Predictions about SEO Copywriting

By Karon Thackston © 2009, All Rights Reserved

At this time of year, it’s hard to resist making predictions about what the coming days hold. Financial analysts, doctors, politicians and experts from virtually every industry in the world give insights into what they think may happen during the course of the next 12 months. Although my mother always warned me about following the crowd, I’ll chip my two cents into the pot anyway and give you a couple of predictions about the future of SEO copywriting.

Looking Back Before Gazing Forward

In the beginning was the word. The keyword, that is. And when it was placed into the keyword META tag of any web page, that page received high rankings. Then the Internet boom raged throughout Cybertown. It soon became a greater challenge to rank in the coveted top 10. Enter search engine copywriting.

As algorithms changed, a need arose to use keywords (and soon,
keyphrases) throughout a page’s copy in addition to its tag set.
Here’s where typical Internet behavior set in. The online marketing mindset that is so common took hold: If one is good – 1,000 is better. Well-meaning copywriters began to shove keyphrases into existing text willy-nilly. It didn’t take long before site owners and their customers began to baulk at the way SEO copywriting sounded.

But, with theories about keyword density and fears of keyword stuffing floating through Cyberspace, copywriters did their best to find balance.

Coming Full Circle

Due to unceasing demand by site owners for copy that sounded natural while still being optimized, SEO copywriters began to flush out ways to write content that didn’t sound “like that.”
And so, we came full circle – from virgin copy that was written exclusively for the site visitor to copy that was butchered horribly in the name of higher rankings to natural-sounding SEO copy that pleased everyone.

Seems as though all is well and SEO copywriting has settled into an acceptable balance, right? Yes. But other changes were taking place behind the scenes that should influence the future of SEO copy.

Search Engines Get New Skills

Along the way, Google and other engines have been picking up new skills for indexing and evaluating copy. Many years ago, Yahoo!
and other engines gained the ability to read PDF files. As time went on, SEO taboos – including frames and the dreaded Flash – became less fearsome as engines adapted, acquiring the technology to read these formats as well.

Prediction #1 about SEO copywriting is this: Search engines will begin to index the copy that is superimposed on the screen of videos, in video voiceovers and in audio clips. The technology actually already exists for the most part. Closed captioning for the hearing impaired could easily be adapted for this purpose. Search engine copywriters take note: You’ll soon be asked to write optimized voiceover and audio scripts.

Rather than simply optimizing the web page that hosts these files, the scripts themselves will require a search engine touch. This will make it all the more imperative that copy be written naturally. It is annoying enough to read something like
this:

Texas Web Design Firm in Dallas, Texas

Welcome to our Texas web design site. Our Texas web design staff is highly skilled in creating beautiful and functional sites. When you need a Texas web design firm to help build your Internet presence, one of our Texas web design specialists will be glad to speak with you.

Ugh! Can you just imagine having those words spoken as part of a voiceover? The old tip of reading your copy out loud to see how natural it sounds will absolutely become standard practice once scripts are indexed.

Prediction #2: Latent semantic indexing will continue to evolve, making the use of synonyms in SEO copy vital. Early in 2008, Google announced it was indexing synonyms (although not heavily from what I’ve seen). I think this practice will be put into full force in the next year or two. For example, we’ll begin to see results from a search for “handbags” that contain that term as well as “purse,” “pocketbook” and “bag.”

I also believe that Google and other search engines will consider the overall context of a page more, in addition to the keywords and phrases that are used. Hopefully this will alleviate much of the elementary SEO copywriting that goes on now. (See Texas example above.)

As with everything online, change is inevitable. While certain core practices and techniques will remain foundational to SEO copywriting, advancements in search technology and site visitor preferences will continue to alter the face of this copywriting niche. Adjust, adapt, advance!

See Karon Thackston live in Boston April 2-3, 2009. Get info at http://www.highrankings.com/seo-workshops Or buy Karon’s SEO copywriting course and learn at your own pace.
http://www.copywritingcourse.com

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Overcoming a Common Pitfall for Ecommerce Home Pages

By Karon Thackston © 2008, All Rights Reserved

It was a typical request: one I’ve gotten from many e-commerce site owners because the vast majority make the same mistake. An online business owner emailed me last week asking for help with his conversions. His search engine rankings were good, but his conversions were lacking. At his request, I spent some time on his site and compiled a list of my thoughts, a few suggestions and a quote for making it all happen. What I found on this home page was typical of many other e-commerce sites I’ve worked on.

There was a severe lack of benefits-oriented copy.

The website was very well designed and extremely professional looking. With rotating images in the upper-left corner, visitors would quickly get a wonderful idea of the beauty and functionality of the furniture this company manufactured and sells. What they wouldn’t get, however, was information about the benefits and the differentiating elements that set this online retailer apart from all the others.

A tag line, the announcement of a sale and text links were the only visible copy on the home page that fell above the fold. Way down at the very bottom of the page, in a font color that was just a few shades darker than the light tan background, was a single paragraph of copy. There – if the visitor ever got that far – he/she would find several benefits.

One of their biggest differentiating factors was that these pieces of furniture were available exclusively from the manufacturer. About 81% percent of consumers look for information on the Web before buying in a brick-and-mortar store, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

Letting site visitors know they won’t find these incredible pieces in any other store would have a big impact on their purchasing decision.

Likewise, these cabinets are engineered with ample ventilation to protect the wood and your TV set. Plus, they provide wider and deeper shelves than most others, leaving plenty of room for your television.

Another vital point is that this online store offers free shipping and in-home setup. While that was stated on the home page, the mentions were located on infrequently viewed parts of the page.

Will Copy Ruin My Design?

One concern with e-commerce sites is that copy will ruin the graphical design of the page. After all, buying online means shoppers want to see what they are getting. That’s perfectly understandable. But, with a little creativity, it is quite simple to add copy. Remember: Not all the copy has to appear in the same place. There is no need for 200 words of text right in the middle of your home page.

You can simply put a sentence or two here and a sentence or two there. The goal is to provide the visitor with the information he/she needs to answer the most pressing question of all: “Why should I buy from your site instead of the other 21,000 I’ve found online?”

A headline up top, a strategically placed paragraph and a caption under a photo are sometimes all it takes to communicate to your customers why they should choose you. In addition, you’ll get a boost with the engines from placing keyword-optimized copy on the page.

The next time you decide to take an ax to the copy on the home page of your e-commerce site, remember that customers aren’t mind readers. If you can’t make it easy – right off the bat – for them to grace you with their business, your conversion rate will likely never reach the level you desire.

See Karon live at a half-day copywriting workshop in the Boston area April 2-3, 2009. Keyword research, social media and analytics also offered. Get details and register today at http://www.highrankings.com/seo-workshops.

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How Poor Usability Can Kill Your Copy and Conversions

By Karon Thackston © 2008, All Rights Reserved

It’s funny how we, as website owners, don’t always think like our visitors. A course of action that might seem perfectly obvious to us may stop our visitors right in the middle of their buying process. Take, for instance, e-commerce–type copy. Do you realize that what happens after your customers read your copy could make or break your sale? I’m not talking about shopping cart abandonment. I’m talking about good communication that keeps the buying cycle moving forward. Let me give you a real-world example.

One website offered custom-designed gift bags. The photos on their site were gorgeous. The copy seemed self-explanatory until I got to the request for quote page. There I found a form that asked questions I wasn’t expecting. I was supposed to explain my preference of fabric color, the type of handle I wanted and a description of any accessories that should be added to the bag.
I had no idea how to answer.

Because the copy stated that each gift bag was custom designed, I assumed I’d be given options to choose from. Instead, as it turned out, I was responsible for knowing precisely what I wanted and also for describing it in detail in writing on the request for quote form. It set me back a little.

Since most people aren’t very comfortable with writing, I can easily see how a page like this would immediately stop visitors and send them packing. I could place the most compelling copy ever written on the sales page for these bags – copy that would have visitors primed and ready to whip out their credit cards.
But after clicking to a request for quote page like the one described above, most would likely not order.

Would that be the fault of the copywriting? No. Yet most site owners would assume the text wasn’t doing its job. Low conversions, in this case, would be an error in the sales process.

Web Page Copy Doesn’t Involve Just One Page

Unless you’re talking about a specific landing page that is created for the sole purpose of receiving clicks from a targeted PPC ad campaign, there are very few instances where the copy on one web page won’t be affected by the pages around it.

Visitors click in and out of pages and back and forth throughout your site. They can also enter your site from literally hundreds of different links around the Net. For this and other reasons, you have to consider where they might come from and where they’ll be headed.

How to Test

One of the best ways to make sure your site flows as it should is to ask several outsiders to take a tour. Have them start at one of the many beginning points (a search engine listing, a link to you from another site, your home page, etc.) and click through just as a customer would. Ask them to make notes about what they didn’t understand as they go along so you’ll know where to tweak your copy.

You may even choose to give them specific tasks to complete while they are there. For example, ask them to read the copy and then explain the benefits of a new product or service you’ve added, or ask them to tell you the process for registering for the members-only area of your site.

Another good idea is to draw a flowchart of your website. Seeing all the pages on paper can oftentimes give you a better understanding of how the copy on each page might affect all the others surrounding it. Once you take a look at the big picture and get some feedback, use that information to shore up the weak copy on your site.

When you take time to see things from your visitors’ perspective and then implement adjustments accordingly, you’ll begin to notice increases in conversions. And that makes all the work worth your while.

Let Karon provide emotionally driven web copywriting for your site. Get details at http://www.marketingwords.com. Read Karon’s insightful copywriting blog at http://www.marketingwords.com/blog.

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Do Article Sites Provide “Quality” Links?

By Karon Thackston © 2008, All Rights Reserved

It’s still a buzz industry even after all these years. Usually, with Internet marketing, someone comes up with a good idea that quickly gets abused and run into the ground. After a short burn, it dies off like a supernova. However, article distribution has held its own because of several factors, not the least of which is its ability to generate links.

As a copywriter, I produce many articles each month for clients that help them achieve several online marketing goals, including building link popularity. But, lately, questions about the quality of the links from article sites have come into question. I have my own opinions, which I’ll get to in a moment, but I also wanted to check with some well-known and trusted industry sources, so I sent out a couple of emails to a few friends. Below are their responses to the questions:

Are links from article directories still worth having or have they lost their impact? In essence, is it still worth doing article distribution from an SEO perspective to get links from directories?

You can’t talk about article submissions without bringing up one of the oldest and most respected sites online: http://www.ideamarketers.com IdeaMarketers.com. Owner Marnie Pehrson first launched this site way back in 1998 before the Internet gave much thought to marketing through articles. As times have radically changed, Marnie has kept pace making unique and important changes to her site.

When asked the questions above, Marnie responded, “Whether it’s an article directory or any other high-traffic/well-established site, a link prominently displayed on an authoritative site is a good link. Lumping all article submission sites together is rather unfair because they are all certainly not the same.

“Many have pitiful PageRank and bury your article deep within their pages to boot. That’s why we implemented our bidding system at IdeaMarketers. You have the chance to be featured on pages that search engines give more weight to. We include anchor text links in the listings as well, which makes them all the more valuable. So, while some links from poor-quality article directory sites are most likely not worth much, linksfrom well-established heavy hitters can still help your link popularity.”

You might be thinking, Of course an article directory site owner would say that! But, she happens to be right. There are a slew of cheap, fly-by-night article sites online that are literally here one day and gone the next. There are still more that stay active for a while, then slowly grind to a halt. When you check the last time they added any articles to the mix, you might find it was 2006. Your focus needs to be on quality, active sites. One prominent linking pro agrees.

Does http://www.alliance-link.comlink-building specialist Debra Mastaler from Alliance-Link think article distribution still has merit? “Yes, it’s still worth using the article directories as a way to accumulate inbound links. Links embedded in your content will pass link popularity, provided the directory pages they’re sitting on have been indexed.

“Mix up your anchor text and use links to your internal pages as well as your home page. Doing so helps stream link popularity and visitors to your revenue-producing product pages.”

Tips for Effective Article Distribution

I said I’d give my two cents worth, so here it is: I agree with Marnie and Debra. You can’t stereotype all article submission sites. You have to pick and choose. As I discussed in my previous article about http://www.marketingwords.com/blog/?p=5 duplicate content issues with article distribution, there are things you can do to improve your success. In addition to the three tips given here:

• avoid article-blaster software
• only use sites that allow HTML and
• establish the article on your own site prior to distributing, you can also:

Choose Quality Sites – While most PageRank (PR) indicators are not accurate, they can give you a general idea of where a site stands. Choose sites with a minimum PR of 3.

Check for Updates – When is the last time a particular article site added content? They normally print the published date for each article. Flip through a few categories and make sure the site is timely.

Find Backlinks – Using sites that have lots of traffic pointed in its direction is always a good idea. After all, while SEO is a wonderful benefit of article marketing, establishing yourself as an expert and branding your company are prime perks as well. Nobody wants to place articles on distribution sites and have them sit, unused, for eternity. The entire goal is to use high-traffic sites that allow others to find and reprint your material. Aim for sites with plenty of backlinks.

Article marketing has been an exceptional way to get the word out long before the Internet burst onto the scene. When you add the ability to build link popularity to the enormous exposure that’s possible with this type of promotion, you get a highly effective method that drives traffic, positions you as an expert, reinforces your brand and allows for infinite promotion of your business. Pretty darn good deal, if you ask me!

Karon Thackston is developer of Article Marketing & Distribution, a course available exclusively at Search Engine College. Take Karon’s course today at http://www.searchenginecollege.com/article-marketing-distribution-course.shtml.

Subscribe to Karon’s copywriting blog athttp://www.marketingwords.com/blog.

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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.

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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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