Copyright © 2010 Copywriting 2010-03-12T00:24:43+0000 2010-03-12T00:24:43+0000 http://www.i-com.net/blog/ Leading Manchester SEO, SEM and web design agency blog. http://www.i-com.net/blog/ http://i-com.net/images/icom-net.gif http://www.i-com.net/blog/ Leading Manchester SEO, SEM and web design agency blog. I-COM International blogmaster at i-com dot net Copywriting Copywriting en SEO, SEM, Web Design, Web Development 1440 http://www.i-com.net/blog/5-reasons-blogging-is-good-for-you-and-your-business-317/ I recently advised a friend of mine to add a blog to his company's new website and, whilst it set back the go live date by a few weeks as the developer desperately tried to incorporate a blog into a vastly intricate Flash site (don't ask), I believe it will be worth it. As Social Media becomes more and more important to both SEO and the user experience, companies must ensure that their sites are in some way interactive. A website filled with dry, static content that never changes is little more than a glorified online brochure that's potentially years out of date - a website should offer users a much more interactive experience, and the easiest way to do this is through use of a blog. Blogging is good for your business because: It ensures your company website is regularly updated with fresh and interesting content about your specific niche. Blog content can be anything from company news to instructional videos, it doesn't have to be pure text; It's an opportunity to make a connection with potential customers, to showcase the personalities lurking behind that corporate facade; It gives you the chance to impart genuinely useful advice about your business or products, making you appear magnanimous and, if your advice is good enough, has the potential to make your website a destination for web users interested in your particular trade or niche; Blogs are a great way of increasing traffic to your website; if a particularly funny or interesting article proves popular, some of the visitors it gets are bound to turn into paying customers; And blogging is good for you because: It ensures you stay engaged with your niche - it forces you to stay at the forefront of your industry. If you're always on the look out for a great topic for your blog, then you're going to be trawling the latest news stories, changes in law and business legislation that may affect your business or your customers. The more authoritative your knowledge of your industry, the more likely you are to impress prospective customers. But Remember If you're going to make the most of your company blog, you must update it regularly. An infrequently updated blog can be damaging to your business, making you appear lazy, disengaged with your customers and your industry as a whole. Here are some examples of well maintained company blogs: SEOmoz, Pannone's Personal Injury Blog. Copywriting 2010-03-01 15:24:28 http://www.i-com.net/blog/5-reasons-blogging-is-good-for-you-and-your-business-317/ http://www.i-com.net/blog/copifycom-a-shortcut-to-shoddy-content-314/ You may already be aware of the Copify.com debate - if not then it's been summed up at Unmemorable Title. Copify is a Lancaster-based firm which advertises itself as a way to "source content quickly, easily and cost-effectively". It is a platform via which businesses seeking content (both online and offline) can find copywriters and vice versa, to write press releases, articles, website content, anything. The crux of the debate is the rates the site pays its copywriters - for a 'standard' copywriter 0.02p per word, for a 'professional' 0.04p per word and for a 'premium' copywriter 0.08p per word. Many copywriters took exception to such low fees via Twitter and other Social Media sites over the weekend, as well as the fact that Copify.com suffers from a fatally flawed business model - you shouldn't pay for copy by the word. Paying by the word can only lead to sloppy, ill thought-out copy, as writers will rush through jobs in an effort to get paid more money by accepting more tasks. A 'standard' copywriter will earn just 10 for a 500 word document, so you know that document is not going to be of an outstanding quality. Copify attempts to dodge this issue by saying that if a document isn't approved by the client, the copywriter won't get paid. However, what if the client approves a piece of copy that is just passable; that perhaps doesn't represent their business in the best light or is poorly optimised, and they just don't realise? Is that fair? Absolutely not. The client should be able to have confidence in the quality of the copywriter's work, and if that copywriter is paid on a by-word basis, that confidence disappears. It's just not good customer service. Another valid argument against the idea of paying for copy by the word echoes a point made at Unmemorable Title: paying by the word encourages verbosity. Copy should be tailored to the client's needs; as a rule it should be short, snappy and aimed squarely at their target audience. However, if you're going to get paid more for being overly verbose... well, I know what I'd do. A previous employer of mine paid its content writers on a commission basis, and I saw some pretty horrendous work approved and published such as documents that had taken just minutes to write with no mind paid to potential duplicate content issues. Sites like Copify.com are a complete quality lottery - you have no idea what you're going to get for your money. Good copywriting is worth investing in, particularly from an SEO perspective. Properly optimised and well-written copy has the potential to drastically increase your site's traffic, by displaying properly optimised tags and page text to the search engines, not to mention increased usability, by telling visitors to your site exactly what they need to hear. Copify.com is based on a good idea - a site which allows publishers and clients to directly contact copywriters, but if you ask me, their business model is all wrong. P.S. Also, Copify claim to possess "vast experience of working in online marketing", yet their website is sadly lacking in meta information I'll let you draw your own conclusions from that. Copywriting 2010-02-16 16:12:12 http://www.i-com.net/blog/copifycom-a-shortcut-to-shoddy-content-314/ http://www.i-com.net/blog/death-of-a-copywriter-the-rise-of-the-automated-content-spinners-310/ As automated content spinners become more and more advanced, an SEO copywriter could be forgiven for starting to worry about his or her future job prospects. I'm not going to disclose too much personal information here, but I'm sure you won't be surprised to discover that my annual wage is significantly larger than $47 a year. Just this morning, I've been shown a content spinner with a user-updatable database of synonyms. The software identifies all words in a document for which a synonym exists in its database, and allows users to choose an appropriate word from a list of suggestions. This is a far cry from the standard free spinners, which turn sentences like this: "With a particular focus on getting you good results in Google, our SEO consultants offer you the full complement of SEO services." Into sentences like this: "By means of a fastidious spotlight on understanding you first-rate marks in Google, our SEO consultants tender you the jam-packed balance of SEO armed forces."Can a Content Spinner Replace an SEO Copywriter? No. Absolutely not. I know what you're thinking, "you would say that," so I'll not only make this assertion, I'll jolly well prove it. Whilst I would never advocate such spammy tactics, I can see how online content spinners could be useful for SEO consultants interested in submitting 'unique' content to article sites for the purpose of securing links. However, when it comes to the bread and butter of an SEO copywriter's day, and by this I mean blogging, creating content for client's websites, press releases and so on, your average (even your above-average) spinner would be completely useless. As a client, you can't give a content spinner a brand brief; you can't make revisions to its work; you can't ask it to think again, because it didnt think in the first place. Crucially, to actually take advantage of the time-saving nature of a content spinner, you need the raw materials to spin in the first place. For instance, if your business employed no copywriter, but had a content spinner, and you needed to create a new page of content for a solicitor's homepage, first of all you would have to find a page of content online from a solicitor advertising exactly the same services as your client. You would then have to use the software to create a page of copy that matched the tone and quality your client had specified and submit it to them for approval. If they weren't happy with the results, you would have to make further revisions in light of their comments - by which time you may as well have written the content yourself. Any benefit of the content spinning software you have purchased would be completely lost.We Will Soldier On As is true of many situations in life, there's no substitute for a human being (if you've ever used a robot cashier in a supermarket, you'll know what I'm talking about). Unless content spinners become infinitely more advanced (we're talking A.I.), they're no substitute for a copywriter. Copywriting 2010-02-08 09:06:34 http://www.i-com.net/blog/death-of-a-copywriter-the-rise-of-the-automated-content-spinners-310/ http://www.i-com.net/blog/txtspk-evolution-revolution-or-hellspawn-289/ We all know that usage of traditionally received spelling, punctuation and grammar is on the decline and we all know the culprit(s). Its these lovely modern mediums we use, text messages, internet forums, instant messengers, even blogs they demand brevity and supply us with happy little emoticons to express our feelings, all so we dont have to spend time searching the memory banks for those pesky, elusive adjectives.Evolution However, evolution of language is nothing new and neither is slang. The difference is that traditionally slang has been restricted to the realms of spoken English, whereas text speak and its cohorts are purely written forms this is the crucial difference that is getting all the lonely grammarians in a huff. Sure, slang has been written before but typically in the literary realm. Take, for example, Nadsat, the slang language used by the ultra-violent teenagers in Anthony Burgess A Clockwork Orange. Burgess half-created, half-borrowed Nadsat from a variety of linguistic sources and ended up with a form of written English that both bewitched and challenged the reader. Text speak isnt literary, its a social phenomenon born out of character limits and the need to be quick when youre standing on a rickety bus desperately trying to text a friend with your over-sized thumbs. Evolution is necessary for the re-vitalisation of language I love the semi-colon, but I have to accept that one day it may go (I will cry).Theres a time and a place For me, the fact that text speak exists is of no particular concern no one individual (or group of individuals) can claim ownership of language, thats one of the many reasons its so fantastic. However when we begin to see glaring spelling and grammar errors in the world of copywriting and journalism, we should be concerned. Language is context based, and writers in all fields must be capable of changing their language to suit the context. For instance, a journalist would not write an article in the same style for The Sun as they would for The Guardian. Its when our writers have not received adequate training to achieve this level of flexibility that we need to be worried. After all, grammar and punctuation exists for a reason, and that is to convey meaning. When you take away the emoticons and present a writer with a blank page and a pen, short of drawing little pictures they're are going to need a working knowledge of grammar and punctuation if they want to get their point across. This is especially important in a business arena, in which you are required to converse via e-mail with new clients. Poor spelling, punctuation and grammar in an introductory e-mail to a new client isn't going to make the best first impression. Text speak is not to blame In their private lives, people are entitled to speak and write in any way they see fit. However, in the professional or educational environment certain standards are required in order for an individual to be taken seriously. Text speak is an evolution of written English, and is not to blame for any perceived decline in spelling and grammar. If were looking for something to blame, a far easier and more worthy target is the decline in the number of people who read books and good quality newspapers; but thats a whole other rant. Copywriting 2010-01-04 12:03:53 http://www.i-com.net/blog/txtspk-evolution-revolution-or-hellspawn-289/ http://www.i-com.net/blog/can-you-take-the-criticism-5-ways-to-benefit-from-negativity-269/ As a Copywriter and writer in general, I cop for my fair share of criticism. I got it all through Uni on my creative writing course (which consisted of a group of people sitting around chewing up your hard work, saying things like Im not sure what your characters motivation is here and Whats going on with the dialogue here?), and now I get it at work from clients and colleagues I dont like it, but Ive learnt how to deal with it. Criticism can be difficult to handle and many people find it impossible not to get hot under the collar when faced with poorly thought out constructive criticism; but from time to time it really is useful. As someone who soaks up a lot of it, I feel vaguely qualified to offer a few tips to those who find themselves immediately adopting the defensive stance in any battle of wills: DONT get angry: Without a doubt, this is the most fundamental way to combat the misery that often accompanies negative criticism. If you get angry and defensive, the person giving the criticism will mirror you (unless theyre unusually restrained). Staying calm allows you to focus on the positives, and if there arent any then its not very constructive anyway so you can ignore it. LISTEN to the criticism: Believe it or not, sometimes other people do know better than you. This is something I had difficulty coming to terms with as I believe that I am 100% right, 100% of the time. Unfortunately, even if youre a world leader in a given field you can be proved wrong, even the Theory of Relativity has been proven to be flawed. If you sit back and listen carefully to the criticism, you just might learn something. DONT stoop to their level: If the person who is criticising you is doing so in an angry or aggressive manner, dont stoop to their level. Remain calm and offer reasonable responses to their criticisms easier said than done, I realise. This is a point that applies to both online and offline criticism. Often online criticism, particularly on forums, messageboards and blogs, can be particularly vehement thanks to the anonymity of the internet and the lack of significant repercussion dont end up like these guys. ACKNOWLEDGE your mistakes: If the criticism points out a flaw that youre aware of and have been trying to correct, acknowledge it. None of us are infallible and admitting that you are aware of the areas in which you need to improve will make you appear gracious, and could help you improve in the long run. DONT sulk: Children sulk, dogs whine when you dont feed them scraps from the dinner table if you have to take a hit then just suck it up. Try to learn from it; if theres nothing to learn just try not to let it get to you and think mean thoughts about the person instead. There you go, now its down to you. According to Psychology Today The alchemy that turns the bitter dross of negative feedback into the gold of professional development is purely from within. The language is a bit flowery, but the sentiments right. For an example of how to deal with online criticism on your blog, see the comments section here. Copywriting 2009-11-16 10:09:58 http://www.i-com.net/blog/can-you-take-the-criticism-5-ways-to-benefit-from-negativity-269/ http://www.i-com.net/blog/five-ways-to-make-your-website-copy-interesting-245/ If your business provides a great service for great prices but is in a particularly dry field, it can be difficult to make your website copy interesting to visitors. For instance, say you offer the best imaginable ready mix concrete for the cheapest prices in the land. You've got a fantastic product but let's face it: no-one's ever going to voluntarily read a whole page of text about ready mix concrete - right?Wrong - MAKE it interesting Your task, as the business owner, copywriter or general enthusiast, is to MAKE ready mix concrete interesting. There are a number of ways you can do this: Make it relevant to your target market. Niche businesses have very small, specialised target markets, so give site visitors as much relevant information as you can as early in the copy as possible. Think about what you would want to know if you were buying a bag of ready mix concrete: what is it suitable for? How much does it cost? How long does it take to mix? If you answer people's questions, they'll be interested. Write a 'How to'. Not only does a 'How to' guide make you seem like a magnanimous company which cares about its customers, it will also be of genuine interest to a great many people. Stick in a few references to your product and a handy link to the 'Buy Now' page, and you're laughing. Even if the customer already has the product, there's a good chance they'll think of you next time. Keep it brief. Don't ramble on for 1000 words about how fantastic your product is. Don't provide exhaustive lists of its many, many benefits. Filter your text down to the key reasons people should buy your product, and keep the copy around 300 words with an obvious prompt to buy. Use bullet points/numbered lists. A block of text with no line breaks can be daunting; don't risk putting off potential customers in this way. Make sure your copy is full of handy lists, detailing the key benefits of your product. Breaking up the text in this manner allows visitors to skim read your text, and also provides you with a method of stressing the aspects of your product which you feel are most important. Provide an exit strategy. Even the most interesting copy in the world won't hold the attention of some people, because they aren't interested in reading, full stop. Make sure you give people the opportunity to buy the product you're selling early in the text - you can do this via a hyperlink or a call to action. Give these people the chance to go straight to the product from your landing page. By employing some, or all of the above techniques when writing your copy, even the driest, dullest subject can be made interesting to your target market. Copywriting 2009-10-06 11:19:13 http://www.i-com.net/blog/five-ways-to-make-your-website-copy-interesting-245/ http://www.i-com.net/blog/caution-lazy-duplicate-content-can-backfire-234/ Not only is use of duplicate content bad for your users experience, not to mention amoral, its also downright lazy. Unfortunately, duplicate content rears its ugly head in all media formats. Take, for example the case recently reported by the BBC, of the Bangladeshi newspapers which mistakenly reproduced an article from satirical online US newspaper The Onion. The original article claimed that the US moon landings were faked, and included farcical quotes from Neil Armstrong, in which the former astronaut claimed that he now knew for certain that the moon landings had all been part of an elaborate hoax. Neither The New Nation nor The Daily Manab Zamin, the two Bangladeshi newspapers who reported the story, bothered to check its validity.The Information Age The internet is a massive resource, and search engines provide us with quick and easy access to the information we want. With these facts in mind, its not surprising that rather than painstakingly researching the details of a story, journalists and content creators are tempted to just nick the text from a person whos already done the work. A further example of said laziness occurred a couple of years ago, to the embarrassment of several major British newspapers. I refer of course, to the obituary of BBC TV composer Ronnie Hazelhurst. A veteran composer, Hazelhurst was responsible for the composition of many iconic TV themes including Last of the Summer Wine, Yes, Minister and To The Manor Born. What he was not responsible for however, was S Club 7s 'Reach', the infamous song so beloved of hopeless TV talent show contestants. Unfortunately for obituary writers at The Times, The Independent and, most shockingly, BBC News themselves, some Wikipedia prankster had added it to the composers article. Cue a host of obituaries mourning the death of this most famous of British TV composers, the brains behind numerous iconic themes and, of course, that most annoying and catchy of bubble pop hits.Write it Yourself! Duplicating content from other websites can have serious repercussions, with the likes of Google potentially kicking you off their listings when your ruse is discovered (and it will be). Its also worth considering the fact that content from other websites wont have been optimised for the search terms you want to be found for and, because it hasnt been created specifically for your site, will probably be a bit vague and, well, a bit rubbish, putting off potential clients by the bucketload. If you need content for your website you have three options either write it yourself, snare an obliging family member or friend or pay a company or individual to write it for you. Creating your own content really is the best route to online success. Copywriting 2009-09-08 08:57:00 http://www.i-com.net/blog/caution-lazy-duplicate-content-can-backfire-234/ http://www.i-com.net/blog/play-word-association-with-your-brand-217/ If youre writing content for a brand new website and are scratching around, trying to come up with a unique, original voice for the copy, this post might just help. Recently, I had my first experience of writing copy for a website I-COM is designing for a new business venture no previous site, a clean record. This is an exciting and challenging prospect, Im sure you can imagine. As a copywriter, I was being entrusted with the clients image, and being asked to come up with a unique voice for the firm, helping it stand out amongst its competitors in the home ware industry. The copy itself is still a work in progress, but along the way I found that a particular technique really aided my understanding of the brands core values, as well as proving an excellent reference resource during the writing process. Give Your Brand a Word Family Once you have a brief description of the business, for instance: Small firm trading in wall and floor tiles, bespoke fireplaces and other interior and exterior building materials. You can start to build up a word family. By this, I mean a collection of adjectives and descriptive phrases that convey what the business is all about (or at least what you want it to sound like its all about). For example, I want the business above to appear authentic, trustworthy and so on, so heres the word family Ive come up with: Bespoke, Earthenware, Down to Earth, Genuine, Clear, Traditional, Rich, Craft, Crafts, Art, Generous, Clean, Solid, Stoneware, Granite, Classic, Craftsmanship, Hand Carved, Hand Made Its really a basic take on the spider diagram or brainstorm, and could easily be arranged in that manner. The important thing is that you have a resource that has the power, not only to provide you with a descriptive phrase or word at a difficult moment, but also to remind you what your brand is all about. By limiting yourself to a specific number of words for your family, and ensuring that they are used throughout the website, you should be able to give your copy a clarity of purpose and uniformity of voice that would be very difficult to achieve otherwise. Its Not All about Keywords In SEO Copywriting, keywords can often be seen to dominate the copy, but just because youre writing for the web doesnt mean you can sacrifice readability and brand image in the quest for good placements on SERPs. In many ways, the words that define your brand are just as important, if not more so, than the keywords you choose. Good brand definition makes you memorable, and the tone of your copy is a key factor in achieving that definition. Copywriting 2009-07-23 09:15:09 http://www.i-com.net/blog/play-word-association-with-your-brand-217/ http://www.i-com.net/blog/getting-to-know-you-writing-targeted-copy-201/ If you want your business websites copy to appeal to your target market, you have to spend some time getting to know who that market is. Now, were not talking Robert De Niro-style method acting here. If your target market is 85-year-old, pipe-smoking ex-jockeys, Im not suggesting you prop your feet up with an aged whisky and peruse the racing fixtures. Rather, take a few moments before you set fingers to keyboard, and think about who youre writing for.For Example... Its my belief that ideas and concepts are always best illustrated by examples; consider, if you will, that you are tasked with writing the text for a solicitors website. You are asked to write a page of text aimed at winning new business clients, and a page of text for the personal injury section entitled Accidents at Work. Heres what that text might look like: Welcome to Berry, Triste & Mansell Solicitors, one the UKs premier teams of business law specialists. Our experienced solicitors are capable of advising clients on everything from property and debt recovery to commercial litigation, and enjoy an exemplary reputation amongst current clients and legal peers. And now, for the personal injury text: If youve been injured in a slip, trip or fall at work or in a public place, the personal injury team at Berry, Triste & Mansell Solicitors can help you claim the compensation you deserve. When you suffer a debilitating injury as a result of another individuals negligence, compensation is your legal right. Now if Im doing my job properly, there should be a marked difference in tone between these two pieces of writing. The first excerpt is intended to appeal to business clients, and therefore the tone is official and informative, stressing the good reputation and therefore implied reliability of the law firm. In contrast, the second excerpt is aimed at potential personal injury claimants and attempts to reassure them that they are entitled to make a claim, and are in fact well within their rights to pursue monetary reparations for an accident that wasnt their fault.Improve your conversion rate... Taking the time to think about who you are writing for can have a significant affect on your websites conversion rate. In the above case of the solicitor, avoiding bombarding potential claimants with unnecessary legal jargon, and avoiding putting off their potential business clients with an excessively sales oriented tone, means they are more likely to retain clients interest. This in turn, makes the clients more likely to pick up the phone or complete the contact form.Getting started... OK, so youre on board with this targeted copy stuff, and youre ready to get writing, but how do you start? I find the best way of getting into the mind of my target audience is to spend a few moments thinking about what questions they will want answered by my page of text. I usually start by making a note of these questions, and attempt to answer them to the best of my ability in the copy. For instance, a personal injury claimant may be thinking: Ive been injured at work, am I eligible for compensation? What kind of accident do people normally claim for? How do I go about making a claim? How much compensation could I be awarded? Is this law firm reputable? How do I find out more? Ordering your thoughts in this manner really helps you to focus on the needs of your client, rather than your own ideas about what they want from the site, which could be coloured by your own professional understanding of the business.Get cracking... This concept is true of all businesses, not just solicitors. Identifying your target market and pointing your copy in their direction can prove to be an extremely valuable weapon in the ongoing battle to retain client interest and secure new business. Just remember, the copy is for your clients, not for you. Answer their questions, keep them informed, keep them happy and watch the conversions roll in. Copywriting 2009-06-05 15:54:06 http://www.i-com.net/blog/getting-to-know-you-writing-targeted-copy-201/