Copywriting and Website Content – Page 2

What Is the Most Interesting Thing About You?

No law firm would ever use cat videos to attract customers (I think).

A website that is interesting gets a lot of hits. For the entrepreneur, that interest can translate into money.

A Hundred Million Views

If you remember back to grade school, you might recall that being too interesting resulted in a time out. In that situation, the culprit drew attention away from teaching, which wasn’t ideal. When it comes to the Internet, the picture is vastly different. Imagine your grade school classroom again but this time filled with a hundred million students. Your raised hand would mean nothing. However, if you stood on your desk and did a silly dance, well then, then you’d have something.

Attracting Attention on the Internet

With the classroom image above, you perhaps imagined a host of classmates turning your way as you danced. You could, if your dance was crazy enough, even attract the attention of your teacher, Mrs. Googlestein. The example demonstrates rather well the value of being interesting on the Internet. The more interesting you are, the more of your classmates you will attract.

What Is Interesting About Your Business?

If you are using the Internet to showcase your business, –and who isn’t –you will probably not be able to use too many antics to attract attention. No law firm would ever use cat videos to attract customers (I think). What remains to you are the features of your business type. What about your business is the most interesting? What do people need from you? A solution to a problem is very interesting. For the lawyer, getting out from under a lawsuit is pretty attractive bait. Anyone in that situation wants answers and solutions. A good start is to decide what people need from you and how you can solve their problems. That may very well be the most interesting thing about your business.

Dazzle Them with Your Wits

If you can’t be the class clown, then you will have to dazzle them with your wits. Lead with what you do best and how you are going to help them. Even if that help is providing the coolest blender they’ve ever seen, that’s still help.

Lead Visitors Smoothly to a Transaction

A seamless approach would lead visitors from a link that describes what you have to offer to the page that offers it. The introduction would welcome them and then the following text would walk them into your world. Needs and wants are interesting. They keep us hooked. Present the solution; offer something new or a twist that lets them know you’ve got the solution that will satisfy their desire. A smooth flow through your site will lead to a point of transaction, whether it be a sign up, a purchase, or a some other action.

Getting Noticed on the Internet

Being interesting is fun, but it’s also important for business. Shoot for the stars and try to make that viral video that will draw millions of hits. There’s no harm in trying. In the meantime, put what people need upfront, showcase your strengths, and solve visitor problems. Each time you help a visitor, you will gain goodwill and the potential for further visits and word of mouth. Once you turn enough heads, Mrs. Googlestein will notice you too.

The Difficult Simplicity of SEO

The more writing you have on your site, the better it will perform with search engines.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the craft of arranging the data on your webpage so that it appeals to search engines, thus raising your ranking with them. The goal is to appear as close to the top of the first page of search results as possible.

The Technical Side of SEO

SEO has a technical side. It requires using keywords in proper numbers, employing proper text such as headings, bold type, quotations, and italics, and includes behind the scenes data entry, known as meta-data. The depths that people will go to optimize their site varies. Some will go quite far. To complicate matters, the means to achieve good SEO frequently changes and is often debated by experts.

Major Search Engines Want to Deliver Quality

Browsers want their results to be valuable to the public. Companies such as Google, Bing, Yahoo, Silk, Safari, and numerous others constantly evaluate sites to determine their value. They rank websites’ importance and display them in accordance with that rank. That means bad SEO will put you at the back of the line and good SEO will put you at the front. The simple economics of the situation is that good SEO grants the potential to earn more money.

SEO and Metadata

A fair portion of SEO should fall in the hands of a website programmer. That person should craft all the metadata that goes behind the scenes on the site. Before all the user-visible information gets added, the programmer should have set up the site to win. Unfortunately, the metadata can’t carry the entire load. What goes on the visible end of the site matters a great deal.

Bounce Rates Determine Value

Search engines used to rely heavily on metadata, but that led to problems. Unscrupulous websites used metadata to trick browsers and gain visitors that had no need for their services. The major browser companies did not take kindly to the deception. That’s why, nowadays, you hear about the importance of bounce rates. A bounce is when a visitor comes to your site then leaves immediately. Giving poor ratings to sites with high bounce rates is intended to curb false or misleading links and metadata.

Metadata Is Only Part of the SEO Picture

Along with evaluating bounce rates, browsers also downgraded the importance of metadata. Browsers want the value of the site to be high to visitors, not bots or algorithms that read the site. While they still use metadata -or so we hope –they now rely more heavily on the visual side of the site to determine its value.

Browsers Read What You Write

Major browsers use the writing on your site to determine its intended goal and its value. The writing should describe your purpose. It should employ words that people use when searching for what you offer. When a person or a bot finishes reading one of your webpages, no doubt should remain as to its purpose. If not, you lose with both the bot and the person.

The More Writing, the Better the SEO

The more writing you have on your site, the better it will perform with search engines. First, the bots have more to read and so can better determine your true purpose. Second, the more writing you have, the more different ways people can find you. With more writing, you cover more subjects and more potential search words. Simply put, you have a chance to show up more. That’s why it’s a good idea to have plenty of writing one a page, have plenty of pages on your site, and to have a blog.

SEO Is Easier Than It Used To Be

SEO is easier than it used to be because it now relies on writing that’s appealing to the visitor. Instead of complex manipulation of metadata, website owners can extend their reach by presenting visitors with good website content and clear descriptions. Simply by sharing knowledge in a blog helps search engines to define the site and determine its value. The more a website shares, the more likely it is to be shared, and that includes the search engines. That means that nowadays, good writing, and lots of it, is good SEO.

Your Reputation Rests on Your Landing Page

When your target is that specific, what you put on that page becomes all the more important.

Landing pages serve the purpose of greeting visitors after they have clicked a link to a product or service. Plenty of times, a landing page is the home page. When that’s so, the tech of home pages applies. Just as often, however, landing pages often take visitors to the exact product or service of their interest. Those pages are deceptively simple. They present the product and little else. When your target is that specific, what you put on that page becomes all the more important.

Bounces from Landing Pages Ruin Your Reputation

Landing pages need to present exactly what the link to them suggests. A visitor who sees something other than what the link promised is going to leave very quickly. You will get a one or two second visit. That’s called a bounce. When Google, or any other browser, records a high percentage of bounces, they downgrade the value of that website. That page will receive fewer and fewer visits. No one wants that.

Lead Page Visitors toward Your Goal

While pictures serve as an ideal way to assure visitors they’ve arrived at the right place, your writing has to do so also. After the visitor realizes they’re on the page they want to be, they next look for information. That information should be well organized and suited to lead the person forward toward the goal you set up that page to accomplish. That goal might be to render information or to sell something. Either way, the page needs to clearly and easily provide the solution to the visitor. The better it does so, the longer they will stay or the quicker they will buy.

Successful Sales Improve Your Reputation

A swift visit to a page followed by a purchase is most certainly not a bounce. In contrast to bounces, purchases will gain you a reputation with browsers for being valuable to visitors. When you gain that kind of reputation, browsers become more willing to present your site as a valid option to individuals searching the Internet.

Everyone Wins with Good Landing Pages

The language on a landing page should first greet the visitor and then provide solutions. When you do that, your page visitor wins, and that means you win too. Make sure your landing pages are well-written to satisfy customers. You will gain more visits over time and improve your reputation with both visitors and web browser services.

Customer Education Leads to Services Sold

Clients who understand your services convert into sales.

Services need explanations, some more than others. When it is difficult to describe the service, an educational step is necessary. When the service is widely understood, then the details get a front row seat. At any end of that spectrum, and all the points in between, a good service description leads prospective clients through the introductory process toward a purchase.

Clients who understand your services convert into sales.

Describing Complex Services

Describing a complex service to prospective customers is a delicate process. You have to lead them toward understanding at a level that is easy to follow. For some industries, like IT solution providers, that’s not always easy. The running joke of “nobody understands the Cloud” is a perfect example. At the present day level of IT solutions, the cloud is old news. Innovations and new ways to use cloud functions now constitute their primary services. The IT Solutions Industry has a lot of untapped client potential, many of whom are unaware of what’s available.

To create a need for services that people don’t understand or don’t even know exist, companies have to overcome the barrier of understanding. Service descriptions will, of course, describe why the prospective client needs the service. Sometimes solving customer problems is enough. Other times, companies must deliver a measure of education to nudge customers across the line. Service descriptions can do both.

Describing Simple Services

Simple services can still bear some explanation. The problem with a service that “everyone understands” is that of customer assumptions. A service description puts your services into writing, describing exactly what you provide. An accountant who offers tax preparation services might have to have an uncomfortable conversation with a customer arriving with a stack of unsorted financial records. Some explanation of services is always necessary.

Streamline Services with Descriptions

You can streamline services with well-written descriptions. If you offer a variety of services, your descriptions should lay out each with precision. When the visitors to your site are finished reading, they should know exactly what your services are. With succinct service descriptions, your customers are left to simply say, “I want that one.”

Customer Understanding Leads to Sales

When a customer understands your services, they are capable of making decisions. Your service descriptions will put them in that position. While an IT solution provider might have to put forward a bit of writing to educate their clients, it is well worth it. That educated client is afterward ready to choose. The same is true for any other type of service offered. With you as the authority, potential clients are more inclined to choose your services than someone else’s. Well-written service descriptions lead customers a purchasing decision.

Product Descriptions Close Sales

A product description is always part of an online sales cycle.

The post reads “4500sqft, mountain view, central air, attached garage.” I’m ashamed to admit that I’m a bit interested. My needs and wants are bullet-pointed in one sentence. While this info-bite has its logical place in the scheme of things, it pales in comparison to a fully developed product description. A sentence like that might gain a clicked link (which is fantastic!), but it doesn’t close the sale. That’s the job of product descriptions.

Familiarity with Products Doesn’t Equal Good Descriptions

The times I have sat down beside frustrated clients who can’t seem to find the right words are too many to count. Whether it is an email, a newsletter, a bio, or a product description, their level of expertise has offered them no help. I approach that problem with a healthy level of understanding. Sometimes it’s hard to translate thoughts into the words you want to hear.

Good Product Descriptions Show Affinity for the Product

A good product description has numerous elements. It speaks with a voice of product familiarity. It suggests authority. The most alluring aspect of a product description for a reader, however, is the emotional message delivered. Does the computer company solve the problems of a growing business with products that appear to excite the one who wrote the description? It should. That enthusiasm translates easily to the reader. Does the vacation rental sound like the kind of place that will melt all your troubles away? If the written word suggests such a place, the reader will dream of being there. When affinity for the product shines forth from the written page, it sells.

The Power of Concise Product Descriptions

One of the first things that jumps out at me when reading client first drafts of product descriptions is excess words. It is so natural to add the flourishes that we use when speaking. Good product descriptions don’t use those. Powerful descriptions give the pertinent data and exclude all else. Does that make for dry writing? Not at all. Concise writing creates powerful descriptions that communicate facts and desired emotional content better than writing with unintentional additives.

The Sales Cycle Inside of Product Descriptions

The subject of sales cycles has been approached by many experts. Volumes of books, blogs, speaking circuits, podcasts, and other media are dedicated to it. It should come as no surprise that a product description is an encapsulated sales cycle. It most definitely appears amid a larger cycle but, in and of itself, it contains its own cycle. A product description can;

Qualify the prospect
Present the product (in detail)
Answer questions
Overcome objections
Provide an expert opinion.

However, I like to suggest another sales cycle. The reader begins by being interested in the product. The product description then follows this cycle; interested, more interested, even more interested, “I want that.” A bit over simplified, to be sure, and experts on the matter will surely laugh or shake their heads. The above bullet points however, do manifest with interest. Interest and a decision are always the goals of a sales cycle. A good product description contains elements that bring that about.

A product description is always part of an online sales cycle.

Product Descriptions Are Indispensable Sales Tools

Knowing the product well does not always lead to a good product description. Well-written product descriptions communicate an affinity for the product in precise words. They instill a desire in the reader. Product descriptions as part of an online sales cycle are indispensable. Make sure your descriptions read well, communicate the necessary facts, and get your site visitor to say, “I want that.”

Organize to Retain Website Visitors

A web page should have a navigation bar, an introduction of the site’s purpose, and items of targeted interest set in organized patterns.

A well-organized website is key to retaining visitor attention. The numbers of ways to achieve that are many. However, a few important items need to be present. The page should be organized, informative, inviting. The ways to do that are also wide and varied, but here are a few simple principles to guide you.

An Organized Website

Have you ever visited a webpage that made you cock your head back because it had volumes of information scattered across the screen in seeming chaos? You didn’t know where to look. The page had no anchors for your attention to fix upon. That is a situation to avoid.

A web page should have a navigation bar, an introduction of the site’s purpose, and items of targeted interest set in organized patterns.

Navigation Bars

If your website is ultra-simple, you might not need the navigation bar, but if so, you actually might just have landing page. That’s okay. Landing pages are valuable. However, if you have any information that needs categorization, a navigation bar is essential. Those navigation buttons can lead to other pages or they can lead to headings on the same page. Either way, navigation eliminates unwanted confusion.

Statement of Site Purpose

You site should let people know its purpose immediately. Sometimes the name is enough, if you’ve chosen your domain name well. A beach rental company with the name of their city is a good example. The title tells you where you’ve landed –probably before you arrive. However, even with something generally understood like a CPA firm, some clarification is a good idea. What does that CPA firm specialize in? Is it tax preparation or financial reviews? A simple statement in the header or at the top of the page is all you need to satisfy visitors that they have arrived at the right place.

Organized Site Data

The organization of the data on the page is very important. Numerous schools of thought exist on what should come first, where pictures should appear, and so on. However, the key word is organization. The visitor should not have to spend more than a second or two searching for something to land their gaze. “White Space” is essential. Your page should not be a sea of never ending text. It should have headings and clearly defined bites of information. Even without images, a well-defined, clearly spaced text-only page can appeal to the eye. Avoid any appearance of overwhelming amounts of information. As with the page title, the following nuggets of information should clearly describe what they are at the top.

An Informative Website

An informative website rewards visitors. They click on the link in search of answers or a desire. Your website should satisfy those with its content. If someone seeks houses for sale, your realtor site should show some houses that are for sale –or at least provide links to those houses. An IT solutions provider should lead with solutions. What computer upgrade issues do startups ordinarily face during growth spurts? Those visitors will want answers immediately upon arrival.

Provide the answers to visitor needs right away. Use your page statement of purpose, the navigation bar, and the organized segments of data below on the page. With all of those in view “above the fold,” visitors will realize that your website is worth their time. When done well, the visitor might actually gain a few answers or solutions before they have a chance to dig further. It’s okay to resolve visitors’ problems right away. You just established yourself as an expert and increased your chances of securing a new client or follower.

An Inviting Website

Creating an inviting website takes some technical know-how, but beyond that it becomes an art. What colors do you choose, and what font? Employing the above guidelines, you will already have created a site that pulls readers forward, and that, in itself, is an invitation to visitors.

Navigation Bar Placement

Placement of links would be the technical aspect of creating your site. Will your navigation bar go across the top or down the side? The layout of your website might guide your decision. If not, let your website programmer help you out.

Website Backgrounds Matter

What background will you use? Law firms and accountants often use strong authoritative colors. Beach rentals might mimic sand and sea. Whatever you choose, it should make reading easy. Don’t use a chaotic or overly-busy background. No amount of white space will cure that error.

Lead Visitors to Greater Understanding

When you offer an enticing bit of information, create a link that will provide visitors with more information. The following page will satisfy their interest and educate them on what you provide. It might also make them a better-informed customer. That’s a good thing, especially when you’re the one providing the answers. Few things are more inviting than the resolution to ones problems. Is it fair game to create teasing or enticing lines in your links? You bet it is.

Creating Future Customers with a Well-Organized Website

When you provide services or products, having a website just isn’t enough anymore. You have to have an edge. The first advancement is to have a well-organized site that gives visitors the idea they’ve come to the right place. Organization makes people feel safe. Clearly placed blocks of information offer ease-of-use to visitors. When those blocks of information serve to inform and satisfy, you’ve won the interest of the visitor. Once there, invitations to dig deeper, find out more, and become and educated customer might very well be irresistible. Take a moment to compare you site to these guidelines. A few tweaks could create welcome changes to your next visitors.