Archive for the ‘Web Copywriting’ Category

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Captain America’s Guide to Creating Killer Blog Titles

Tuesday, July 12th, 2011

Captain AmericaEverything I learned about creating compelling blog titles I learned from Captain America, the First Avenger.

No, not really.

Today a link to a post passed through my inbox: Bruce Springsteen’s Guide to Social Media Marketing. The actual post title was titled Baby, We Were Born to Market: Springsteen on Social Media Marketing.

I’ve seen a number of this type of post recently, and before that, books such as All I Really Need to Know I Learned from Watching Star Trek and The Tao of Pooh. It got me thinking.

The faux-celebrity endorsement is a clever way to cut through the data smog of social media, and target to a niche audience. (Although I’d argue that these days neither Springsteen, Trek or Pooh are exactly “niche.”) There are only a gazillion (give or take) top 10 lists in the blogosphere right now, and your next one might not get noticed. That is, unless the Dark Knight, Daisy Lowe, or Chupacabra get behind it and give it a little push. (All three are trending topics on Google as I write this blog post.)

The format is simple: take an icon that is relevant to your audience and connect it to your business or message.

  • Killer [blank] Tactics from [celebrity].
  • Everything I Learned Came from [favorite childhood TV show.]
  • [Disgraced politician's] Guide to How NOT to do [something].

You get the idea. You can take your own top 10 list and just filter it through the songs, episodes, or credo of your favorite band, celebrity or superhero. If possible, tie it into something that’s in the news, (Everything I Learned About Twitter I Learned by Ignoring Anthony Weiner), pop culture (Hal Jordan’s Guide to Sustainability: He’s not the Green Lantern for Nothing) or a holiday, (The 11 Scariest Hiring Mistakes for Halloween.)

Once your blog post (or video) is up, you could market this further by taking out a targeted Facebook ad. Did you just post The Where The Wild Things Are Guide to Corporate Events? Buy some Facebook ads of people who are in marketing and “like” Maurice Sendak or Spike Jonze. Rinse and repeat.

BTW, I was originally going to use Spider-Man’s name in this post–my personal favorite–until I found The Amazing Spider-Man Guide to Responsible Word Power over at Copyblogger.

Rich Brooks
With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility

Photo Credit: Andy Roth

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Posted in Business Blogs and Blog Marketing, Search Engine Marketing, Web Copywriting | 2 Comments »


How to Get Content Ideas with Google’s Wonder Wheel

Tuesday, June 21st, 2011

Zombie Wheel. Er, I mean Wonder Wheel on Zombie Survival.Generate keyword-rich content for your website, blog, email newsletters and YouTube videos by using Google’s Wonder Wheel.

If you’re interested in increasing your online visibility, then you need to create quality content that engages your audience. There are many channels that you can use to distribute this content: your website, your blog, an email newsletter, online videos, photo sharing sites, social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, webinars, ebooks and more.

Many businesses struggle with how to create new content after they exhaust a few obvious topics. However, there are plenty of online tools that businesses can use to drill deeper, to find more long-tail search terms that they blog about or could create a webinar that would attract new business.

One of the tools that helps accomplish this–and is fun to play with as well–is Google’s Wonder Wheel. It’s a mashup of a mind mapping tool crossed with search results.

I created a short video of how to to use Wonder Wheel to create new content ideas for your own business.

(more…)

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Posted in Business Blogs and Blog Marketing, Email Marketing, How-To Web Marketing Videos, Search Engine Marketing, Social Media, Web Copywriting, Web Marketing, Webinars | 3 Comments »


How Does the Recent Google Changes Affect Your Website?

Thursday, April 14th, 2011

Herb, what's a Google?

If you follow SEO news, you’ve probably heard about Google’s recent update named “Panda” or “Farmer,” depending on who’s speaking. If you don’t follow SEO news, you probably have a life, which is nice. Please feel free to let me know what that’s like.

Google is continually fiddling with it’s algorithm to (assumedly) continually improve the results it provides. Whenever a major change comes, invariably some people who see a huge drop in traffic bemoan the changes, while other people who’s rankings go up state that “it’s about time.”

The biggest losers this time around appear to be “content farms,” big websites with tons of poorly written, keyword-stuffed content. In a recent piece in Website Magazine (a truly great magazine for anyone who relies on the internet for business–which is another way of saying anyone who needs to eat to stay alive) they list some of the sites that have seen the biggest drop-off in traffic this time around. Unfortunately, the article online doesn’t include that graph.

The worst hit was blippr.com, losing almost 98% of it’s traffic from Google. The list contained some surprises (at least to me), such as business.com and merchantcircle.com. There were also some article marketing websites I’ve contributed to, like ezinearticles.com and hubpages.com that were hit hard.

So what’s the takeaway for the average website owner?

  • Quality content counts more than ever. Although the “news” is that a lot of content farms took a big hit, the takeaway is that the rest of us putting up unique, quality content are all edging up.
  • If you used article marketing as a link building technique, that ship has probably sailed. I would focus more on guest blogging opportunities.
  • Don’t put all your eggs in the Google basket. In fact, don’t put all your eggs in the search basket. Instead, diverse your investments, and spend more time driving quality leads from social media activity.

Rich Brooks
Is a Content Farm Aid Concert In the Future?

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Posted in Search Engine Marketing, Web Copywriting | 9 Comments »


What Are The Goals of Your Website Visitors?

Tuesday, February 1st, 2011

Walk in Your Customers' Shoes“What do your website visitors want to accomplish?” is a question I ask almost every business owner as part of some initial information gathering during our meetings.

  • “They want to learn more about my products.”
  • “They want to see what I have to offer.”
  • “They want to learn about my company.”

Wrong, wrong and wrong.

The goal of your website visitor is not to help you out, but to help themselves out. Learning more about your products or services is only a byproduct of their need to accomplish a goal, overcome an obstacle or fulfill a need.

Seeing what you have to offer comes only after they’ve been directed to your site by a search engine that’s already visited your site and (hopefully) returned relevant results. And nobody but people looking for a job or a new customer care anything about your business.

As you ask yourself the question, “what do visitors to my website want to accomplish?” put down the mirror and pick up a pair of their shoes. This isn’t about you…your website isn’t about you. It’s about getting into the head of your website visitor and understanding their problems.

By doing that, you can better understand what their goals are at your website, and build your site around that. Create paths that help your visitors get to where they need to go as efficiently as possible. Those paths become your most effective sales funnels.

If you don’t truly understand the goals of your website visitors you can’t provide the answer they seek, and they’ll look elsewhere.

Rich Brooks
Those Aren’t My Sneakers

Photo Credit: Pink Sherbert Photography

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Posted in Web Copywriting, Web Design & Development | 1 Comment »


Magnetic SEO: What Electromagnets Can Teach Us About SEO

Thursday, January 13th, 2011
Electrmagnetic SEO

SEO is Child's Play, Really..

If you want to improve your SEO (search engine optimization) and attract more prospects to your web site, you’d do well to study the electromagnet.

Wait! Don’t click away! This isn’t some über-geek post meant to complicate the situation. Building your own electromagnet requires only a long nail, a thin wire and a battery. In other words, DO try this at home.

Connect the ends of the wire to the positive and negative ends of the battery and wrap the wire around the nail. The longer the nail, the stronger the magnet. The more times the wire is wrapped around the nail, the stronger the magnet.

Your SEO works just like an electromagnet.

To build a search engine optimized site you’ll want to create keyword-rich pages for each of your services or offerings. These act like the nails in the electomagnet. Just as iron nails work better than aluminum nails in this project, quality content that informs, engages and persuades will be more attractive to your audience.

Your blog posts act like the wire in the electromagnet. You should create blog posts that wrap around the content on your web pages. If you have a page on your house painting services, you should create blog posts on:

  • Home Painting Tips for the Do-It-Yourselfer
  • How to Choose the Perfect Exterior Paint
  • Why White is the Wrong Color to Paint Your Bathrooms
  • 10 Questions to Ask Your Painter Before The Job Starts
  • and so on.

Each one of these should include keyword-rich links back to the page on your site that talks about your house painting services.

The more blog posts you have “wrapped” around your core service pages, the more electromagnetic juice you have flowing to your web site, and the more attractive your site becomes.

What’s the battery in this metaphor? Hmmm…not sure. Maybe it’s the desire of your prospects to find the solution to their problems or needs? Or maybe it’s the passion you bring with your content creation? Or maybe it’s the power of the Interwebs? Or maybe I’m just trying too hard to extend the metaphor.

I just finished writing an article that goes into more detail about creating an effective web presence for service professionals, albeit without the electromagnet metaphor.

Rich Brooks
Maine SEO

Photo Credit: steve_lodefink

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Posted in Business Blogs and Blog Marketing, Entrepreneur & Small Business, Web Copywriting, Web Design & Development, Web Marketing | 4 Comments »


Developing a Content Strategy for Social Media

Wednesday, December 8th, 2010

Yes, I know I’ve been remiss in blogging these past two weeks. I’ve been on vacation and was for the most part unplugged. (You should try it, it’s nice.)

Before I jump back into blogging for flyte, just wanted to give you a heads up about a big article I wrote for the Social Media Examiner called How to Develop a Social Media Content Strategy.

It’s got lots of quotes, examples, photos and even a fold-in section, kind of like the back page of Mad Magazine back in the day.

So, please, go check it out, like it, share it, spread it around like Velveeta on a cracker. That’s what it’s there for.

Rich Brooks
Digging Through Emails and Needing Coffee

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Posted in Business Blogs and Blog Marketing, Social Media, Web Copywriting | No Comments »


The Power of Positive Language

Tuesday, August 17th, 2010

FloatingAbout eight plus years ago I got a piece of unsolicited child-rearing advice: always use positive language when talking to children. Don’t say, “stop jumping on the couch!” Instead, say “couches are for sitting.” Now, I’d like to say that I’ve taken that to heart, but when you see footprints all over the couches and cushions and throw pills all over the floor it’s hard not to yell. (Sorry, kids!)

But forget parenting: it’s actually in business where we all need to put positive language to work. I find myself rewriting emails all the time–especially difficult emails–to improve the overall vibe of the message I’m trying to convey.

  • “We can’t move forward without a work agreement” becomes “We can start as soon as we receive your work agreement!”
  • “That’s impossible without scrapping everything we’ve done so far” becomes “That can be done, but we’ll need to take a few steps back and re-scope the project and timeline…will that work for you?”
  • “Once you approve the storyboards it becomes a lot more expensive to make changes to the programming” becomes “Let’s make sure you’re OK with the storyboards now, because it’s a lot easier (read: cheaper) to make changes to storyboards than complex database programming.”
  • “We can’t launch your web site without final payment” becomes “Once we receive the final payment we can launch your site, blog about it, and start making you money!”

To some people this may not seem like a big deal, but in my experience (and sadly, I’m getting more experience every day) it changes the entire tenor of a conversation.

Rich Brooks
Mr. Sunshine! :-D

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Posted in Business Philosophy, Entrepreneur & Small Business, Web Copywriting | 8 Comments »


Machine Translations: Can Google Translate Parlez-vous français for Your Web Site?

Friday, August 13th, 2010

For years when people asked me about creating translations for their web site I suggested that if it was critical to their business they hire a translator to create secondary pages on their site in the languages they were targeting, especially if their site was full of jargon or idioms. (“Idiom, sir?”) There are plenty of examples of bad translations out there, be they machine or human created:

  • Our Mongolian hotpot buffet guarantees you will be able to eat all you wish until you are fed up.
  • Specialist in women and other diseases.
  • Poo Ping: Thai Cuisine

are just a few of the examples I found online. However, recently I had been reading that Google and other companies had made some giant steps forward by reading human translated documents (often from the UN) and comparing them for better understanding context and language.

So, when Goldbelt Tours, a client of ours, asked for affordable translation we tried Google Translate.

Here is the original page:

At the bottom is the translate bar:

And I chose French:

I especially like the “Contribute Better Translation” feature:

So, does it work? Well, I translated some of the French translation back into English:

Original English:

See it all, do it all, above it all.

Soar to new heights in scenic adventure aboard the Mount Roberts Tramway, Juneau’s top attraction, and experience the best Alaska has to offer.

Translated French:

See it all, do it all, above it all. Voir tout cela, tout faire, par-dessus tout.

Soar to new heights in scenic adventure aboard the Mount Roberts Tramway , Juneau’s top attraction, and experience the best Alaska has to offer. Atteindre de nouveaux sommets dans l’aventure à bord du pittoresque Roberts Tramway du Mont, Haut attraction de Juneau, et l’expérience le meilleur de l’Alaska a à offrir.

Translated English:

See it all, do it all, above everything.

Reaching new heights in adventure on the picturesque Mount Roberts Tramway, Juneau’s top attraction, and experience the best Alaska has to offer.

Final Decision:

Not bad. Now, I wouldn’t want some life saving device instructions translated through Google Translate for fear of being over or under medicated, or ending up with a defibrillator paddle being used on my butt, but for most non-jargony web sites that need to reach an international audience, Google Translate might be the right tool for you.

Rich Brooks
Veillez à suivre Rich Brooks sur Twitter tweets pour son habile.

(Translated back as “Be sure to follow Rich Brooks on Twitter tweets for his skillful.” Apparently there’s still work to be done.)

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Posted in Web Copywriting, Web Design & Development, Web Marketing | 4 Comments »


Optimizing Landing Pages – MarketingExperiments Webinar

Wednesday, August 11th, 2010

HAND IN HAND IS THE ONLY WAY TO LANDJust finished listening to a webinar on optimizing landing pages put on by Flint McGlaughlin of MarketingExperiments. There was some great information in it–some I heard/knew, and some was new to me. Whether you’re looking to increase the leads your web site is generating or to sell more online, there was some sound advice when it comes to landing pages.

BTW, landing pages could be considered any page on your site, but for the purpose of this webinar the focus was on pages designed to get someone to take a desired action, such as request a quote, sign up for an email newsletter, etc. Although not necessary, these pages might be outside the normal navigation of the site, and only linked to from an ad or banner on another page.

  • Don’t overwhelm people with form fields. Keep them as minimal as possible, asking as few questions as possible.
  • Look at value vs. cost in the eyes of your prospects. If the cost (whether it’s time, effort or price) outweighs the perceived value you’re going to fail.

How do you fix this? Reduce the perceived cost and increase the perceived value.

You can reduce the perceived cost by reducing friction. Friction might come from unnecessary length or difficulty on the landing page. Look at your landing pages now. Is there too much text? Too much scrolling? Too many pages to purchase?

You can further decrease perceived cost by quickly answer the visitor’s questions:

  • Where am I?
  • What can I do here?

According to Flint you have “four inches and seven seconds” to answer these questions. If you don’t, your visitor will click the back button and you’ll lose the lead. When someone firsts gets to your landing page there’s a moment of disorientation; confusion is a big contributor to friction, so answering these two questions immediately will increase your conversion rate.

The next big fix is to increase the perceived value of your offering. Do this by identifying and communicating key factors that differentiate your from your competition. Use specific, quantitative & “instantly credible” language. Even if you’re not going head-to-head with your competition, you should still try and be as specific as possible.

I sometimes struggle with this (specificity) myself for our own landing pages. Do our web sites have 4x the awesome sauce of our competitors’ sites? Will signing up for our email newsletter make you 176% more smarterer? I’m still working on those metrics.

Some other bon mots I wrote down:

  • Lose all caps in your headlines…difficult to read and frustrating to visitors.
  • Use a strong headline; big, bold and dramatic.
  • Include at least one paragraph of text, w/bold and/or italicized text to highlight the important ideas. This paragraph needs to overcome the natural cynicism of anyone surfing the net.
  • Use images that draw the eye to the text, not that compete with it.

OK, now I’m off to optimize some of our pages and try some A/B split testing on them. Wish me luck!

Rich Brooks
176% Smarterer

Photo credit: Niffty

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Posted in Web Copywriting, Web Design & Development, Web Marketing | 2 Comments »

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