Web Copy – How Much is Enough?

 

These days, there’s widespread acceptance that a website is an integral part of the marketing plan of any business. Likewise, it’s commonly accepted that web copy is a vital component of any website. But how much web copy is enough?

The pure volume of information available on the Internet is daunting – often counterproductive. There are approximately 550 billion documents on the web, and every day another 7 million are added. According to an A.T. Kearney, Network Publishing study (April 2001), workers take so long trying to find information that it costs organizations $750 billion annually!

Yet people continue to use it. Information gathering is the most common use of the Internet (American Express survey, 2000). And it seems work-related searches are amongst the most common, with 48% of people using the Internet to find work-related information, as opposed to 7% who use magazines (Lyra Research, 2001).

Interestingly, however, the average person visits no more than 19 websites in the entire month in order to avoid information overload (Nielsen NetRatings in Jan 2001).

So how do you ensure your site is one of those 19? How do you make your content helpful without making it overwhelming? That’s what this article is about…

I’ve written several articles on WHAT to write on your website in order to make it helpful. (See http://ift.tt/1HU1Fec, http://ift.tt/1PKPcA7, and http://ift.tt/1HU1Ea9.) But that’s only half the battle… Businesses also need to know HOW MUCH to write. Here are 5 quick rules of thumb to help you decide how much is enough.

1) Know your audience (Reader or Search Engine?)

Think about whether you’re targeting human readers (potential customers) or search engines. This must always be one of your very first questions, as the answer will determine your approach to content.

In general, human readers think less is more. Search engines, on the other hand, think more is more (well, more or less…). In many ways, it comes down to a question of quality versus quantity. Human readers are interested in quality, whereas search engines are interested quantity. Human readers want you to answer their questions and make it clear how you can benefit them. And they don’t want to wade through volumes of text. Search engines want a high word count, full of relevant keywords, and short on diagrams. (See http://ift.tt/1PKPcQl for more information on writing for search engines. See http://ift.tt/1HU1Eac for an introductory article on search engine optimization.)

You need to think carefully about your audience. In most cases, it’ll be a trade-off. A high search engine ranking is important (or at least beneficial) to most businesses, so a happy medium is required. The following tips will go some way toward providing this balance.

2) Make it concise

Say everything you need to say, but always ask, “Can I say it with fewer words?” The literary world may be impressed by complex writing, but visitors aren’t. Keep it simple, and keep it brief. Your home page shouldn’t be more than 1 screen long. In other words, visitors shouldn’t have to scroll. Subsequent pages can be longer, but try to keep them to a maximum of about 300-400 words each (approximately 1 scroll). A lot of people will tell you that you also need 300-400 words or more on your home page for a good search engine ranking. You don’t. If you focus on the right keywords and generate a lot of links to your site, you can achieve a high ranking without losing your readers’ interest by padding

TIP: For most businesses, a good rule of thumb is to make it conversational. Old school writers and would-be writers oppose conversational copy; don’t listen to them. Unless you’re writing for an old-school audience, feel free to write as people talk.

3) One subject per page

On this, both readers and search engines agree. Don’t try and squeeze too much information onto a single page. For example, instead of trying to detail all of your products on a single Products page, use the page to introduce and summarize your product suite, then link to a separate page per product. This way, your content will be easier to write, your readers won’t be overwhelmed, and you’ll be able to focus on fewer keywords (so the search engines will get a clearer picture of what you do).

4) Make it scannable

According to a 1998 Sun Microsystems study, reading from a monitor is 25% slower than reading from paper. As a result, 79% of users scan read when online. So make sure you accommodate scanning. Use headings and sub-headings. Highlight important words and sections. Use bulleted lists and numbered lists. Use tables. Use statistics. Use meaningful indenting. Use short sentences. Most importantly, be consistent in your usage. Oh… and follow rules 2 and 3 above.

5) Use a simple menu structure

Try to keep your high-level menu (Home, About Us, Contacts, Products, Services, etc.) to a maximum of about 10 items (5-8 is ideal). If you have too many options, your site will seem unstructured and your visitors won’t know where to start. In order for a visitor to want to come back to your site, they need to feel comfortable when they’re there. They need to know what to expect. If they can’t identify any logic in your menu structure, they will always feel lost. What’s more, this lack of structure will reflect badly on your business.

The Internet can be an incredibly cost-effective form of promotion because the cost per word to publish is so low. Don’t be fooled into thinking more is more just because it costs less. Audiences – even search engines – don’t want everything; they just want enough.

Happy writing!

Do you want to build authority? Generate more sales and develop long lasting loyal relationships with your customers? I f the answer is yes the please claim your place on our free four part digital marketing course Build a Following University

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Top SEO Copywriting Tips

What would happen if…? I’m a person to always ask that question. I love testing and tracking to see what factors can improve or worsen a situation. So, it was only natural for me to track the moves of a little experiment I did involving SEO copywriting recently. I’ll gladly share my findings with you.

Before I do, however, I want to make a couple of things very clear. The outcome of this experiment will not be the same for every keyphrase on every page of every site. There are too many unknown factors at play in the overall SEO equation. Not to mention, all keyphrases are not the same, and all sites are not the same. In addition, this experiment takes no account of link popularity, which is a huge factor in achieving high rankings. With that said, let me show you how I took the home page of one of my sites – that didn’t even rank in the top 50 – and caused it to rank in the top 10.

First of all, I’m not a big fan of checking rankings on a regular basis. I don’t run ranking reports for all my sites to be sure they are all in the positions I want them in for every given keyphrase. I’ll do it from time to time just to satisfy my own occasional curiosity. This experiment began when I noticed the home page of one of my sites was ranking highly for a keyphrase that didn’t seem to appear anywhere in the text. Upon further investigation, I saw that the keyphrase was included in the ALT tags (a.k.a. image attribute tags) and that it was also included in the title tag.

I knew ALT tags previously carried a lot of weight with the engines, but had been downgraded in importance because site owners had badly abused the tag. Had ALT tags been reinstated in their level of importance? I decided to find out.

Keyword #1 was currently in the ALT tags and the title tag, so I decided to eliminate the keyword in the title tag. This would let me see if the ALT tags alone could hold the position in the search engine results pages (SERPs). To make things more interesting, I also decided to research and find a keyword that was a little more competitive and insert it into the title tag. On the same day I removed Keyword #1 from the title tag, I inserted Keyword #2. My home page was not ranked in the top 50 at that time for Keyword #2.

A few days later, the Googlebot came by and boosted my home page to position #18 for Keyword #2. Not bad! The page fell one spot (from #17 to #18) for Keyword #1 since the removal of the phrase from the title tag.

Keep in mind, these are not the most competitive keywords ever known. They each got between 100 to 200 searches a day. Also, the home page of this particular site had been (and still is) well ranked for years for other keyphrases and had a positive legacy with Google.

Five days later, Keyword #2 was moved up three notches to a ranking of #14 while Keyword #1 stayed the same. Things remained in their status quo for roughly 10 days and then began to shift again. Keyword #1, the original that was previously in both the ALT tags and the title tag, vanished completely. It was not found in the top 50. Keyword #2, that was only found in the title tag and nowhere else, dropped to position #25.

Four days later, Keyword #2 was back up in the rankings and was now at #16. To see if I could improve rankings further, I began to make small tweaks to the page attributes. I added Keyword #2 to the ALT tags (taking the places where Keyword #1 had once been), and I also added Keyword #2 to the body copy. The keyphrase was added to one, bold sub-headline and at three places within the body copy: none of which were above the fold. It was not added to any primary headlines that used <H> tags, and no keyword density formula was followed for the body copy. No other pages on my site used this term as anchor text in links pointing to the home page. That gave the page keyword placement in the:

· Title tag

· ALT tags

· Body copy

Seven days later, the home page hit the top 10 for Keyword #2!

So, what does all this mean? Simple. There is no single primary factor in search engine rankings. It takes balance, testing and tracking to find out what works for your particular pages. Your best bet is to do exactly what I did… begin one step at a time and track your progress. Did something cause a positive movement? Keep it. If something causes a negative shift, take it out.

I’m not finished with this page yet. I’ll keep trying different things from time to time just to see what happens. Maybe I’ll add anchor text links from the internal pages to the home page. I might try writing articles with keyword-rich anchor text links to help boost the rankings more. There are many acceptable practices I can implement for this page (or any page) that will allow me to observe the shifts in ranking. As the old saying goes, “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.” A diversified approach to SEO copywriting that includes tags, copy and links is always a wise start down the road to top 10 rankings.

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Write Web Copy for People not Technology

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Every website copywriter faces a trap – Search Enginitis. Writing web copy with technology makes sense, but writing web copy for people makes the sale. Here are two ways to connect with people across broadband and create web copy that sells.

Your website looks great: solid words, easy navigation, graphics just so, and maybe even a bit of flash with some multimedia. But customers are not buying.

The Technology Trap

You wonder if it’s the web copy itself. How can that be? You remembered the two key mantras of powerful web copy – “write for the search engines” and “write for the medium.”

Your web copy used appropriate keywords to help search engines find you and traffic is up. Surely, customers enjoy reading your content because your web copy is laid out with the internet in mind using:

short sentences

brief paragraphs
bullets
Customers might be reading your words, but they still are not buying your product.

Chances are your web copy has been optimized for technology not people.

Even on the internet, selling is still about connecting to people. Selling on the internet means writing web copy for people not technology. So how do you press the flesh across broadband? Start where brick and mortar relationships do – trust. Why not become the trusted provider in your marketspace? Your web copy can use words to raise your credibility in at least 25 different ways.

Here are two ways to craft web copy for people not technology:

write the way customers speak
replace your pitch with a theme.

Write Web Copy for People not Technology Step 1:

Write the way people speak. People instinctively trust strangers who speak like them.

If you find this article useful, how would you tell someone? Are you really going to say, “I read an unusually

amazing web copy article that fundamentally increased my sagging sales”? Not likely.

Weak web copy, not everyday people, uses too many modifiers. “Amazing,” “fundamentally,” and “sagging” weaken trust. How’s your site for modifiers?

Give your web copy the finger test.

You might not want fingerprints on your screen, so I suggest printing a copy of your homepage content.
<li>put your baby finger on the first modifier you can find.</li>
<li>put your ring finger on the next adjective or adverb. </li>
<li>repeat until you run out of modifiers or fingers.</li>

If your page is a handful, you’ve got too many modifiers and your web copy is hype heavy, not trustworthy. In addition to giving readers web copy that matches how they speak, it helps to give them time to get to know you.

Write Web Copy for People not Technology Step 2:

Replace your pitch with a theme. Customers need time before they trust.

They will get used to your site in tiny steps, so hold off selling; buy some time with thematic web copy. Have a theme for your site, introducing your offer only after your customer feels comfortable. Themes are a subtle form of repetition because they continually reinforce a single concept. Repeated exposure to an idea usually makes it familiar and safe. Remember the first time you used instant messaging or the family car – not so scary now.

Let’s say your site sells dental floss.

Here’s how your web copy might handle it. Instead of listing the benefits of DentaThread, you could tie the presentation together under the central idea “Some people have nothing to smile about.”

The opening section could point out how the discomfort of Gingivitis wipes the grin off a person’s face.
Another segment of the web copy would show how ugly cavities make someone too self- conscious to smile.
Yet another piece would reveal how the high cost of root canal causes an individual to frown.

In this way, the web copy offers three versions of one idea to help the site grow on the visitor: one idea, three versions. Does your homepage have a theme? How many chances does your web copy give visitors to get comfortable with you?

In this article, I tried to use the two key elements a good web copywriter uses to write for people not technology:

the language of my readers
a central idea, trust

Did it work? Did my web copy help? If yes, I guess I proved my point. If no, I have 23 more ideas to go.

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SEO Copywriting Explained

Within this article today on SEO copy writing, we will look at the specifics of a search engine optimization world and how copywriting pertains to that.

A brief introduction toward search engine optimization is that its goal is to position your website well within the search engine page ranks so that you can gain a great deal of natural traffic to your website. One important part of the high page rank work is developing good web content. The importance of copywriting within this field is that you must be creative in developing web content so that it can meet the demands of both the consumer looking for information on the Internet as well as the demands placed on your website by search engine bots.

There is a great deal of writing on the Internet today which is very boring and does not interest people. The key behind SEO copywriting is that you are looking to impress both the search bots as well as the people who are surfing the Internet and stumble upon your page. You do not get a great deal of time to impress your site upon these people so what you have to say and how you say it is going to be the difference between a sale and another lost lead.

If you are interested in SEO copywriting, look into some of the following sources for more information. Here is the website of one particular company where you can learn more about SEO copywriting in a tutorial forum: http://ift.tt/1PhPyzl. To find many more resources, search the Internet using the following term: “SEO tutorials.” You will have great success in learning more about this particular field.

Good SEO copywriting focuses on many different factors such as the good web content as well as keyword optimization. Keyword optimization is making sure that your website has full use of a particular set of keywords so that when people search the Internet for these phrases, your site will be on the first page of results. This is how you generate good organic search engine traffic. This deal does go beyond just keyword optimization when looking into making a website work. Take your time to learn more from the resources that were listed above. This can give you a good idea of what you will need to become an SEO copywriter or give you some criteria on when to hire one.

Just as some general information, a good SEO copywriter should help you develop a high page rank within the different search engines as well as help build the sales at your website. It is important to get traffic to your website but is also important that you have a good lead conversion ratio. What this means is that you want more people to visit your sites and that gradually more of these visitors convert to quality sales for you. By providing good content that sells, you are setting yourself up as a person who excels at SEO copywriting. Hopefully this article on SEO copywriting has benefited you. This can be a very lucrative field if you learn to market on the Internet.

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