Search Engine Optimization and Internet Marketing Service

This is a continuation of our online copywriting series:

• Online Copywriting Tips
• Online Copywriting Tips 2
• Online Copywriting Tips 3
• Copywriting For a Web Site
• Copywriting For a Web Site - Part 2
• Online Copywriting Tips(SEO company)

Think Symbolically

Symbolic though collapses left and right brain, satisfying both logic and imagery. It is very useful in explaining different concepts.

Use Short Sentences

15 to 20 words is good. Let 20 be the sacred mark.

Simple Sentence Construction

Subject – Verb – Object. Cut unnecessary elements. For example:

• She said that she will come.
• She said she will come.

Stay Positive

Avoid negativity in writing. For example: “Don’t you just hate when”. If you ought to use negativity, supply powerful positive emotions to combat it. Logic will not work.

Avoid Clichés.

…by utilizing cutting edge technology we deliver results and go beyond…

Online Copywriting Tips Summary:

A saying goes about copy and woman’s skirt: “It should be long enough to cover the essentials, but short enough to be interesting”

• Write as if you are writing for one person. Create personas to help with that.
• If you sound like everyone else, you are going to be perceived as everyone else.
• No insider speak
• No jargon
• No clichés
• Use verbs paired with benefits
• Use active voice
• Create strong positive images in the readers’ minds that bring up emotions
• Speak to gain
• Only hint loss
• Use second person perspective(you) in active tense
• Use variation. Short-long-medium-long-short-long-medium sentences. Mix them up.
• Combine sentences. If you find that the same thing can fit in one longer sentence – do it.
• Get rid of unnecessary words – in writing less is more
• Arrange thoughts by logic
• Get people to act with a call to action
• Copy sends credibility vibes all the time. Don’t over promise or fill it with hype.
• Get your most important points first
• Structure for scannability. Use bullets, headlines, bold and italics.
• Turn sales letter into non sales letter or try to reduce the appearance to a minimum
• Try to be editorial whenever possible
• Tell stories where appropriate
• Include concrete facts and information to bite into within copy. Hype doesn’t convince anyone(with few exceptions)
• Offer plenty of proof

Good Luck.

Catering To Personalities

Take a good example: WebEx

WebEx site was designed by brilliant guys at FutureNowInc.com

As we land on the index we are greeted with:

Individual Professionals
Small and Medium Businesses
Large Business & Enterprise

There are also options to take free trial, view demo version, and buy. Everything is visible and easy to find.

The 3 choices allow WebEx to qualify visitors right from the start and address their needs accordingly on later pages. You may notice this does not qualify them by personalities, but rather by needs, which is more important at this point, because WebEx does not know what the visitor wants.

Once we select the requirement, we are directed to another page with vast amount of choices. (selected “Small and Medium Businesses“)

Competitive

For the competitive there is a headline: Interact with remote prospects, customers, and colleagues as if you were there. Followed by a paragraph that gets to the bottom line:

“Provide high-touch service for customers, deliver sales presentations and demos to prospects, and meet with colleagues across the map—right from your computer. WebEx makes it so easy! Try our affordable web conferencing solutions for general meetings, webinars and webcasts, eLearning programs, and remote support. You can increase revenue even as you reduce costs.

There are also links to dig deeper into the content.

Methodical

Vast amount of in-depth choices. Detailed information about each specific product aspect, including demonstration reports(lower).

Humanistic

Customer testimonials on the right side, with an option to find out more.

Spontaneous

Large image of a happy mom with her laptop and options to “Try WebEx Free” and “Join Live Demo”. No time wasted – right to the point. “Let me see it in action and I’ll decide” Live demo and trial will also be used by 3 other personality types, but later on, after they have satisfied their dominant buying needs.

If we click on “Webinars and webcasts”, we’re led to yet another professionally structured page.

A large image for spontaneous. A great testimonial for the humanistic.

Give everyone a front-row seat to your important events

Headline and paragraph that get to the bottom line and bombard “competitive” with benefits:

• Engage prospects, partners, and employees and keep them coming back for more
• No need to pay the high price of one-on-one meetings
• Share documents, presentations, and applications in real time
  etc

3 links that expand and get into details for “methodical”.

All personality types are addressed on each page.

Study WebEx to learn effective web persuasion techniques.

Related Posts:

• Copywriting For a Web Site
  
• Copywriting For a Web Site - Part 2
• Creating Personas

Creating Personas

To create personas you need to get 3 + people from your organization who interact with customers. Either customer service, reception, sales - anyone who has direct contact with your customers. Give everyone on the team 15 minutes to brainstorm as many attributes as they can about the product, why someone would buy it, or what makes it unique. Collect these attributes, and combine them on a central whiteboard for all to see and discuss to ensure clarity. Ask them the most common questions, concerns, complaints, raves etc. Split it out on paper.

Dig within keyword data.

• Using keyword commands to get into the Brains of your Customers
• Keyword Marketing Research
• Keyword Research Strategies
• Advanced Keyword Research

Once you have enough data, get down to actual persona creation. It is very tricky and one person cannot do it. Persona creation requires imagination and insight into your audience. A wrong one can cost profits.

You can find out more on how to create personas here:

• Getting the Most Out of Your Personas
• Creating Personas 101
• If Your Personas Don’t Talk, Fire Them!
• 2 Ways to Get Started With Personas (Part 1)
• 2 Ways to Get Started With Personas (Part 2)

Once you have personas in your armament use them during website development. The tactic is to create an idea / layout / copy / structure / product / etc and get your persona to interact with it. What questions would it ask? How would it react to features and different elements? How much would be enough to persuade that person? What is the approach? The goal is to make personas talk as if they were alive customers, reading your copy, navigating the site.

In the article on website architecture we mentioned different buying modes.

“In the buying process people take different personalities! For example: I as a business owner looking for SEO services will want to find the bottom line first, in “competitive” mode. Once satisfied(assuming I am), I will switch to “methodical” and learn about the process a little bit, since I want to be 100% sure about the company. After learning the process I may want to learn about the team, switching to “humanistic”. “

Many people mix this, especially in complex, high priced sales, but no matter the “role” they will be taking, they still maintain their dominant setting. For example: Me as a spontaneous and competitive person, “forced” to check the methodology of the company in order to make a safe purchase, will be much more comfortable with a lot of details, supported by clear images, or summary of details. A concept supported by a well thought out image(or summary bullets) will get more response from people who do not like reading lengthy details and like to get to the point as fast as possible. If the image communicates the idea clear enough, I will simply glance and scan over the details on order to validate the assumption. “

To work around different buying modes, simply address all 4 of them, or the dominant 2 - 3 types in your specific market. There may be a need for various personas, but the site structure and architecture should cater to personalities.

• A look at effective persuasion architechture - WebEx by Cisco 

Part 1

Different visitors want different information, on various pages, because they are in the different stages of the buying process.

Here’s a good summary from “Waiting for Your Cat to Bark”:

Four types of buyers

Whatever sort of traffic you get—store, Web site, catalog—a potential customer has crossed your path. There are four different kinds of customers.

Accidentals. Some find you accidentally and are not in the market for your goods or services, certainly not now and maybe not ever. We think, for purposes of our discussion at least, you can ignore these people.

However, if you have more of them than you think you should, it may be time to reexamine things. On the one hand, you may just be in a highly trafficked location where lots of unqualified people are wandering in. This can’t be helped. On the other hand, you may be targeting a pay per-click advertisement with a keyword that is too broad—for instance, “boats” when what you sell are model boats.

Knows Exactly. These people know exactly what they want, down to the model number (or its equivalent). We’d also include in this category those who might not be able to pinpoint a unique identifier but can describe exactly what they need.

Knows Approximately. Next are the people who know approximately what they want. They are in the market to buy, but they have not made their final decision on exactly what they want to buy. For example, they know they need to replace their hanging-on-by-a-thread athletic shoes, but they haven’t narrowed their choice down to a particular brand or model.

Just Browsing. And then there are those people who are in “browsing” mode. They’re window shoppers who aren’t necessarily planning to take any specific action. In many ways, these individuals can be difficult to distinguish from the previous two categories of potential customers— these are people who, when they run across just the right thing, will take action. This might be the sort of person who knew that within the next year he wanted to upgrade his digital camera.

Depending on the type of visitors, a website must appeal to 3 last types. But that’s is not all. There are also 4 types of main personalities. We described them before:

Competitive.

• Strong willed. Thinks he’s got all the answers.
• Loves challenges.
• Decisive. Likes to make things happen quickly and efficiently.
• Does not like being hassled.
• Doesn’t need details. Pros and Cons will do.
• Impatient with less able people.

Do not invade personal space of deciders. Decider personality is not necessarily limited to the people who achieved success, but it is the personality that gets people there.

Humanistic

• Loves stability
• Does not buy into “hard sell”
• Needs everything explained to the last detail.
• Needs to “think over”.
• Very loyal customer once the trust is earned.

Talk on friendly one-to-one manner. Avoid hype at all costs; it will turn them off if there is even the slightest glimpse of hype. It’s essential to work out “point of return mechanism“, that is – you must have a platform to constantly communicate with them, since Empasizers hardly buy on first visit. Blog, newsletter or valuable e-book might do the trick. Keep it friendly and avoid formal, corporate speak.

Spontaneous

• Very Expressive
• Loves attention
• Loves to be different from the pack
• Loves new ideas
• Fast paced
• Makes Decision based on emotions
• Short attention span

Push with confidence and passion. Paint a clear picture of the benefits. Paint it so visuals produced by his imagination will get him craving. A question may be very effective as the headline. The trick is to ask a question and the paint a colorful answer. The target will think it came up with the answer himself.

Methodical

Usually have careers in engineering and programming due to their logical abilities.

• Efficient
• Accurate, loves accuracy in other people.
• Detailed to the last grain of sand.
• Very logical, makes decision based purely on logic.
• Cost conscious.

Never overlook the details. You will never get too detailed with Detailist, hence I’ve picked the name to emphasize their love for details and logic. Do not rush them. Do not sell. Objective information in a from of pure facts will automatically paint a picture of benefits.

—————————————————

Write for Main Personality Type

Identify a personality type that will form the largest portion of your traffic and write for the them. Consider creating separate pages, or short bursts of information for other personalities. Some interactive media might do the trick for the “Spontaneous”(coolness factor), a simple image for the “Competitive”(member of well known organization, award) a testimonial for the “Humanistic” and ability to drill deeper for the “Methodical”.

Identify how you are going communicate to each one of those individuals and then proceed to creation of web copies.

Definition of personas

Another weapon in the arsenal are called personas. Those are the imaginary customer characters that help you with an overall process of creating an effective architecture. Personas help you identify cognitive dissonance and play to it.

“Personas are fictitious characters that are created to represent the different user types within a targeted demographic that might use a site or product. Personas are most often used as part of a user-centered design process for designing software or online applications, in which the goals, desires, and limitations of the user are considered when designing the product. They are also considered a part of interaction design (IxD). Personas are useful in helping to guide decisions about a product, such as features, interactions, and visual design.” - Wikipedia.

Personas help you write effectively. Consider an architect. Before Building the structure, architects create small scale replicates of their end designs and put them through tests. Wind tests, rain, temperature, earthquakes and so on. Small scale models help them identify flaws in their designs and fix them on time.

Same can be used on the web. In our case, personas are “small scale” models of the final structure that can create writings more effective and more persuasive…

Copywriting For a Web Site

You can use your web copywriting to increase conversions. You can get more visitors to become your customers, instead of trying to raise traffic. Average industry conversion rates are 2%-3%. What happens to 98%-97%?

If you create a web site copy that engages emotions and paints vivid imagery in the minds of your visitors you will be one step closer to getting more conversions and profits. People buy based on emotions and justify the purchase with logic. You here? People buy based on emotions and justify the purchase with logic.

The copy must bring up emotions. In order to do that, it must paint pictures and engage imaginations.

We wrote about online copy over here:

• Online Copywriting Tips 3
• Online Copywriting Tips 2
• Online Copywriting Tips 1

Structure Your Copy with a Blueprint.

Whenever architects build a house, they start with a blueprint. They draw diagrams, calculate weight, dimensions. They play scenarios(wind, snow, rain) and predict consequences. In the same manner a website architect must draw a blueprint, predict user behavior, clicks and information user requires to make a confident buying decision. The web architect must envision visitor flow from each landing page and structure both copy and content on each page for maximum conversion impact. Hard Work. But it pays.

In this frame, website copy plays a role of being a part of the overall structure. It cannot produce effective results on its own, but combined with overall architecture it’s like a spear pocking into the heart of your audience.

Why copy alone does not work.

What about the copy? Those long one page sales letters? They work, no doubt. The problem comes when you are selling products to different personalities which differentiate broadly in their buying approach. A copy for “spontaneous” type won’t work for “methodical”. If you’re in the business selling to both types of customers a one page web copy won’t do, because you cannot change the substance without affecting those visitors.

Take a read about generic sales letters in the report written by a guy who sold millions with long copy sales letters.

“There are several things to note, here. First off, salesletters are not dead. They never will be. They are here to stay. However, what I am referring to are not salesletters as a sales process, but specifically long-copy, long scrolling web pages, particularly in their current state.

You know the kind, right? I’m talking about the big, bold, red headline; the multitude of multicolored Johnson boxes throughout; the bullets that seem to never end; the tons of hackneyed testimonials, often by the usual suspects; the countless PS’s at the end; and the poorly designed headers, inconsistent fonts, lackluster ty-pography and stock graphics plastered throughout.”

If you’re not familiar with one page sales letters, you’ll find plenty at Click Bank.

There are so many one page generic web copies which sell rip-offs, scams and half finished products – people are searching for credibility in websites. If you feature a child like sloppy design with 8000 word copy and sell financial or real estate products – rethink the approach.

Long sales letters help in certain niches, but not everywhere. If you offer more then one product or a very serious product(consider pet training material perfect for a sales letter) one page sales letter is not good. Please note we are calling it “one page sales letter”.

You with us?

Instead of merely creating one sales letter, create multiple, short, factual benefit packed, editorial looking pages. Check this site – they sell to high level execs and they’ve developed short, benefit focus, factual copies, paired with brilliant information architecture.

Different Visitors

What your web copy is outta do is persuade visitors at different stages of their buying process. For example, if they want to find out more about you – that page has to persuade them at that specific moment. If visitor decides to check services – service it up to them with benefits and persuasive copy. If visitors want to drill deeper into the concept, allow them to.

Different visitors want different information, on various pages, because they are in the different stages of the buying process.

Continued: Second Part

Google uses algorithms to analyze websites and determine the importance of each website. Google was the first search engine to consider links in its formula. This proved to be highly effective and Google became a leader in search.

Page Rank Formula(PR): PR(A) = (1-d) + d(PR(t1)/C(t1) + … + PR(tn)/C(tn))

In order for a website to show amongst top search results it must have a high number of incoming links. The more links the better. Here’s is how PR works.

Example:

• If 50 websites link to AAA.com website AAA.com page rank is 50(imaginary number).

• If AAA.com links to your website, the power of that link counts as the power of 50 websites that link to AAA.com.

• If AAA.com apart from your site, links to ZZZ.com, then the power of its link is equally divided by 2 between you and Z.com (if we add 1 more site then its divided by 3 and so on)

This is the basic principle of page rank and the way Google looks at links. There are many other variables, however, page rank is the most important one.

Some basic variable that are essential to good rankings, apart from links:

Page Name

Page name is shown in actual search results and proper keywords can make a website rank or disappear from search results.

H1 – H2 – H3

Those tags are important as well. Make sure to keep keywords in there.

Body Text

Make sure that keywords are present in the body text. Do not worry about the density and enter keywords where they fit.

Since the birth, web has been a social medium and engines pretty much follow people(Aaron Wall). If someone got a strong brand then search engines will eventually catch up and feature that brand as a leader in the industry. If you can focus on building a brand and community, shoot for that rather than focusing on links and other nuances. They are essential pieces, but if you have a powerful brand that people link to – you’re 95% of the way to top search engine rankings.

Search engine optimization is the most effective way to attract visitors online in Quebec or any other province. It is effective because visitors take the initiative to open a browser window, get to a search engine, type in a keyword and click on your website. They are actively searching for your products or services in Quebec, and when they find you they are pretty much ready for business.

How many of your customers use search engines?

Lets do some math. According to internetworldstats.com there are approximately 22,000,000 internet users in Canada which is around 65.9 % of the population. According to PEW internet research study around 90% of internet user use search engine to:

• Get travel info
• Research product/service (including local)
• Buy Products
• Buy or make travel reservations
• Look up phone/addresses
• Do banking
• Pay bills
• Research for school/training
• Get maps or directions

90% of
22,000,000 is
19,800,000. Over 19 million Canadian use search engines on daily basis.

Of course the above numbers do not make much sense and barely relate to search engine optimization, but the point we are trying to make here is that SEO in Quebec and other provinces really works, because people use search engines for what used to be Yellow pages. Which is to find businesses that they need at the moment, like lawyers, car repairs,  mortgages, agents, services… Google is on the top, holding 90% of search market share in Canada and around 60% around the globe.

SEO Expert Services:

Our search engine optimization services go beyond Quebec and:

• Increase traffic to your website 70% - 1600% percent.
• Allow you to target different provinces, cities and countries.
• Drive targeted qualified prospects to your online properties.
• Raise your brand awareness by driving traffic from third party websites.

Please explore our search engine optimization services or go to our homepage.

Explaining SEO – How to Explain SEO?

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via “natural” (”organic” or “algorithmic”) search results for targeted keywords. Usually, the earlier a site is presented in the search results or the higher it “ranks”, the more searchers will visit that site. SEO can also target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, and industry-specific vertical search engines. – Wikipedia

So what? In order to pass the message about SEO or anything else, focus on the benefits. Instead saying your site will get visibility on search engines, explain what the visibility brings: more customers, revenues, leads, etc.

It is the 101 of marketing. Do not talk about the features, focus on the benefits.

A lady is not going to care that her lipstick tube is made from methohyrdogyproixtar gluimorsetane chemicals(made up) or that the ingredients for lipstick come from the fat of a royal whale which is only found on the Caribbean at 4000 feet deep. What she’ll want to know are features that can be easily related to benefits or benefits themselves.

Good Feature: Our lipstick stays on 24 hours no matter what. This feature is quickly and easily related to a benefit, for example: “no need to worry about lipstick, no need to reapply, etc, etc.”

Benefit: Never leave lipstick on your loved ones, because it stays only on your lips.

Bad Feature: Additive includes methohyrdogyproixtar chemical.

The problem with explaining is SEO is that our methohyrdogyproixtar chemicals are links, keywords, directory submissions, correct mark-up, etc.

It simply does not matter to the clients to what length you may go to get them links or how long you’ve been building links, because most of them have no clue why you need the links in the first place. They don’t care for your expertise and don’t want to now about mr. Sergei Gibin. They want to know the bottom line and how you can help them achieve their bottom line.

The goal is to explain SEO in terms of benefits and leave out the features reselmbling anything below:

• On Page Optimization
• Off Page Optimization
• One Way Link Building
• Article Submission
• Article Writing
• Directory Submission
• Copywriting
• HTML Tags

Because what good is all this bloat to a person who barely knows anything about computers and uses internet for general research? There are people like that, they are the majority. They don’t spend days on computers and are certainly not familiar with the term HTML.

Instead of focusing on features your company offers, get to the benefits. For example, if you offer link building, say:

“Our company offers link building services that gain visibility to your website. Search engines consider website with high amount of quality links important industry players and give them high search rankings. By capturing best search rankings through link building you will be able to drive qualified customers and increase the amount of leads and sales generated with your website.”

This way they see why in the hell link building matters. In fact they’ll want you to build links, rather then say: “So What?”

Good Luck with explaining SEO.

As you probably heard, Microsoft withdrew its offer to purchase Yahoo on May 3rd.
Here’s a snippet from a letter by Steve Ballmer:
“Despite our best efforts, including raising our bid by roughly $5 billion, Yahoo! has not moved toward accepting our offer. After careful consideration, we believe the economics demanded by Yahoo! do not make sense for us, and it is in the best interests of Microsoft stockholders, employees and other stakeholders to withdraw our proposal,”

Ballmer Chickened Out?

I think everyone would agree that Microsoft is viewed as an aggressive company. A sort of Nazi SS officer, who has no room for mistakes, coldblooded, determined, unchallenged and ready to shoot opponents in the head. In the face of this image, withdrawal from the deal puts new image on Microsoft. Not enough guts?

Yahoo shareholders wanted $35-$37, Microsoft went as far as $33. Additional $3-$4 dollar difference Yahoos were asking is roughly $5 billion.

Search industry pundits such as Danny Sullivan are Greg Sterling are calling this withdrawal a $5 billion dollar mistake. They are absolutely correct. Microsoft pulled over $40 in revenues first 2008 quarter. Though not all of is net profit, $5 more billion would not hurt the reserves.

Yahoo provided Microsoft with much needed fuel to challenge Google, which Microsoft failed to do in 5 years. Not only Google, Microsoft failed to challenge Yahoo and is sitting in single digit search market share, which keep sliding every quarter.

Yahoo was a strategic addition to Microsoft, not a purchase. The implication may be dire to the software giant. Google is aggressively pushing itself into mobile. It has conned FFC by bidding enough to make new wireless spectrum open and then walked away, safeguarding it’s Android platform. It recently opened relationship with Sprint in efforts of making nationwide broadband wireless network. If all goes successful Google has a chance to dominate wireless search devices and possibly get usage data from Sprint - the new weapon in search. All those ad dollars and search share leaves plenty of room for free software. The kind that Micrsoft charges $300 - $600 a peice.

Microsoft needs Yahoo as much as a blind guy needs a trained dog to walk on the streets. $5 more billion is a cheap strategic expense for company this size. Walk away was a big mistake.
People speculate that it had not walked away completely and may come back at a later date. We do not know at this point. It does not seem like it, since search engine land reported that Microsoft and Facebook are doing a “mating dance”.

There is of course the shareholder factor, and WSJ insiders say shareholders never liked the idea. In fact the proposal cost Microsoft $24 billion in lost share value. What we know about shareholders is that they are greedy creatures who for the most part are only concerned with the bottom line. Nevertheless, it is a small price compared to what it may have gotten in return - #2 in search. With the powerful muscle Microsfot would bring, Microhoo could do a nice battle with Google and challenge its market share.

For now, Microsoft is an outsider in searc and it should’ve bought Yahoo.