Saturday, September 27, 2008

Making Copywriting And Seo Coexist

Making Copywriting and Search Engine Optimization Coexist

When it comes to making sales on the Internet, it seems that copywriters and search engine optimization experts are always at odds with each other.

You see, one group wants the salesletter to be absolutely perfect to make maximum sales, and the other group wants the page to be optimized perfectly for the search engines to send free traffic their way.

I remember my first experience with a search engine optimization firm. I had a site that was designed to sell sunglasses, and I’d just finished writing all the salesletter for the different types of sunglasses available. At the time pay per click advertising was a brand new concept, so I wasn’t using it. I wanted to get the free search engine traffic available from sites like Yahoo and Google, so I hired some SEO experts to make my site perform better in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages). I gave them access to all my pages so they could optimize everything as necessary.

When they got done my website was properly optimized, but my well crafted salesletters were a complete mess. My writing no longer flowed nicely, my headlines now sucked, and there were a lot of erroneous words all over the place on my pages. However, the pages did perform better in the search engines.

However, I was not satisfied with better performing pages if it meant I couldn’t sell my visitors anything due to the fact that my salesletters weren’t very good. It was at this point that I fired the firm that I hired and vowed to learn how to do the search engine optimization myself, and I was going to make the search engines like my pages while still preserving the integrity of the salesletter.

The first thing I did was go back and redo the salesletters again. I looked at what the firm I hired tried to leave in certain keywords or phrases, but I made them seamlessly blend into the salesletter.

Then as I started to learn more about search engine optimization myself, I started to learn about the importance of having links pointing to my website. So I went out and started to find people who would link to my site.

I frequently tweaked my sales pages, but I always made sure that they made perfect sense to my visitors.

Good copywriting and well optimized pages do exist, especially these days. Here is my checklist for making both work together:

• Write your salesletter as you normally would.
• Get links to your salesletter with the links containing the anchor text you want your site to rank well for
• Make sure the key phrase is mentioned somewhere in the salesletter, but ignore ideas like keyword density.
• Make sure your title tag contains the keyword you want to rank well for.
• Update your salesletter frequently (you should always be testing your salesletter anyway)
• If your entire website is just the salesletter, add a blog to the site to give you site more content, as all the search engines like to see a website add new content over time.

The most important item on the list is the links. So if you’re not going to spend time getting quality links pointing to your website, then don’t waste your time optimizing your salesletter for the search engines.

Internet Copywriting That Sells!

What can be said about a good Internet copywriter? Well, if it’s a good one, then the work speaks for itself. How is it that their work defines how good they are? Well this little tidbit of information is obvious.

The way you can tell a really good Internet copywriting person is just by reading his or her words. You see, these people take on web sites and use words to create an advertisement that best describes the web site. This is also known as Internet copywriting that sells.

Its almost as if you could close your eyes on the website and someone read it to you. The wording is so precise you can literally picture the web site in your mind. These are truly the great Internet copywriters.

By using one of these Internet copywriting agencies you get their full attention for your web site. It becomes personal. They want to know all about the web site. The products you have to offer on the web site, or the information you are offering to potential visitors to your website. And believe me when I say you will have visitors, the good Internet copywriters will make sure of that. In their advertisement for your web site they use wording that best fits your personal web site, whether it is for a small business or a corporate office. And of course not forgetting the individual who is just wanting a web site on the Internet to sell a few products. They are all treated in a professional manner by these Internet copywriting services.

Then, they concentrate on using unique and precise keywords for your web site, those that will bring visitors to your web site, and possibly also attract those visitors that have already been to your web site a time or two. With search engine optimization they can personalize your web site by using specific key words and not duplicating any other web site content. Their work is amazing and they dedicate themselves on the work they do on your web site, just as a person with paint and a brush would do while painting a masterpiece.

However, they do it through the fluency of their wording, to create a picture that everyone is able to understand. Words that are easily understood, terms that are considered useful as far as navigating from page to page of your web site right down how to order a product from your web site and checkout.

In some web sites, there are numbers listed for additional information or help for visitors who are having a problem and this is also a unique idea for creating a web site. The Internet copywriting services set it up for you, although in most cases, they do everything they possibly can not to change the original lay out of your web site. After all you did create it. They are simply assisting you in the idea and generation of traffic to your web site. If there are a few changes they might recommend, may make it easier for you in the long term view of your web site.

Copywriting Tips On The Internet

Copywriting is one of the most important principles in having high search engine rankings. Other ways of doing things on the Internet are by no means as important as what copywriting is compared too.

Copywriting with a search engine it like having an ace in the hole. If you have something published the best way to have the best copy is through the use of the SEO system. As keywords are important, copywriting on the internet is different than copywriting or the publication of standards out in the world.

By capturing your market with powerful copywriting, It will help your web site profit and grow, as well as your ideas.
The use of Internet copywriting ensures that no one can take your ideas from the Internet or use them as their own. This specifically means, techniques, styles, or designs on a way you do things.

There are copywriting web sites that can offer consultations and creates a powerful campaign in sales and generating, with optimal results. These copywriting sites can also assist you in advertising copywriting and corporate communications. It is also capable of showing your business and marketing techniques. By translating technical terms into words consumers can understand.

Copywriting on the Internet gives you an experience that can gain hundreds of lead-generating and marketing communications with the business informational copying.

There’s also web site copywriting in which words that sell the best of the business marketing tools.

Copywriting is also a site about selling, because copywriting shows how well you can sell things. In advertising, copywriting is a key as well.

You see, there’s nothing wrong with advertising on your web site, as long as you are not duplicating what some else already has on their website. Ownership copywriting is a single demonstration of one’s own words. Originality is a quality for better sales on your website.

When copywriting the protection should begin when any described work is actually done and fixed by you. If people violate any type of copywriting laws even on the Internet it can cause monetary damages and is a definite violation, your web site could even be shut down completely.

Copywriting agencies and web sites assist you so that this doesn’t happen to you. You may have to pay a fee however, your original material is protected; as well as the fact that they can tell you whether or not someone else has the same type of material on another web site before you put it onto your web site.

Most web sites are not a matter of public domain. As far as graphics and other material on the web site it is copy written material. It using has a symbol depicting the fact as well. Right down to the java scripts that one might find on the web site. So be careful what you put on your web site and be sure it is all original material you are putting on your own website. Then you don’t run into the copywriting problems you will eventually incur upon yourself.

Value Added Copywriting

I know a preacher that can burn any pulpit down within an hour. His sermons cause the greatest stirs and responses in his audience and he really can keep his congregation awake. But there is one tiny problem. Ask many of his listeners what they think about his sermons and they’ll quickly respond with only words of acclamation. Follow that questions with a request for what the sermon was about and you’re met with only blank stares.

They knew that the sermon was “great” but cannot recall what they learned.

This reminds me of the popular selling tenant referred to as ‘selling the sizzle and not the stake’. In other words, build enthusiasm and curiosity about your product without giving away too much. Let them hear it, smell it, imagine it but never taste it until they buy.

I find however that when you’re selling high ticket items, because you are asking for a higher level of commitment from the prospect, you have to give something in order to get something back. So you have to give some ‘steak’ along with the ‘sizzle’. This is what is commonly referred to as ‘value added copywriting’.

I use some of this myself at my website http://www.webcopy-writing.com to sell my copywriting services. Right there in the sales letter itself are some tips and ideas on how to sell to prospects online. So the reader gains some value from reading the letter even before he or she uses my services.

But this “free information” also serves a few other purposes:

1. It helps to establish goodwill with the potential client. My willingness to share this information shows that I’m not stingy and helps to develop a relationship with the reader. So even if the prospect doesn’t use my service he walks away with something.

2. It helps to establish my credibility. This is an opportunity for me to show that I know what I’m about and have the qualifications to help the reader’s business.

3. It serves as a teaser. It’s obvious that I’m not saying everything that I know and that there is a ‘lot more where that came from’. In other words, if I’m willing to give away this information I must have a lot more ‘secrets’ up my sleeve.

4. It lowers the sales resistance of the reader because I’m in the giving rather than the taking mode. There is really no argument against someone who is giving you something for free.

5. It provides a natural incentive for the prospect to read your entire sales letter. Any device that encourages readership will also improve sales especially with longer sales copy.

It will be therefore helpful if you can provide your prospects with useful information in your sales literature. This may be in the form of a free report, an email course or case studies. Once this information is useful and not seen as an overt sales piece, then this should lead to an easy conversion of a new customer.

This technique of value added copywriting works very well in service-type industries. There are many services where the professional can ‘reveal’ a lot without fear of losing his value to the customer. This often occurs because even though someone may know how to perform a task, the job may be sufficiently difficult or unpleasant that it may be better left to the professionals.

A quick example comes to my mind. I know how to do simple maintenance work on my vehicle but I’ll prefer to pay to have this done. I’ll happily read all the available literature from my mechanic about how a mechanical repair should be done. The fact that my mechanic made this literature available to me gives me confidence in his performance of a great job.

So, in the same way, a lawyer may want to provide information on how to fill easy legal forms, while a plumber may provide information on performing simple repairs around the home. When a prospect read this helpful information and they need further ‘expert’ attention they would easily think of that lawyer or plumber.

Because the public today is bombarded with so many advertisers’ messages the usual sales talk is having less impact. With the advent of online advertising where it is easier and cheaper to get your message before thousands of eyes your sales message must have a lot more bite than its bark; a lot more steak where only sizzle use to be.

After listening to your sizzling message, your market congregation will need to recall more than the enthusiasm of your delivery. They must be able to recall enough value to want the whole shebang from you.

The Know It All Of Marketing Copywriting

There are those who are considered the know it alls of market copywriting, however if the truth was really known they are not doing their jobs the way that they should.

If your sales page doesn’t actually pull the weight you think it should have, then you have probably used a know it all of marketing copywriters.

This doesn’t mean the product or products you are showing on your web site, just aren’t what the people want, it could mean you got the wrong person for the marketing copywriting job that you asked them to do. Here are a few things to consider as far as a good marketing copywriter and what to look for when you actually need one.

The first one is, what is it that you want your readers to actually take the utmost attention on? The next thing would be, do the headlines entice your readers? If they don’t then you are not doing as well with moving your products simply because your marketing copywriting agent didn’t do a very good job.

Then of course, look at the tone of the language, does it appeal to your products and describe them and really target things your could be customers can relate too? Does it compel them to want to read further and find out more about the description?

These are all important factors that good marketing copywriting agents need to fulfill in order to make a good advertising statement for your web site or company.

Unfortunately, there are several of these marketing copywriting agents that simply throw words together and toss them at you with their fee. This can get frustrating, because not only are you then disappointed in the marketing copywriting agent and the advertisement you are dealing with, but now you are probably in the process of finding a new marketing copywriting agent as well as losing the profits of products or trying to stay afloat by using an advertisement that is currently outdated.

When finding a marketing copywriter it is best to jot a few things down and remember the tips that are in this article. Believe me there are definitely know it all Marketing copywriting people out there, and unfortunately they will take you for anything, without actually giving you any kind of advertisement that’s legitimately worth anything whatsoever.

Marketing copywriters are supposed to assist you in persuading potential customers into knowing more about your products, what they are and how they are designed. Those who don’t aren’t good marketing copywriters to go with obviously.

In fact, if you familiarize yourself with some of what these marketing copywriting agents are to do, if can only profit you as well. Ask them questions before enlisting in their services. Ask things such as their linking strategy and if they know anything about emotional selling as far as telling about testimonials about products. Do they actually give that call to strategy giving keyword points to your sales or ordering page?

Yes, know it all marketing copywriting agents are unfortunately on the rise, and they provide nothing for your web site or your company.

Friday, September 26, 2008

Home Business Copywriting Ideas

When you do any online research about home based businesses, you will likely find thousands of results that tell you that the most successful and easiest business to start from your home is a copywriting business. You can make a great living without ever having to get dressed or leave the privacy of your own home.

Out of all the home businesses that give you the option of solely working from home, such as marketing programs and designing companies, copywriting is still touted to be the best of its kind.

The biggest reason that copywriting has been dubbed the perfect at home business is due to the extremely low startup costs. You really don’t have to have any special talent, just be able to write in good English and grammar, mix in a little creativity, and you are raring to go.

If you have had any previous writing experience at all, you simply just boot up your computer, and go to work. For those who have little to no experience, but are still interested in starting a copywriting business from home, they should check out one of the many online classes available that teach you the writing basics you will need to know in order to get started.

Another benefit of an at home copywriting business is that you have the option of working your day job, and running the business on the side, or just simply depending on your copywriting business for your sole full-time source of income.

Few people are able to just up and quit their job to try and work from home, as they don’t have the capital needed to make ends meet while waiting on the profits to start rolling in. Home copywriting is also taking off with stay at home moms who are interested in contributing to the household income while still staying at home to care for their children, they can work when their schedule allows, and care for the family as needed.

The best of both worlds all in one tidy package, especially since the money made by these moms is extra income, there is no risk involved, and their family won’t starve if it doesn’t work out.

You can start this business no matter how old you are, what gender you are, or what type of physical condition that you are in. If you can write, and are physically able to sit at the computer and type, then you can do this work.

The success of your home copywriting business is not affected by changes in the economy. There will still be work for you, even if unemployment rates rise, and the cost of living and interest rates go up. The better the economy, the more work you will probably get, but no matter how bad it is, you will still have work to keep your business afloat, unlike some other home based businesses out there.

If you want to earn some extra money, for whatever the reason, then you should consider beginning your own at home copywriting business. If you do good work, and become highly sought after, you may be able to produce enough income to be able to stay at home and work fulltime for yourself. Wouldn’t it be nice to tell your boss goodbye, and know that you would still be financially secure?

Copywriting For Sales

Regardless of what you're selling, marketing or promoting, you have to have a good understanding of your audience before you can create effective copywriting. Without knowing who you're writing for and what they hope to get from the copy you create, your copy might not achieve the desired effect. But if you're creating sales copy, isn't it simple? You tout the benefits of the product or service, and wait for the customers to flock on over, right?

There are many stages to effective copywriting, but knowing what your readers expect from the product is probably the first and most important step.

If you are selling a product, take a minute to consider what your audience expects to gain if they purchase your product. Money is one of the most common reasons for purchases, though there are other - equally compelling - reasons. Becoming more healthy, more attractive and being entertained are other common reasons for purchasing a particular product.

If you are aiming at providing the solution for a particular issue, declare that solution in loud, clear terms. Don't leave your reader wondering if this is actually going to work. You can appeal to a person's sense of the dramatic, but don't overstate. There is a point at which your claims will be discarded as ridiculous, but your copy should run right up to that point.

So does every product have to offer some benefit? Actually, yes, though the kind and extent of the benefit will vary greatly from one product to another. The key to producing effective copywriting is to clearly identify the benefit(s) of the product, then present those in a clear, appealing manner to your reader.

What are some potential benefits? Besides money, health, beauty and entertainment, you may have a product that will make life easier or save time. In today's rushed world, time is a valuable commodity.

Cleaning products are excellent examples of products that meet these criteria. But simply saying that "this product will make your life easier" isn't enough. Outline how the product works. If you describe a situation that everyone is familiar with - cleaning the bathroom - and then clearly describe how your product will make short work of this task, you're well on your way to effective copywriting.

Finally, appeal to your audience's sensibilities to complete the sale. For example, if you're offering up the cleaning products, point out how proud the buyer will be when people recognize the super-duper cleaning job.
There's no magic form letter for good copywriting, but following these simple pointers will put you on the right track to creating copywriting that works.