Optimal Copy - SEO Copywriting Blog

By Karon Thackston

Sometimes choosing which company to buy from is about like
deciding which brand of canned peas is the best. To make matters
worse, the copy on most websites doesn’t offer any help.

There are three major offenders in copywriting that I see
constantly on the Internet. The first is generic copy that offers
no specific differentiation points — in other words, reasons why
the visitor should choose you instead of the thousands of other
sites that are just a click away. The second is overused fluff
copy that has no substance. And the third? Using company-focused
copy (”we” and “us”) instead of customer-focused (”you” and
“your”). It’s the third offender I want to address in this
article.

I am literally shocked that — after decades of marketing
evangelists preaching “It’s not about you!” — website owners
still don’t get it. What’s not to understand? Copy that focuses
strictly on your company and practically or completely ignores
your prospects doesn’t work nearly as well as copy that speaks to
your target customers in their language and about the benefits
they will receive.

I discussed this very topic with SEO friend Jill Whalen
recently, and she commented, “I think people don’t understand how
to write to the customer instead of about their company.” Perhaps
my cohort is right. So, in an effort to educate, let’s look at
several before and after scenarios.

Company-Focused Copy Examples

It’s as if this web design firm has intentionally made an effort
to ignore their site visitors. They use their company name, “the
client,” “customers,” and practically every other word to
describe who is reading the page. Except, that is, the most
important: you. You must address the one, single person who is
reading your web page at any given moment, not a collective
population of people.

ABC Web Design is dedicated to customer service. We make great
strides to offer high levels of customer service and
communication with clients. As a small company, we understand
one-on-one service is needed. Our designers have developed
hundreds of small-business websites and we make the process
simple. Contact us for pricing and a free consultation today.

Do you see that not a single “you” is used? The site visitor is
never addressed. It’s all about the company. Now let’s change it
to be about the customer:

ABC Web Design is dedicated to your success, promising high
levels of customer service and communication. You’ll be kept up
to date — on a one-to-one basis — about the progress of your
project. Relying on years of experience, your web designer makes
the creation process simple, guiding you through every step.
Contact us for pricing and a free consultation today.

Here’s another example.

We have the finest contractors in the marketplace today. Our
kitchen experts have been recruited from the most successful
companies. XYZ Kitchen Remodeling Company of Kalamazoo has the
support of a large network with over 300 reliable and
professional kitchen remodeling contractors serving most of North
America.

Here’s the rewrite:

When you want to work with the finest contractors in the
marketplace, XYZ Kitchen Remodeling Company of Kalamazoo answers
the call. Not only will you benefit from using experienced
kitchen experts, your renovation is backed by the support of the
largest network of kitchen remodelers. That gives you the
knowledge and skills of over 300 reliable, professional kitchen
remodeling contractors in North America.

See the difference? Is it a sin to use the words “us” or “our”?
Certainly not, but your copy should be weighted far more heavily
with customer-oriented words than company-focused ones. Tell
visitors about your service, your results and your experience.
But do so in a way that makes them and their success the center
of the copy.

When you keep the focus on your company, you prevent your target
customer from knowing the benefits they’ll reap after working
with you. However, when you adjust your focus, you shine a bright
light helping visitors to quickly see why you’re the best choice
for them.

Karon Thackston creates customer-focused copy that connects and
converts. If you’re struggling with copy that doesn’t perform,
contact Karon today through http://www.MarketingWords.com for
online copywriting or copywriting training.

Here’s an informative enumeration of SEO copywriting practices you do NOT want to engage in.  Courtesy of the always illuminating Karon Thackston.

Top 10 Don’ts for SEO Copywriting
By Karon Thackston © 2009, All Rights Reserved

Following in the footsteps of Rand Fishkin and Guy Kawasaki, I
decided to come up with my own list of don’ts.

There is no shortage of don’ts when it comes to SEO copywriting.
It seems this niche got off to a rough start many years ago
when early comers somehow misconstrued the core principles of
the trade.  Allow me to elaborate on how not to write SEO copy.

1. Don’t shove as many keyphrases into the copy as humanly
possible.  It’s not about the sheer volume of search terms you
include.  Yes, Google and other engines should be able to follow
what the page is about.  Yes, engines are looking to match a
searcher’s query with search engine optimized content on your
web pages, but which pages land at the top is decided through a
series of calculations far more complex than any simple ratio.
When you overload copy with keyphrases you sacrifice quality and
user experience.

2.  Don’t lose site of balance.  If SEO copywriting isn’t about
the percentage of keywords within the copy, then what is it
about?  Balance.  You have two audiences with SEO copywriting:
the search engines and your site visitors.  But surprisingly,
the balance doesn’t come with serving both masters well.  The
balance comes in how much you cater to the engines.  You see,
your site visitors always come first.  However, if you write
with too little focus on the engines, you won’t see good
rankings.  If you put too much focus on the engines, you’ll
start to lose your target audience.  Balance. always balance.

3.  Don’t let someone else choose the keywords.  If keyword
research isn’t a service you offer, an SEO firm, keyword
specialist or some other professional that your client hires
will have to conduct the research.  Don’t just accept keyphrases
these folks toss your way.  Ask to see the entire list with
recommendations as to which terms would be best strategically.
Then you, as the professional writer, can decide which will also
work best within the copy.

4.  Don’t sacrifice flow for numbers.  This is a follow-up to
number three and is a major issue with bad SEO copywriting.
SEOs or clients sometimes insist on using hacked-up search
phrases that simply don’t work in a normal sentence. An example?
“Candies samples free.”  Many copywriters will just grin and
bear it, sacrificing quality and flow for the sake of
competitive values or other numbers.  The result is often some
obnoxious sentence like, “If you’re looking for candies samples
free, you’ve come to the right place!”  Forcing a phrase into
the copy at all costs never turns out well.

5.  Don’t use keyphrases that don’t apply to the page.  If you
operate a site about wedding receptions, don’t try to force a
search term about wedding dresses into the copy just because it
pulls a lot of traffic.  (A) Unless you sell, alter or design
wedding dresses, it won’t be applicable.  (B) Even if you manage
to get the page ranked well for the phrase [wedding dresses],
once the visitor clicks to your site and realizes you have
nothing to do with wedding dresses, they will leave. It’s a
waste of time and effort and it creates a poor user experience.

6.  Don’t use misspellings and correct spellings on the same
page.  I fully understand that the misspellings of keyphrases
can be valuable search terms.  However, to mix correct spellings
and misspellings within the same page of copy looks like you’ve
got a bunch of typos in the content. It’s just not professional.
Some writers will go for the old, “We rent limousines
(sometimes spelled limosenes) for the most affordable prices in
town.”  I don’t care for that approach. It’s just not natural.
Would you ever see brochure or newspaper copy that reads that
way?  I think not.

7.  Don’t use keyphrases the exact same way every time.  This is
how we end up with horrible SEO copy that sounds like a 4th
grader wrote it.  (See #4.)  There are lots of ways to use
keywords in copy, not just one.  In order to sound natural, you
have to get creative with your keyphrase use.  One way is to
break up phrases using punctuation.  Since search engines don’t
pay attention to basic punctuation marks, you can easily write
something using the search term [real estate Hawaii] that reads
like this: “Currently there is an impressive selection of
available real estate.  Hawaii listings can be.”  See?  “Real
estate” is at the end of the first sentence and “Hawaii” is at
the beginning of the second sentence. The engines ignore the
period so there’s no problem.

8. Don’t use all types of search phrases for every situation.
There are many ways in which this “don’t” applies.  One quick
example is that of an ecommerce site.  It wouldn’t be advisable
to use specific, long-tail keyphrases on the home page of your
site.  They are much too specific in most cases and are better
suited for individual product pages.  Broader terms are
typically best for an ecommerce home page.  If you don’t
understand the best applications for the various types of
keywords, you’re likely to have lackluster results.

9. Don’t neglect ALT tags/image attributes.  These tags are the
ones associated with images on your pages and they carry a good
deal of weight especially if the image is used as a link.  The
ALT text counts the same as anchor text in a text-based link.
Depending on a few different factors, ALT text may be a good
place for those misspellings mentioned in #6.

10. Don’t forget the chain of protocol.  There’s a method to the
SEO copywriting madness.  The idea is not to get as many
different keyphrases onto a page as possible.  Just the
opposite, in fact.  Rather than having 12 different search terms
used only one time each, you need to use two to four keyphrases
(depending on the length of your copy) per page.  The title,
META tags, ALT tags, other coding elements and on-page copy need
to support each other as far as keyphrase use goes.  Your goal
is to let the engines know that you have original, relevant
content about a narrow topic.

Unless you have an exceptional number of back links built up,
just mentioning [dark chocolate], [chocolate strawberries],
[chocolate chip cookies], [chocolate cake], [chocolate
desserts], [organic chocolate] and [chocolate cheesecake] once
each on a web page isn’t likely to do a lot of good.  Instead,
pick two or three terms which are closely related and use them
several times each along with mentioning them in your tags.

When you avoid making common mistakes, you’ll find your SEO
copywriting flows much better, is more natural-sounding and
ranks higher, too.

Need help with SEO copywriting?  Karon has written 3 excellent
books to help you learn keyword optimization techniques. Visit
http://www.CopywritingCourse.com today and click to the Order
page for details.

By Karon Thackston

Comparison shoppers are the mortal enemy of pay-per-click (PPC) advertisers. When you’re paying each time someone clicks your AdWords (or other PPC) ad, the last thing you want is a person determined to visit every site to find the best price, the closest location or the most secure guarantee. But, with many categories of products or services, it’s bound to happen. There is a way to eliminate many of the lookers, however.

When you qualify your AdWords leads, you can reduce the click-through rate (CTR) of browsers and help direct only those most interested in your offer to your site. How is it done? By inserting text that will purposely eliminate arbitrary visitors.

Qualifying Your PPC Leads

Purposely eliminating visitors sounds like an awful thing to do, doesn’t it? Perhaps, until you consider the fact that - once these visitors got to your site and found out the details of your offer - they’d most likely leave anyway.

Why not save yourself a click (and the money associated with that click!) and prevent the visitor from running up your monthly AdWords bill? This is exactly what Steve Jackson of Conversion Chronicles and I discussed awhile back. Since that discussion, I’ve come up with a process that will allow you to easily write pre-qualifying ads when you use three simple steps.

Rather than using generic terms to describe high cost or frequently compared PPC items, get as specific as you can with “disqualifying” copy. By weeding out those who would likely take one look and leave, you can save yourself a lot of money in AdWords expenses while increasing conversions.

Karon Thackston is a prominent SEO copywriter who has helped companies including Gorton’s Seafood and GiftCertificates.com excel on the Internet. The author of 2 long-standing ebooks on SEO copywriting (The Step-by-Step Copywriting Course and How To Increase Keyword Saturation) she has recently launched her third work specifically designed to help you write successful PPC ads that convert! Get your copy of How To Write Successful PPC Ads today!