Once you get them the visitor there, the hard part is convincing them to stay or even buy. Web designers often turn to flash, fancy graphics, killer sound and other catchy features. While these devices might draw visitors into your site, its what and how you say it that makes the repeat visit or sale. Establishing credibility is huge. Customers expect the world and are suspicious of almost everything. The words on your site must be intelligent ad well thought out.
This article will show you how to grab a visitors attention, intrigue their interest and motivate them to action. The killer copy has, and always will rule. Just having the coolest look doesnt SAY anything for you, literally. Copy is time tested. Wether it be the newspaper, a T.V. news script or the article like you are reading now, it is the words that gain trust and acceptance of a company or image. Proper copy online is a different animal when you take into consideration of proper SEO, but the same premises stands.
While the visitor doesnt often care where your site ranks if you gain there trust through words, it is still important to make sure they see you. Take for instance a company like Google: No matter what they say they can get rankings (hmmm. I wander how that works ;C)~ ). They can design copy that will be read so they only need worry about how the user will view it. Same goes for any traditional print media. The journalist with the front cover story of the N.Y. Times doesnt need to worry about exposure, only how grabbing the words in the article displayed on the front page will affect the reader. We are all not so fortunate. We the masses need to combine a balance of exposure to our copy, but more importantly user attention and appreciation. To reach this equilibrium I suggest the following tips:
1. Write for the buyer. Keeping this in mind will never point you in the wrong direction. First and foremost you are here for the customer. Wether your selling information, ideas, products it doesnt matter: COPY NEEDS TO BE DIRETED AT THE AUDIENCE FIRST AND FOREMOST! This is the number one rule when creating copy.
2. Backup your claims. Give the user want hey want. When designing your copy: make sure you view it from the users perspective, not yours. The best salesman (or woman) always keeps things in perspective. You want to view and edit your copy as if you are the one being pitched. If this means: adding media, flashy headings or any wording in your pitch thats great, as long as the user or buyer will appreciate it. Try to go through revision stages only looking at your selling copy from a perspective users P.O.V. (point of view).
3. Keep in mind search engine optimization. I made this the last point because, while important, the other two theories trump. Keywords are just that: KEY! When writing text for online publication it is great to have a properly winning sales pitch but the online world throws another kink into it. You must include your related keywords. By this I mean you need to include words relevant to what you are selling. This shouldnt be hard since these words will be the topic at hand. It is important to to have a higher saturation of these words in your text than other terms used throughout your sales pitch. The search engines work with relevancy, so the more relevant your text is, the better it will be received by the engines.
Still working and studying in marketing
As the owner/webmaster/developer/marketer of several highly-trafficked sites, I receive more than my fair share of spam that somehow creeps through the filters we have in place. Although the majority of the spam I receive is some variant of the usual scam about transferring large sums of money from a political refugees off-shore bank account to mine (some of these are pretty funny and creative), recently theres been a huge increase in emails from marketing companies offering their services.
While I normally dont read the spam I get, I had some free time this evening at my hotel while attending the WebmasterWorld Pubcon Expo in Las Vegas. One email in particular stood out from the rest and really got me thinking about the extremely negative effects of hiring the wrong company to market your website.
Heres how the email goes (actual names have been changed so I dont get sued):
Subject: Google Jagger Update
Hello,
How did your rankings fare in the latest update Its looking like Google is heading more and more towards content. The days of tricks and hacks are over. Your website should be concentrating on 3 things to ensure long term Search Engine Rankings.
1. Site structure: This is optimization, your site, the way it is structured should be easy for search engines to read, determine what you are and find keywords.
2. Links: Continue to build links, try to avoid one-way, non-reciprocal back links if possible.
3. Content: Google is favoring sites that are large in content, and the content has to be very relevant to your industry. They are starting to lean towards ontology. If your site is about parachutes, then Google will also look for words like, plane, jump, sky, jump safety, jump companies, hangliding, para-sailing, skydiving, etc.
We specialize in these 3 strategies, give us a call if you would like to talk about the strategy of your website.
Joe Blow
Lamer Marketing
Direct: (XXX) XXX-XXXX
joe@lamer-marketing.com
www.lamer-marketing.com
I have several problems with this email, the first and most important of which is the fact that its spam. If Joe really knew how to market a website as he claims, he wouldnt have to send out spam to find new clients. Clients would find his site themselves via search engines, banner ads, text links, PPC, or other ethical forms of getting traffic.
Another big issue with this email is the inaccurate information it contains. First of all, Google has been focused on great content for a long time now, and so have the other search engines. This isnt anything new as Joe suggests. There are so may poser SEOs out there that just dont get it, and it can be pretty frustrating sometimes trying to find useful information in forums these days with all the noise.
Secondly, his tip about linking is grossly inaccurate. Joe Blow says to avoid one-way, non-reciprocal links This is not true at all. A good mixture of reciprocal linking with authorities in your industry as well as relevant one-way inbound links appears more natural to the search engines. Your site should also link out to resource sites or other quality sites that your users may find useful, even if they dont link back to you in return. Its not about tricking the search engines. Its also not about linking to any site that will link back to you. Your link neighborhood tells search engines a lot about your site and if you cant tell what your site is about by simply reading the title of the pages that link to you, youre doing something wrong.
After reading his email I checked out Joe Blows website, and it was just as I suspected. No backlinks, no content, a terrible internal linking structure, and keyword-stuffing throughout. Looks like Joe doesnt practice what he preaches. How could anyone hire an internet marketing company that cant even get their own site ranked well Shouldnt your own website be your best case study to prove your talents and earn the trust of potential clients
If you receive spam or a telephone solicitation offering internet marketing services, delete it or hang up immediately. Legitimate internet marketing companies dont have to resort to email spam or telemarketing to get business, they rely on the web. I cringe when I think about the companies that will respond to Joes offer and end up spending money without seeing results. It makes it much harder for knowledgable marketers to earn a clients trust after they have been burned, and it gives the SEO industry as a whole a bad reputation that it doesnt deserve.
Jason Hendricks has been designing, marketing, and operating websites online since 1998. As a successful internet marketing entrepreneur, he and his team offer targeted, ROI-focused search engine marketing and advertising services. His latest venture, Tidal Wave Media, provides real marketing solutions for a wide variety of clients both locally in Phoenix Arizona as well as nationwide.
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