragraph is what gets read most often. After that point, customers usually skip to the next section unless they feel compelled to keep reading. That means your job, as the copywriter, is to entice them into each segment, so they will consume as much of your copy as possible.

Take your cue from Reader’s Digest. They crank out - issue after issue - exceptional opening lines for their articles that engage then hook readers. What happens next? The reader is pulled into the story full force. Here are some examples.

It was a horrific display of irreverence.

By the way she dressed, you would have never guessed she was only 14.

As he reached into the box, something inside it moved.

See? Those sentences boost your curiosity. They make you wonder what happens next. They cause you to visualize a scene that might be taking place. You can do the same thing from a marketing perspective when you write your copy.

For instance, rather than starting the copy for an email to Australian hotels like this:

You may be aware of www._______.com – we are an Australian-owned and managed online hotel booking service.

Really capture their attention with an opening sentence that is specific to them like this:

Now you have the opportunity to affordably position your hotel in front of approximately 6,000 travellers every day that are looking for accommodations exclusively in Australia.

For an Australian hotel that depends on the Internet to generate reservations, that sentence gives them many reasons to keep reading.

Here are some other before-and-after examples of opening sentences.

==============

BEFORE: Hello and welcome to our website. If you are looking for [enter product name here], you are at the right site. (In this case, the example is from a wedding photographer’s site.)

AFTER: We don’t take pictures. We capture precious memories that you can enjoy for a lifetime.

==============

BEFORE: Our site has been online since 2000, and this marks our 6th year online providing designer-inspired sunglasses.

AFTER: How do you get the latest designer-inspired looks without paying outrageous prices?

==============

BEFORE: Our cruise website offers unbeatable rates and a diverse array of travel services guaranteed to satisfy even the most discriminating vacationer.

AFTER: Just imagine yourself on the white sand beaches of Honolulu, hiking through the balmy rainforests of Belize or whisking down a powdery, snow-covered mountain in Aspen… all at up to 50% off!

==============

BEFORE: Thank you for shopping for your corporate gifts at _________.com. We hope your shopping experience is delightful.

AFTER: When you truly impress your clients with distinctive corporate gifts, they remember you longer, feel a closer relationship and are more likely to reward you with increased sales.

See the difference? The “before” sentences are dull, average and unflattering. The “after” sentences are intriguing, imaginative and enticing.

Don’t stop after you create inviting headlines. Keep the momentum going by writing intriguing opening sentences, too. When you do, you’ll help convert more site visitors into paying customers.

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Will Longer Keyphrases Hinder the Effectiveness of Your Copy?

by Karon Thackston © 2005 http://www.marketingwords.com

The length of search phrases continues to grow. Back when the Internet was just an upstart, single keywords were the only thing you needed. But in recent years we’ve seen the number of words used in search phrases triple and quadruple. Rather than a single keyword, searchers who live in countries where English is the primary language are now using three- and four-word phrases as a standard, according to Web analytics company, OneStat.com.

While the worldwide average is two words per search phrase, the USA, Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia all show that searchers prefer the use of three- or four-word terms. What does this mean from a copywriting standpoint? Writing with a single keyword in mind is relatively easy. Using two-word terms is a bit more of a challenge. But when you get to three- and four-word phrases, your risk of sounding stiff and awkward increases substantially.

Why Longer Phrases?

Longer search phrases are the natural progression of the Internet population boom. As more and more information is placed online, it becomes increasingly difficult to find exactly what you’re looking for. When there were only a few thousand sites, entering the word “marketing” into a search engine would bring up a handful of sites for you to choose from.

Now, however, you find hundreds of thousands of sites dealing with everything from marketing plans to marketing jobs to university curriculums for marketing degrees. The natural action for copywriters is to follow the search trend of the target audience and use the keyphrases that they use.

That leads us back to our original question… how?

Tips for Writing With Keyphrases

The biggest mistake I find search engine optimization (SEO) copywriters making is attempting to substitute a generic term for a specific keyphrase. For example:

At our Mexico cruise vacation site we offer the best rates on Mexico cruise vacation packages to the most exciting Mexico cruise vacation destinations. Visit our Mexico cruise vacation specials page for deep discounts today!

Or

Welcome to our Chicago web design firm site. If you’re looking for innovative and creative Chicago web design firm, you’ve come to the right place. No other Chicago web design firm has the talent or technological skills to develop the type of high-end sites we do. When you’re ready for a truly professional Chicago web design firm, contact us today.

Oh please! My 10-year-old nephew could write better copy than that. When you substitute generic terms (in this case: site, packages, vacation destinations, vacation specials, etc.) with the specific search phrase, you get a bunch of repetitive, awkward babble. The longer the keyphrases are, the more clunky the copy will sound.

The best advice I can give is to break up some of the mentions of longer keyphrases. Yes, you do need to keep the words of the phrase in the same order most of the time. However by using punctuation and other elements you can still make the phrase appear less obtrusive.

For example, let’s look at our Mexico cruise vacation site again. Rather than using that bunch of fluff written above, try this instead:

Long stretches of sunny beaches, delightful fiestas filled with lively bands and some of the most delicious fresh seafood you’ve ever tasted. Where can you find it? In Mexico! Cruise vacation destinations from Cancun to Cozumel offer some of the most exciting adventures and beautiful scenery found in Mexico.

Cruise vacation specials make these remarkable getaways even more affordable than you might think - etc., etc.

Do you see what was done? Using punctuation, the phrase “Mexico cruise vacation” was broken up between sentences. Because the search engines all but ignore punctuation, they see the phrase as one term. However, the site visitor doesn’t. They don’t notice that the phrase is being repeated because it spans two sentences.

If the trend continues as it has in the past, search phrases will get even longer in the not-so-distant future. However, when you get creative with keyphrase use in your copy, you’ll find longer search terms are not a problem to work with. The length of search phrases continues to grow. Back when the Internet was just an upstart, single keywords were the only thing you needed. But in recent years we’ve seen the number of words used in search phrases triple and quadruple.

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The Purpose and Practice of Writing Successful SEO Articles

I was so excited to read his post! Google-icon Matt Cutts was blogging on August 21st and hit the nail on the head (as he does quite frequently). The title of the post was, “SEO Advice: Writing useful articles that readers will love.” That, in and of itself, says it all. Why is this such a thrilling post? Because it reinforces what I’ve been saying for years. Whether you’re writing content for a website, an article or any type of SEO copy, you must think of the reader first.

There is such a barrage of worthless articles floating around the ‘Net these days. Keyword stuffed, useless ramble that was obviously written with the sole intent of attempting to rank high. Striving for top rankings is not a bad thing, but the purpose of writing SEO articles is threefold not onefold:
provide information, rank high when used on your site and increase link popularity. That means the practice must follow the purpose.

Why Write an Article?

Let’s start at the beginning. Why write articles to begin with? While having SEO content on your site is a good thing, your first concern should be with offering useful information to your readers. Cutts agrees with this practice and makes a point to discuss why providing relevant, helpful information is vital.

If the information isn’t helpful, those who visit your site will have little interest in reading it. Yes, if the page ranks highly, it might bring in a bit of traffic. But if visitors take one look at your article then click away, what good have the high rankings done you?

Likewise, if you choose to distribute your article throughout the Internet, it is highly unlikely that others will elect to run your article on their sites. If your work doesn’t provide solid information and is poorly written, it will not be considered link-worthy.

Optimizing for the Engines

Once you’ve decided what information you want to provide, you can turn your focus to SEO. Copywriting for the engines requires balance. You never want to sacrifice the reader’s experience for the sake of rankings. Stuffing keywords into text is a method that will almost always backfire. Practically no one wants to read an article (or website page) that constantly repeats the same exact terms to the point of extremes.

Cutts also addressed this issue in his blog post, stating that he included keyphrases within his own article and also used similar terms. Cutts made a point of suggesting that we pay more attention to keyphrase use (and the use of variations of those keyphrases) than focusing on keyword density.

The Two Most Important Keys

The two “meta-issues” Cutts highlighted in his article were both related to user experience, not to the practice of SEO copywriting. First, pay attention to the content you offer.
Always impart useful, concrete knowledge to your reader.
Second, study your niche (a.k.a. know your target audience!) and write specifically for the purpose of helping them.

There is other great information included in Cutts’ post, and I encourage you to read it plus the comments that follow. You can find it here:http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/seo-advice-writing-useful-articles-that-readers-will-love.

These are things I (and other SEO pros) have been preaching for years. User first, search engines second. When you get the priority straight, the rest will fall into line without much hassle.

About the author:

Copy not getting results? Learn to write SEO and online copywriting that impresses the engines and your visitors at http://www.copywritingcourse.com. Be sure to also check out Karon’s report “How To Increase Keyword Saturation (Without Destroying the Flow of Your Copy)” at http://www.copywritingcourse.com/keyword.

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Copywriting With Google’s Dynamic Keyword Insertion Tool

Automation is an odd creature. It usually seems, at first glance, that automating a process can make things easier, simpler and faster. But oftentimes, once an automated process is in place, trouble spots pop up. This is sometimes the case when looking at the copywriting aspect of Google’s dynamic keyword insertion tool.

In case you’re unfamiliar with dynamic keyword insertion (DKI), it’s a feature of Google’s AdWords program. It is often used for large campaigns in order to automatically insert the keyword into the headline of an ad. Truly, it’s a lifesaver for many pay-per-click (PPC) ad managers who have to stay on top of thousands of ads every day. It’s all done with a simple syntax command: {keyword:_______}.

From a timesaving standpoint, this is a wonder tool that hasrescued PPC managers from the mind-numbing chore of typing the same keywords over and over. From an economic point-of-view, DKI can (not always) perform well enough to make it a viable option for larger campaigns. But what happens with regard to copywriting and eye tracking?

See It and Click It

The human eye is normally drawn to things that are unusual.

Things that look out of place or different get noticed far more than things that blend in. For instance, on a page full of black text and black & white photographs, a small red square in the bottom corner will get focused on almost immediately. Why?

Because it is completely different than everything else around it.

This same principle applies when considering your copywriting strategy for AdWords. When using DKI, you’ll want to keep your eye on the results pages. Why? We’ve all heard that using the keyphrase in the headline pulls better. It does… most of the time. There is an exception, however. This exception is what you’ll be watching.

In fact, a study done last year by Enquiro, Did-It and Eyetools tracked users’ interactions with the Google search results page.
It found that surfers normally reviewed the page in an F formation. They would scan vertically down the left side of the page and then over to the right (where paid ads are) IF something caught their attention. That’s the point we’ll explore in this article.

In order to get clicks, you first have to get seen. If your ad looks and reads like all the rest, you’ve completely lost your originality advantage.

See For Yourself

Copywriting using DKI is a balancing act. You have to consider several factors, including the character count of your longest keyphrase, your ability to add text to the keyword-rich headline and how the ad looks on the page.

Take a look at some examples below. Remember that AdWords results show differently at various points throughout the day (and in relation to individual account parameters), so you may not see exactly what I saw when doing this research. I’m sure it will be close enough for you to get the idea.

Go to Google and type in the phrase “cruise vacation center” (without using the quote marks). See how all the ads look different? They don’t all have the same words bolded. They don’t all use the same copy. The bold words stand out because they are different. In this case, your eye will usually go first to the ads with bolded words in the headline.

You see ads offering a 6-night cruise for $xx.xx and other ads promoting X% off on a cruise vacation, etc. There is diversity and that’s a good thing.

Now, what if you type in “home improvement”? (Again, without the quotes.) If your results page looks like mine, practically every ad has the exact same headline: home improvement. Not only do most of the ads look the same, the headlines read the same. Your eye doesn’t know where to go because everything seems identical. But wait! About four or five ads down, something catches your eye. It’s an ad that has no bold in the headline. That stands out because it’s different! As you scroll further down the page, more ads with no bold in the headlines pop out at you. In this case, because everyone else has opted for the DKI feature, their headlines are all very similar, making them less noticeable. But the ones who wrote custom headlines won out, thanks to diversity.

Tips for Writing With DKI

If you want or need to write using the DKI option, consider these tips:

1. Use a descriptive word along with your keyphrase. Instead of just inserting the phrase “airline tickets,” place the word “discount” or “cheap” before your keyphrase to help it stand out.
2. For keyphrases that will take the entire 25-character limit, consider using one word of the keyphrase in the headline, instead of the entire phrase. Rather than “home improvement,”
   try inserting just “home” or “improvement” along with other text you write yourself.
3. Keep it applicable. Your headline still has to convey a strong message about what the customer can expect at your site.
4. Test and Track! Everything in advertising is subject to change. Smart marketers always test and track to get the best results.

With a little forethought, you can develop a combination of DKI and custom-written AdWords ads that drive qualified visitors to your site.

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