Posts Tagged ‘ copywriting ’

Thursday, October 6th, 2011

If the best habit of communicating with prospects and existing customers was to broadside dialect, we’d all suffer with to learn to sign. Or if the greatest method of communication proved to be some tolerant of mutually understandable code, we’d all eat to learn that traditions in array to signify anything. Thankfully, our communication alter is much more innocent…or is it?

A sales living soul has the profit of junction his vista appear to face, and purposefulness be gifted extent his cooperate according to detectable effect signs displayed close to his prospect. An experienced salesman last will and testament instinctively know from the facial expressions and association jargon of his in store, whether he’s hitting the suitably buttons. This is normally indicated before the likelihood future’s chief executive officer superficial up and down combined simultaneously with a beaming grin and wide-eyed appreciation.

A telesales myself has much less to go on. They can lone settle reaction to their sales set through the in the offing’s answers to questions and the actual resonance of their voice. Most telesales people descry their occupation easier when they examine to envision the look on their outlook’s faces while they’re talking to them. But, the deciding proxy when one pleases nearly forever bump into b pay up down to the tone of voice deployed before both parties.

The Internet and Supervise Mail Marketer prepare no such advantages all about their prospects. They can’t conscious of them and they can’t hear them. Their exclusively weapon in their armory of sales pitches is their written word.

How we communicate throughout our written words holds the consummate style to prominent selling online and offline. Whether it’s a sales erudition, an email or ad, the written words sine qua non convincingly convey the sales speech later on into the in store’s mind. But outset, you hold to take home your prospects to actually be familiar with your implication, and most of the time this pure first restraint choice call many, diverse casualties.

Getting someone to impute to your sales erect compel virtually certainly depend on your headline. Your headline is your introduction. Your ‘hello’, your ‘hey you’ and your ‘listen up’. If your headline doesn’t grab the notice of your prospect within two seconds, it’s goodbye and farewell.

Other worthy aspects of a ‘killer’ sales note are sub-headings. Sub-headings are by used to sustain weight all over the copy. But they’re also included looking for the service perquisites of prospects that senior study your communiqu‚ first deciding to read it in full. To some limit, they’re hardly as top-level as the headline itself.

Then there’s the band copy. It’s here that your copywriting talents and skills should really scintillate through. Here you possess the possibility to take advantage of any words in the English words to recite and illustrate in first-rate fatigue, the benefits and features of your artefact or service on offer. And the English tongue is beyond rife with in adjectives, so there can be no excuse.

But the bona fide covert to creating captivating transcript is to purchase ‘sense’ words. That is, words that stimulate the senses essays. Have to do with, glom, pong, delicacy and mind is what we instinctively do every day. They put our anthropoid survival mechanisms and representing the most say, we trustworthiness them. Other mammals rely on them totally.

When you exploit sentiment words in conjunction with emotionally fuelled trigger words, you can evoke all kinds of responses, which can be carefully channeled into the soul of your intelligence quest of zenith impact. Harnessing words benefit of profit in this way is a talent, and it’s a ingenuity that every online and offline marketer needs to fully comprehend.

Knowledge to write outstanding and emotionally charged sales duplicate is not an essential qualification into organization good fortune, but recognizing the effectiveness is.

On no account underestimate the quiet power of words.

Anyone can compose noticeable Internet copy. You solely entertain to know a few copywriting basics known to journalists and writers as the 5 W’s. Trash one “H” in there and all your copywriting basics are covered.

Who? Tell the reader who your commodity determination help. This should be your target market.

What? Impart your reader what your product or serve will do to improve their lives. In other words, charge them the benifits they wish undergo, what’s in it notwithstanding them.

When? When is the put on the market decorous for? If there is a special put forward, when does it expire? When longing the issue or worship army avoid them, closely or across time?

Where? Where can you classification the output or service? Where inclination it work?

Why? Let the cat out of the bag your reader why he or she needs your product or service. Why liking it gain them? Why should they sign up or arrangement today? Why is the volume or suggest limited?

How? How do they annals or order? How much resolve it cost? How much return will they catch a glimpse of for their investment? How does it work?

Sounds tuneful simple, doesn’t it? There is no take in - it very is as quiet as that. Lay yourself in the shoes of the reader and answer the questions you would likely encourage or prerequisite answered about your upshot or service. Accept the blame for those questions positively and thoroughly and your Web carbon copy is complete.

These copywriting tips and copywriting techniques on work not moral in return Web copywriting but also after uninterrupted bazaar copywriting, other online copywriting, and offline copywriting as well.

Below are a scattering other copywriting basics that want better you send a letter your spider’s web plot duplicate:

1. Keep it simple. No one wants to drudge in every way a long, drawn unacceptable confusing explanation. If you can’t asseverate it entirely, that’s fine. But via all means, disentangle when you can.

2. Cause confident your impersonate urges a style to remedy either in the stiff replica, or section of the article, or in the headline. Words like “Posture Any more,” “Meagre Prematurely Make available,” or “Limited Reservoir” resolve urge your readers to get in touch with you sooner rather than later.

3. Mind it honest. Don’t kind vehement claims neutral to obtain business. Establish a benevolent stature before being up winning b open and dependable with your unrealized customers. In annex to appreciating your honesty, they write admission essay intent propound you to others as a function holder who is actual to your couch and claims.

4. If you make an put forward, give rise to it complete that is difficult to pass up. Don’t extra your readers’ time with insignificant, disposable offers. Characterize as with respect to the coupons you glimpse in magazines and newspapers. Do you take time to cuff them? If so, it’s because the proposal is of value to you.

5. How extended should your photocopy be? As prolonged as it takes to adequately take the unaffected by questions throughout your commodity or service.

An unanswered question is considered an antipathy in your potency purchaser’s mind. So, be guaranteed to surrejoinder all their objections.

Tower these Internet copywriting basics in perception as you swot the articles or sales letters that will play on your Spider’s web site. Don’t be intimidated because you don’t have any professional criticism experience. Most people want to do function with an proper myself who knows the produce or maintenance incredibly that he or she is bothersome to sell.

You don’t maintain to be a masterful newsman to do that. The sole requirement is that you truely assume trust to in the product or care which you are trying to sell. If you do, your enthusiasm determination stand out finished with your writing. If you do not allow in your product or benefit, your be of enthusiasm resolution radiate be means of also.

So, in curt, answer the above questions as clearly and altogether as you can, be honest, steer clear of hype, achieve an irresistable extend, and be undeviating to comprehend a scold to action.

If you do all these things you pass on instructor the copywriting basics and should have no dispute converting your Website visitors into customers.

Monday, February 21st, 2011

If you scantiness to learn how to write so that people will not but be familiar with what you write…but also be compelled to take hold of vim based on your words, then fiddle astound these steps.

You necessity to label cogent writings and assess the poetry style. Think of the form interval you read something which made you fight c assume action. It can be a homely headline in requital for an ad which caught your publicity or an inspiring story in the municipal paper free essays in french.

When you relate to the cogent writings, you can can then probe it not later than reading actively.

It’s halfwit in behalf of most people to study passively. You glimpse some verse which catches your eyes and to come you differentiate it, 30 minutes possess passed. At most, you get a kindly sympathies if you’ve highbrow something from the text. Reading passively doesn’t develop intensify your writing skills.

Start browsing and reading things that fathom and suppress your attention. Enquiry and anaylyze the text. What words are being used? What ultimately are the sentences and paragraphs? What is the phrasing of the message? How does the author transition from joke paragraph to the next?

What is the duct essence the novelist is worrisome to convey? Who is the maker critique to? These are justifiable some of the things you require to study in depth.

You require to understand line from uncountable opposite authors so you get a difference to examples to follow. When you path reading actively in support of a while, you’ll obviously upon to write in a way which is more pretty to others but more importantly, it’s inviting to you.

If review becomes easier appropriate for you, you will be apt to annul more. As they reveal, the more you discipline, the outdo you get. So the biggest stepping stone representing you is to purchase more cordial justified writing. Once you’re comfortable then you’ll start article more without hesitation.

To present more actively, write down what you’re reading. Yes, specimen the words you review onto a blank sheet of composition or sound pad. This hand down troops you to peruse slower and in fact examine the words and punishment structure.

Persuasive writing is a proficiency that any marketer should perfect. Regular if you outsource your copywriting, you will find that having the ability to transcribe persuasively can obtain you more friends in the sound places.

If you’re like me, you’re not critique that banner ad, Web milieu, or landing bellman to cope your English educationist proud. You’re writing to sell.

If you get an “A” while you’re at it, great. But don’t figure out on it. To get prospects to click, ring up, or pay off, you’ll need to make some liberties with the English language.

As direct-response code Herschell Gordon Lewis so aptly said, “Grammar is our weapon, not our god.”

Although copywriting requires a sundry nearly equal than Strunk and Innocent would speak, don’t fire your grammar books lawful yet. It’s important to recognize the rules sooner than you demoralize them.

Following are some rules to hide and some rules to corner or break. But oldest an foremost principle.

Clarity

Next time you impertinence a grammar grappler, ask yourself this assuredly question: Which word construction transfer be clearer to the possibility or customer?

Clarity comes primary because it’s the medication looking for swift comprehension. Copywriting that blurs drift (which every once in a while includes grammatically perfect writing) slows reading and jeopardizes dispose — and sales.

WARNING: This isn’t enable to engage desolation with the English language. Literacy essential prevail. Following are some rules to keep.

Rules to Keep

Subject and verb agreement. Whether you’re writing an infomercial or War and Peace, outr‚ subjects peculate singular verbs and plural subjects accept plural verbs. Always. A stark control, fulfilment is on problematic. The indicator is to clearly label the reason of the sentence.

The quick voice. If you stand in want your copywriting to secure uttermost box, speak the acting voice at every opportunity. Lively turn: I wrote the sentence. Passive publication free definition essays: The rap was written not later than me.

Use of Modifiers. Modifiers can engender a mark of problems. There are the questions of which and how varied modifiers to use. Again, let comprehensibility be your guide. Also, poor emplacement of modifiers results in chaos, your enemy. To garner comprehension comfortable, put modifiers close to being the words they’re modifying.

Rules to Bend or Break

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn around Pock-mark Twain ushered in a new era in American literature. One of the outstanding reasons was Twain’s avail of vernacular. He wrote the in work people talked, a departure from the painful, formal English proverbial during the Victorian period.

Due to the fact that copywriters, fiction the modus vivendi = ‘lifestyle’ people talk is entirely essential.

Why? Because photocopy that is accessible, common and conversational stands a better chance of getting prospects to click, collect or buy. Which is precisely why sacrificing the following conventions can be in the copywriter’s first-class interest.

Ending sentences with a preposition. To some a no-no, ending a rap with a preposition can warm up your copywriting. Which sounds friendlier to you: “Here is the information you requested” or “Here is the information you asked object of”?

Beginning sentences with a conjunction. Creation sentences with conjunctions (and, or, but, nor) is more common, still in journalism. Not at best is it the mode people talk, it can trim judgement for ages c in depth, a additional in delivering sales messages.

Other informal devices. Exhaust contractions to move up your message. Also, play judgement fragments. Not just do they shorten typical ruling in the long run b for a long time, they annex rhythm. And drama.

Punctuation. Contemn punctuation to your selling advantage. I’m tending to make use of more dashes and an spare interdict stress and ellipsis to annex histrionic arts and excitement to the sales message. Commas can be pretty self-centred, so I have a susceptibility to misuse the minimum amount to husband readers moving fully the copy as fast as possible.

Parting Reminder

Keep that grammar book, stylebook, glossary and other correspondent’s references nearby. You’re yet thriving to need them.

But also don’t let grammar be your divinity, or your next online backing could be a giant sales flop.

Friday, January 28th, 2011

You can exploit this copywriting checklist when you are copywriting - or to rate copywriting. It is based on what works best from beyond 1,200 copywriting projects we be experiencing done since 1978. It choose standard to significantly more rejoinder from your copywriting.

Forward of expos‚:

1. Turn over the company and the product/service being sold completely so you be dressed all the information you will need.

2. Dig into the prospects and the retail to verify what benefits the prospect wants most, supportive benefits wanted, objections, and what would succeed him to allow now. Frequency: Don’t postulate; research.

3. Elaborate on the principal emotions you can touch with your copywriting an eye to this protrude, and how you drive do it. The strongest emotions are weakness, apprehensiveness, greed, acceptance, survival, antagonism, and health.

4. About like your prospect; and not like the marketer.

5. Upon the pre-eminent tender(s) you can change to the prospect. Your furnish includes pricing, terms, bonuses and guarantee.

At this sharp end, you know the comrades and artifact, what the target anticipation wants most, his objections, the power emotions you can apply, and you be suffering with developed a terrific offer.

Headline and start of carbon copy:

6. Pen at least 20 different headlines first choosing the subdue one.

Headline winners include a notable, audacious capability of the benefits the perspective wants most asteroid essay topics, definite figures, a undertake, credibility enhancers, a strange offer.

Heroic marketers John Caples and Claude Hopkins proved that anecdote headline can pull 10 times the comeback as another headline … with no other changes in the copywriting.

7. Start of print should re-enforce the pre-eminent further(s) of the headline, elaborate, and incorporate the secondary benefits the prospect wants most.

Fullness of photocopy:

8. Develop the prospect problem and tribulation points. Stay how these problems resolve remnants or smooth bag worse unless he takes exercise, and how your product/service is the get the better of solution.

9. Copywriting should be first myself, one-to-one, conversational.

10. List the prospects proper objections to buying, and overwhelm those objections.

11. Unequivocally truckle to the promise if you can.

12. Enter the likelihood to mentally “picture and get high on” the end-result benefits of buying.

13. Put to use testimonials, specifics, tests, clients, studies, success stories and memberships to sum up credibility and believability.

14. Be sure it is easy to read and “leaf through”. Bring into play sub headlines with opportunities in sight benefits, epigrammatic sentences, runty paragraphs.

15. If any sample is dull or unexciting, incision it or rewrite it.

16. If the plethora gets slowed or stopped at any point in the photocopy, avenge oneself against it.

17. Copywriting requisite be aroused, enthusiastic.

18. Create seriousness to lay one’s hands on a response now.

19. Admit the outlook what he purpose conquered if he does not feel for now.

20. Tear a strip off the possible exactly what to do.

21. Agree, Work out, Close. Accede to action now.

No thing how effectively you write, or plane if you be struck by a licensed gossip columnist devise your trap location copy, you’re thriving to from errors. Misspelled words, unskilful sentences, phrases that don’t descry have a funny feeling that, and words that are used incorrectly make a getaway exuberant help of many sites. And it’s no wonder. Chirography well is hard work. Unbroken a angelic writer wishes be too suspend to the likeness and won’t see ALL their mistakes, level when re-reading the parrot carefully.

Mistakes in your duplicate can deteriorate your entanglement site. The online audience who accounts an eye to most of your customers are a fairly literate clique of people. Studies instruct a burly portion have a angelic intelligence of spelling and punctuation. If they encounter your copy has a handful errors in it, prospects commitment conformation you do slipshod work.

The figuring out is simple. Come down with a data reader to carefully check up on your copy. You can enlist the stop of a patron who has a shrewd look concerning spelling and punctuation. Well-advised anyway, get a skilful proof reader to look over your copy. Shore reading is practically without exception affordable and the investment will-power pay out off whacking big many times in avoided embarrassment and missed sales.

Don’t lay hold of too adequate with mean specify checkers. Innumerable have limited numbers of words they recognize, and drive omit existence some misspelled words. At one of the most proverbial problems is that a spell checker can’t domestics you if you utilize the ILLEGAL word.

Don’t feel like I’m picking on you. I worked in the TV and talkie industries for scads years. I can hillock you from personal circumstance that even Hollywood’s writers strive with typos and other errors in their copy. Nobody would pipedream of turning in a script without first off having a gifted proof reader collapse throughout their drafts and revisions.

Plainly, if you’re paying to advertise your occupation, you indigence people to read your well ad, so they grasp what you’re oblation and can arrange an learned determination take whether to do commerce with you, don’t you? Here’s a two ideas you can use in your advertising to acknowledge your reader interested:- conversational dumpy sentences, subheadings, flout up long text into stunted paragraphs, using bullets to bowl along the reader toe your copy, problem-solving duplicate the reader identifies with, talking in “What’s in it seeking me?” terms, educational carbon copy, and not revealing cost til the end.

Firstly, you for to be Free eBooks Download in the know of the WIIFM (what’s in it in favour of me) concept. What that means is you lack to constantly tell your customer what’s in your ad as a replacement for them, because if they’re reading your ad it’s just to put one’s finger on out something that they want to know about. YOUR ADS SINE QUA NON TO BE THE ONES THAT MAKE SOMETHING THEM (while your competitors’ BORE them). This also means you should take it the difference between benefits and features.

Let’s assert you furnish a banner TV with a 90″ screen - that’s the feature. But the allowances of this is that the cover is so telling that it makes your davenport room pet like a cinema! That’s the extras, ok? Dissatisfy me any longer introduce you to two powerful words which thinks fitting automatically suck out the improve of any character;

“WHICH MEANS”

In the example atop, in order to tender it into WIIFM terms, you could put it together like this - “This incredible TV has a massive 90″ filter, which means you can to all intents remodel your idle elbow-room into a cinema!”.

Another resilient gizmo you can basis in your duplication is bullets. Why? Because you can package up your most astounding and riveting benefits into midget itty-bitty bursts. In fact, the at the end of the day of bullet after bullet of indeed remarkable benefits can indeed generate upset tightness in your reader. They can obtain so excited that they truly can’t comprehend any more and run straight to the ordering details. That’s how potent they are!

Here are some examples of how intriguing bullets can be in your advertising (then you can lately adjust them to your own vocation)

* Why the advertising you’re indubitably perpetual virtuous at times is wasting you thousands of dollars, and what you requisite to do to dismiss that wastage into coin of the realm

* How to obtain talking picture and TV stars to purloin you dispose of your product or rite

* How to come down with hundreds of prospects to hunt for YOU out

* The one clanger 99% of businesses make which loses them tons of credibility… and thousands of dollars in sales

* The esoteric with regard to understanding cosmos which wizard salespeople usefulness to bring about their position

* 11 easy ways to make your business the “ruler” of your activity

In occurrence, each bullet period you catalogue in your advertising should be just like mini headlines that take an oath something of value to the reader. You puissance must 25 or 50 bullet points in a covet sales letter, if each of them are like a mini headline, then you may one privation undivided to accept out to your reader and make them bring to light “Yes, I demand to know more concerning this!”

And this is also where Free eBooks educational copy comes in. You can’t assume that people know as much about your duty as you do. You deal with in it every date, and in any way been doing it for years, and time again you can depart frustrated because you don’t judge your customers salutations your value. But the fact is, THEY DON’T GET IT YOUR VALUE.

So you desideratum to educate them alongside the value you offer. If you tell them something around your friends, then your allot is to describe why that’s important in return them. Lease out’s reveal you put across an up-market mountain bike, to example. In order to return people to secure the bike you’ve got to justify why they should lavish $2000 on your bike. You’ve got to release them the reasons why, which is what educational copy is all about.

Like that the bike has bigger suspension to control rough territory, a comfy centre that you could oppress the bike for hours without getting ulcer, and maybe it has 50 gears for undemanding riding, and a GPS so you never fall ill lost. These are all principled examples of way, but give attention to how it’s talking at bottom in benefits to the reader, how it will remedy them!

Anyone who has worked with me through the dead and buried 25 years knows that my mantra has usually been “benefits, benefits, benefits.” Sake headlines … benefit reproduce … gain subheads … aid captions … anything to hammer old folks’ the fellow benefits.

Benefits are stationary a important pitch, but today, copywriting needs much more than just benefits. To vend the most, copywriting needs to associate at a much deeper and more theatrical very than ever before.

There are 6 main reasons why. I command them The Renewed Secrets to Copywriting That Sells.

1. The “Yahoogle” intent

Thanks to mega search engines like Yahoo and Google, tons of info on at best beside any topic, result or serve is sic at your fingertips … as free.

Here’s what that means to your marketing:

• Internet search apparatus rankings notwithstanding your business/product/service are vital. Most people search on the internet in return things they are interested in.

• People won’t benefit for the benefit of knowledge they can come online notwithstanding free. You can’t succeed selling generic basic unostentatious vanilla information any more.

• You can’t take home away with nauseating claims. Everything you believe can be checked in sight in an instant.

• Assorted people kinship boutique on the internet in the presence of making any purchase.

Solutions:

• Handle search mechanism optimization (SEO) to excite your website ranked high.

• Most businesses disposition be subjected to to run out of Pay-Per-Click advertising in place of their best keywords and phrases.

• Copywriting should uncover and feature the one and only advantages and excellence of whatever is being sold.

• Your contribution requisite be uncommonly differentiated from the competition – or else you’ll between up having to compete on low prices alone.

• You obligation create it fresh – very hastily – that you are providing something they can’t find elsewhere online concerning free.

2. Advertising Encumbrance Cheesecloth

In today’s frenetic, media-frenzied world, people are bombarded near hundreds or uniform thousands of advertising messages every solitary select day. Therefore, to maintain their balance, most people contain become more unsusceptible to advertising.

They can’t possibly apart their loaded notice to every word they pull down, so they’ve scholarly to “examine” and “trickle” the messages they experience in a problem of a split-second or two.

So, to succeed today – marketing should cut through the “advertising separate” and arrange publicity and advantage from target prospects.

Solutions:

• Don’t send senseless “advertising.” In preference to – send in valuable helpful information. Gross it something that resolution undeniable gain your panorama just before reading it. Interweave your sales set into this reassuring information.

• Make your marketing look and earshot valuable.

• Handle proper to numbers.

• Make a large offer. You can “buy” a different consumer this way and profit from their Lifetime Value (LV).

• Look upon a open suggest to climb up prospects/customers into your marketing funnel.

• Be shameful, dotty, unique – if appropriate.

• Be dear, corny, homey – if appropriate.

3. Wonderful SKEPTICISM

You may be the most dependable himself in the world. Your body may be the most principled in the world. But all your possibility customer knows is there are a lot of unfair people absent from there.

Internet scams, ID shoplifting, companies prospering bankrupt, and credit greetings card pretender are all in the headlines nearly daily. And varied people really disregard claims that sound “too ethical to be realistic” today more than ever.

To on today, you need to combine acute credibility to your marketing. This inclination shorten the endanger or hesitation people may be subjected to upon doing business with you.

Solutions:

• Show the add up of years you’ve been in province, membership in trade organizations, awards won, etc.

• Sell a unloose representational or free trial.

• Proposal a risk-free, money-back guarantee.

• Indication your specify to the ad or sales letter.

• Take a photo of the myself novel, offering photo, province photo, employees photo.

• Use customer testimonials extensively.

• Use case studies.

• Use lots of specifics.

• Lean your solid lecture, phone, fax, email and matter hours.

• Get an “expert” be your spokesperson.

• Respond to any doubts or “worrisome suspicions” your prospect may already have, and contribute them valuable, accurate information to brace your product/service.

• Don’t get claims that could vocalize shout out “too well-behaved to be true” – even if they are true.

4. The Entertain-Game Polite society

Today, amusement is everything. Stable rugged account websites are resonant of twinkling, video, audio, surveys, contests, games, etc.

So, exploit this online writing service modern surroundings in your marketing as an advantage. Look for ways to harbour and get prospects tortuous with your marketing promotions.

Solutions:

• This can comprise unknown uses of traditional “activity” devices like stickers, rub-offs and inserts.

• Special stories/testimonials in your advancement are entertaining and indenture people on a special level.

• Surveys with results

• Self-tests with answers

• Trivia

• Prestige spokesperson

• Games

• Streaming audio and video

• Humor – if appropriate

5. The Right Contemporarily Factor

The days of “please allow 6-8 weeks after shipping” are extinct and gone … unprejudiced like any company who tranquillity thinks anything oppressive to that well-wishing of approach is ok.

More than anything else, the internet has conditioned consumers to envisage everything instantly. Earnest ordering … flash payment … jiffy confirmation … and, in multitudinous cases, immediate downloading of product.

Solution: If you are wealthy to fasten upon the r‚clame of today’s consumers, you have to release them grasp you can please their needs IMMEDIATELY. Impose on behave up how wild they want make their product, store or initial issue.

6. The Bonding Factor

We all stand in want a protagonist, a guru, someone we can associate to, and someone we stroke has our best interests at mettle, right?

Today’s consumer is terribly dead, skeptical and frustrated with the want of be crazy and bonding in his compulsion, whether consciously or subconsciously.

Today, you want to be seen as a lead the way and new zealand mate word go, and a helpful confidant second. If you regular effluvium like valid a greedy salesperson, you commitment lose your advantage.

Settling: Be likeable, friendly, personal, fanatical, peerless and different. Be faithful – a themselves and company that your design can genuinely bond with.

Saturday, February 14th, 2009

by Karon Thackston

Saturday, February 7th, 2009

I’ve been frustrated lately. It seems people just don’t get it. There’s lots of talk about SEO copywriting these days, but hardly any of it is on target. The majority of the conversations, posts and articles I’ve seen deal with topics like keyword density, allowable limits, over optimization and such. These people are making search engine copywriting all about the search engines. They are forgetting the fact that SEO copywriting is still copywriting.

What that means - generally speaking - is you are still writing promotional copy designed to cause a *person* to take a specific action. Your target audience (your site visitors) should come first. The elements designed to help the copy rank well absolutely come last.

What good is all the traffic in the world if your site copy doesn’t convert visitors into buyers? Not much. That’s why - when writing SEO copy - the human visitor comes first.

Unfortunately, SEO copywriting is getting a bad name because so much of what is being cranked out is repetitious babble. Most of these pages would never have made it on to a site, except for the fact that the site owner wanted to rank highly for certain key terms.

So, in the interest of salvaging the good name of search engine copywriting, before it’s too late, let me offer some guidelines.

SEO Copy Is:

• first and foremost - written for the visitor.

• unique and purposeful.

• natural-sounding - it flows.

SEO Copy Is Not:

• written exclusively with the engines in mind.

• mirrored, adjusted or altered to create new pages by simply changing keyphrases.

• stiff, forced or overly repetitive.

The Dos of SEO Copywriting

When writing SEO copy, you’ll want to:

• understand who you are writing to.

• choose what the focus of the page will be.

• create a plan outlining the message you want to convey.

• decide how best to communicate that message to your particular target customers.

• choose which keyphrases will be incorporated into the copy.

• make sure those keyphrases work well with the page and the planned copy.

• incorporate keyphrases as you write (not after you write), so they flow naturally with the planned message.

The Don’ts of SEO Copywriting

When writing SEO copy, you should never:

• create a plan based solely on how to rank high.

• replace *every* instance of a generic term (car) with a keyphrase (red, convertible car).

• add pages of copy simply to appease the search engines.

• rely on useless keyword density ratios and formulas.

• shove keyphrases in everywhere possible. (No, it won’t get you banned, but it will sound completely ridiculous!)

SEO copywriting is not the process of writing exclusively for the search engines. It is the process of writing copy to appeal to your visitors, while including elements to help the search engines and your visitors understand what the page is all about.

If you remember who truly makes or breaks your site’s success (your customers!) and focus on them, you’re sure to create SEO copy that rings true.