Archive for the ‘Web Copywriting’ Category

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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 »


5 Copywriting Best Practices for Non-Profits [Guest Post]

Friday, July 9th, 2010

Today is the the first in a series of guest posts here at the flyte blog. (How exciting!) We want to open up the blog to get some new perspectives and some new ideas. If you’re interested in submitting a topic idea you can do so here.

5 Copywriting Best Practices for Non-Profits

I am not a fan of so-called best practices, mainly because the premise is built on the failures of someone else and implies that what works for one person or organization can work for anyone. In reality everyone should develop their own best practices based on their own successes.

Still, the headline got your attention and there are some common elements to keep in mind when writing copy that persuades web readers to take action. As a non profit it is important to remember that you are still trying to convince someone to part with their their time or money- commodities that are hard to part with.

Copywriting for the web is different than offline copywriting Why? Because unlike an offline reader that is passive and silent, your online audience is active, vocal and connected. It is not a one-way street anymore; it is an open and two- way communication. For non- profits, this is your golden opportunity.

Copy (ie: content) is the most important element of Internet marketing. Your words must speak to the person reading it in simple and compelling voice- as if you were sitting on a couch together in the local coffee shop on a rainy and raw afternoon in late fall.

Elements of Writing Compelling Copy that Persuades

1 – Persuasion requires a structure. Have a plan for how you will persuade with your copy by creating a path for your readers.

Example of a structure:

  • Open with a strong statement in the headline
  • Develop drama and explain why the cause is important
  • Explain how they can make a difference
  • Focus on the benefit to the visitor to act
  • Justify the act by identify the lasting value
  • Address concerns or objections
  • Ask for the donation

2 – Find your perspective voice and stick with it. What you say is not as important as how you say it. Get comfortable with the fact that who you are is less important than who your audience imagines you to be. Defining your perspective will keep the tone of your copy consistent. There is no right or wrong answer, only what works for you.

Examples of perspectives:

  • Intellect vs. Emotion. Will you introduce a new perspective to the reader or confirm what they already know and try to persuade them to feel differently about it?
  • Then vs. Now. Are you talking about what has already happened, what will happen, or what is happening? Decide which approach will give your copy the most impact.
  • Me, Them, or You. Will you speak from the 1st person (yourself), 2nd person (them), or 3rd person (outside narrative)? We like to read about ourselves, so generally 2nd person work best.
  • Pain vs Gain. Will you speak to fear of loss or the hope of gain?

3-Write to one person instead of the masses- this is personal. How quickly do you get bored with the person at the party that talks all about themselves and what they are doing? Talk less about what you are doing; talk more about what their time and donation is doing. (Again, we like to read about ourselves.) Creating personas will help you to write to one person.

Example: For the cost of a cup of coffee a day you can give a child fresh water to drink everyday.

4 – Don’t be shy about emotion. We like to think of ourselves as logical and rational beings that make our decisions based on facts. But in truth, we use that to rationalize the reality that we make our decisions out of emotion. Create an emotional image and story that your reader can envision and inspires them to act on.

5 – If you can say it in 5 words, why use 15? Remember the KISS rule. Keep it simple…

6 - SEO bonus. Unless your charity is benefiting the ‘click here’ or ‘learn more’ cause, don’t hyperlink those words in your copy.

Example: We save more trees and preserve more forests than any other organization worldwide. (great- then you are all set and don’t need me!)

Click here to learn more.

Vs.

You can save more trees and preserve more forests for your children with your $10 donation.

By hyper-linking your keywords as the anchor text, you are telling search engines that this is important enough to link additional information. Use that link to send readers to information about how their donation goes further because you are able to buy more trees in bulk as part of your persuasive structure. You are giving them a clear way to take action by hyper-linking the ‘$10 donation’  to  your donation page. (And don’t break the momentum, have the $10 donation on the informational page as well!)

Persuasive copy – good for SEO AND conversion.

Carole is the founder of Mahoney Internet Marketing, a Maine based marketing strategy and web analytics firm.

She loves living and working in Maine with her husband, 2 teenage boys, golden retriever, 3 chickens and many organic gardens.




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Posted in Web Copywriting | 4 Comments »


Guest Blogging: How to Reach New Audiences Through Blogging

Thursday, July 1st, 2010

Whether you’re looking to reach new audiences through your blogging, or want to attract a fresh group of visitors to your own blog, guest blogging may be the solution.

Guest blogging is just what it sounds like: you contribute a post to another blog or you invite someone else to post to your blog.

The benefit to the guest blogger is that he’ll immediately be introduced to that blog’s audience. The usual practice is that the guest blogger gets a byline and will often get a “resource box” at the bottom of the post. A resource box is a sort of a bio/call-to-action with “do-follow” links to their own blog, web site, Twitter page or e-commerce site.

The benefit to the blog owner is that she’ll get fresh content for her blog that she didn’t have to create herself. In addition, it’s typical that the guest blogger will promote his post through his own social network, driving new traffic to the blog. These new visitors may end up reading other posts, driving up page views (and ad rates), subscribing to the blog, and following links back to the blogger’s main site.

The benefit to the blog’s audience is that they get fresh ideas, often that complement the main themes of the blog. Guest posts at a marketing blog could be about sales or direct mail. Guest posts at a wine blog might be about stinky cheeses or stemware.

If you’re planning on supplementing your own blogging with guest posts, be sure to know what you’re getting into:

  • There’s still work involved: you’ll probably want to vet new posts and new bloggers, which means some sort of application form and filtering process.
  • You’ll need to created some sort of editorial guidelines: how long should posts be? Can they be repurposed or must they be original? How “salesy” can they be? How many outbound links are OK? Who’s responsible for finding images?
  • You’ll need to determine how you want to receive content: are Word docs OK? Google Docs? HTML pulled from WordPress or TypePad?
  • You’ll need to determine what type of credit you’ll give: how big is the resource box, how many links can they create to their own site, and does “anything go” within that resource box?

If you’re guest blogging for someone else you’ll probably want to know the answers to a lot of the same questions. Plus, what type of promotion will the blog owner do on your behalf? What’s expected of you as far as marketing and promotion goes? How big an audience does the blog have, and how many unique pages view a month does it receive? Does the blog editor get “final cut” over your content?

This has been on my mind a lot lately as I’ve been guest blogging for the Social Media Examiner and BlogWorld. In addition, I’ve been looking to expand the number of voices on the flyte blog, especially as I’m considering launching a new blog/venture in the not-too-distant future.

So, here it is: I’m looking for guest bloggers for the flyte blog. I’m hoping to have one fresh blog post a week from a voice outside flyte that target small business owners and non-profits. The topics can be on marketing, sales, HR, communications, direct mail, vendor relationships, building membership…whatever!

If you’re interested in guest blogging at the flyte blog please fill out the application form below to get the ball rolling. If you proposed topics seem to be appropriate for our audience we’ll be back in touch with more information!

Rich Brooks
Small Business Blogging Consultant

Photo Credit: Stephen Cummings

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Posted in Business Blogs and Blog Marketing, Entrepreneur & Small Business, Web Copywriting, Web Marketing | 2 Comments »


Pain Points: Motivating Prospects to Action

Tuesday, April 27th, 2010

I recently attended an excellent Social Media Breakfast here in Maine all about creating content. The three presenters, Dave Weinberg, Chris Cavallari, & Jaica Kinsman, all talked about how painless creating content can be.

But when it comes to creating content that motivates your prospects to action, pain is a requirement.

For better or worse, that’s just how we’re wired. And don’t feel too bad about it, because if all of your prospects were perfectly content they wouldn’t need you now, would they? ;)

Whether you’re creating content for your web site, blog, podcast, online video…whatever, you need to understand the pain points that will get your prospects to pick up the phone, fill out the contact form or click Buy Now!

Now this doesn’t mean you have to be a sadist! In fact, what your product or service does is alleviate the pain of your best customers.

How do you find your prospects pain points?

If you’re not sure what motivates your prospects to action, think back to some of your most satisfied customers. What problems were they facing that you helped them overcome? It’s also a good idea to call them up and ask them, as there may be additional pain points your product or service fixed that you didn’t even know about.

You can get more insight into your customers’ pain points by reviewing the sites of your competitors. Are there certain words or phrases they use? What do they claim their products resolve? If these resonate, be sure to include these ideas in your own content.

You can also perform a keyword analysis to give you more insight into what keywords your audience is using at Google. This can be done by hiring a search engine marketing firm, or if your on a tight budget, you can try using the Google Adwords Keyword Tool. This free online tool will generate similar phrases, along with the competition you face for ranking well for that term. It’s one of the keyword analysis tools we use here at flyte.

Once you have some good ideas of what’s frustrating your audience, it’s time to create your content.

How do your prospects find your content?

It starts with using the keywords you’ve uncovered in the title of the content piece. That will help your content rise up in the search engine ranking. Of course, the rest of your content–your headers and body copy–need to support that title.

With the rise of social media, a title is even more important. Very often, people will share your content via Twitter or Facebook without even reading it! The title is enough to get them to share it with their network. (Hopefully they do read it, and are motivated by it, but sharing with friends can be just as, if not more, powerful.)

Your prospects are using both search and social media, so you need to make your content as findable and shareable as possible.

What are some examples of content that address prospects’ pain points?

Here are a few; use as appropriate to your own business

  • The 10 Costliest Mistakes DIY Homeowners Make
  • Tax Help: 5 Ways to Avoid an IRS Audit This Year
  • Weight Loss Tips: How to Drop The Freshman 15
  • The 11 Biggest Mistakes Small Business Bloggers Make

Just be sure to backup those juicy titles with content that helps your prospects, and end with a persuasive call-to-action that will get them to call, contact or drive over to your office the moment they finish reading, listening to, or watching your pain-relieving content piece.

Now it’s your turn…what are some titles that would motivate your prospects into action? Please put your ideas into the comment field below.

Rich Brooks
No Pain, No Gain

Photo Credit: Juha-Matti

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Posted in Business Blogs and Blog Marketing, Entrepreneur & Small Business, Social Media, Web Copywriting, Web Marketing | 14 Comments »


How to Rank Higher for Your Products & Services

Monday, April 12th, 2010

Part of my search engine optimization mantra has always been that:

  1. search engines care more about web pages than they do about web sites, and
  2. that every web page (or blog post) is another opportunity to rank well for another specific search.

Because I believe that, I feel it’s important to create multiple pages around different topics on your site or blog. Recently, I’ve been getting a lot more requests to speak on different topics, (although social media tends to be the current fave, with SEO and blogging also popular.)

I really enjoy speaking to groups, so I decided to flesh out the web marketing seminar and webinar section of our Web site. Here’s what I did:

  • Created unique pages for each of my “featured presentations”
  • Created a table of contents on my main page that linked to each featured presentation
  • Each featured presentation included:

Whatever your products and services are, create specific pages for each one, with as much keyword-rich copy as you can fit in without making it read poorly. (Read it aloud if you need to, and if your ears start bleeding that means you’ve overdone it.) Make sure the pages link to each other, and if you have a blog, link to the new pages on your site.

Another benefit of having specific pages is that as you’re blogging you can create keyword-rich links, which help the search engines understand what your content is all about, and helps increase the visibility of the page in question. For example, “too many businesses ignore the power of email marketing because of the fears of spam.”

Do you have any tips or tricks on how you can rank higher for your own products and services?

Rich Brooks
That Webinar Guy

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


How to Attract, Engage & Convert Your Audience with Pebble Content

Monday, April 5th, 2010

This month’s issue of flyte log is called “Content Strategy: How to Use Content for Online Lead Generation.” In it, we talk about what content strategy is, and how you can incorporate it into your marketing campaigns to attract prospects to your Web site or blog.

In the article we talk about how to create content around what your audience is interested it. Let’s take a closer look at how that might happen:

Let’s say you’re a professional organizer. Certainly, your audience may be searching for “professional organizer Portland, Maine” (or “Eugene, Oregon” or “Austin, TX.”) Therefore, it’s important to put those phrases on your Web site, making sure they appear in the title tags, headers, body copy, image alt-tags, meta-description and intra-site links.

However, they may not know about professional organizers as a business category, or not think they need one if they do.

To capture these people you may need to create articles, blog posts or videos that target concerns your audience may have:

  • How to Keep Your Inbox Empty
  • Home Office Issues: How to Make the Most of Limited Space
  • Paperless Office: How to Get There From Here
  • Tax Returns: How to Store and Recover All Those Lost Receipts!
  • Dealing with Messy Co-Workers

Remember: people won’t necessarily be searching for your job title or business category; they may be searching for the pebble that’s currently in their shoe. Maybe we should call this Pebble Content.

I call dibs if that phrase takes off.

One way to uncover this pebble content is by doing a keyword analysis where you find out what words people are doing at the search engines, and how much competition you have from other sites on each phrase. By doing this you can find the keywords that are most likely to attract your target audience, and build them into your site, blog and social media campaigns.

Read the content strategy article here, and start creating the content that will attract, engage and convert your audience.

Rich Brooks
Content Strategy FTW

Photo credit: therichbrooks (hey! that’s me!)

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Posted in Business Blogs and Blog Marketing, flyte news, Web Copywriting, Web Marketing | No Comments »


How Do People Find My Blog?

Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010

Dear Rich,

This may be a stupid question, but how do people find my blog?

–Blogging in Baileyville

Dear Blogging,

There are no stupid questions while the person asking is still in earshot.

Yours, however, is not stupid on any level. I have been asked this many times. The simplest answer is, “the same way they find your Web site: through search engines.” By creating a new blog post you are also creating a new Web page, and every Web page is an opportunity to rank for another search term at Google, Bing or Yahoo.

To take full advantage of this you should perform a keyword analysis so you know what your prospects are searching for. Once you know the phrases that are most likely to attract the right type of audience, make sure you use these phrases in your titles, tags, categories and body copy. Your post title, which becomes the page title, is half the battle of attracting your audience.

Rich Brooks
Business Blog Marketing

Photo credit: James Lumb

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Posted in Business Blogs and Blog Marketing, Search Engine Marketing, Web Copywriting, Web Marketing | 6 Comments »


SEO: When Should You Begin Search Engine Optimization for a New Site?

Friday, June 19th, 2009
Dear Rich,

I've seen you say that one should start SEO (search engine optimization) before the launch of a new site. How is this possible?

–Confused in Calais

Dear Confused,

Although you can perform SEO at any point before or after the launch of
a Web site, I can think of three good reasons why it's better to start
with SEO:

  1. It's less expensive. A good keyword analysis (an important part
    of a healthy breakfast an SEO package) will drive your content and your copy; if you do it
    after the site is built, you're in effect doing the work twice.
  2. It's market research. A keyword analysis may uncover some
    opportunities that you hadn't thought of yet; new topics to cover, even
    new services to offer.
  3. It will help focus your social media strategy. You can take your optimal keywords and start working them into your tweets, your Facebook fan page, your YouTube videos and your LinkedIn profile…all things you can be working on while your Web designer builds out your new site.

There is some parts of SEO that can't be
performed until after the site is launched, specifically a link
building campaign. Obviously, other
sites, blogs and directories won't want to link to a coming soon page; they'll be looking for something of value if they're going to be linking to you.

Rich Brooks
SEO for Small Businesses

Posted in Search Engine Marketing, Web Copywriting, Web Marketing | 6 Comments »


Web Marketing Course for Entrepreneurs and Small Business

Monday, November 3rd, 2008

I can't believe that we're just one week away from the first class of Web Marketing for Entrepreneurs and Small Business over at the University of Southern Maine.

Well, actually I can, as I spent most of yesterday afternoon updating and revamping the search engine optimization content for the class. And I've blocked out plenty of hours this week to review the rest of my content and build out the social media component. But the "I can't believe" part stresses the fact that it's only a week away, and if you were planning on coming you've got to get a move on.

Who should go? Well, you should be in driving distance of Portland, Maine. (Yes, one of these days I'll create an online version, but not today.) Assuming that you can get to the campus, this course is geared to small business owners, marketers and entrepreneurs who are looking to build a Web presence to grow their business.

Topics will include search engine visibility (how do you out rank your competition,) email marketing, business blogs, social media, e-commerce, and building a Web site that will convert prospects into customers.

The course is held over four Monday nights, 11/10/2008 – 12/1/2008, from 6pm – 8pm at the Abromson Center on the campus of the University of Southern Maine (directions.) The cost is $205, but you need to pre-register for the class, so…

Register Now!

We'll be spending class time reviewing students' current Web sites (when applicable) and making on the spot recommendations to help you rank higher, drive more qualified leads to your site, and convert more prospects into customers. So what are you waiting for?

Register Now!

Rich Brooks
Oh Captain, Your Captain

Posted in Analytics, Business Blogs and Blog Marketing, Email Marketing, Entrepreneur & Small Business, flyte news, Search Engine Marketing, Social Media, Web Copywriting, Web Design & Development, Web Marketing | 3 Comments »


Learn Internet Marketing in Maine This Fall

Thursday, August 14th, 2008

For those living in or near southern Maine who are looking to learn more about using Internet Marketing to grow your business, you may be in luck.

I’ll be teaching a 4 class course on Web Marketing for Entrepreneurs and Small Business at the University of Southern Maine. I’ve taught this course a few times before, and it continues to evolve. This time around there will be more time given to social media and how you can use it to leverage your brand and connect with prospects and customers. We’ll look at YouTube, Flickr, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and more.

As in the past, we’ll also spend time on what I consider the building blocks of Web marketing:

  • Search Engine Optimization: how to improve your search engine visibility through keyword rich content and incoming links.
  • Business Blogs: how a blog can increase visibility, improve rankings, and establish you as an expert.
  • Email Marketing: how to build a subscriber base in a world that has too many ezines already.

And we’ll look at traffic reports (analytics), podcasting, and building a Web site that converts prospects into customers.

Dates & Times: 4 Mondays, November  10-December  1, 6-8 p.m.

       

Cost: $205

(8 contact hours/ 0.8 CEUs)

       
Place: Abromson Center, 88 Bedford Street, USM Portland campus (directions)

Register Now!

Rich Brooks
Small Business Web Marketing Expert

Posted in Analytics, Business Blogs and Blog Marketing, Email Marketing, Entrepreneur & Small Business, flyte news, Search Engine Marketing, Social Media, Web Copywriting, Web Design & Development, Web Marketing | No Comments »

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