R.O.I Media | Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Professionals » SEO Copywriting

Got a Conversion Headache?

daniel — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 07:31:22 +0000

Any person or company that specialises in selling some sort of product online knows that when it comes to the end of the month only one thing matters. You look at your reports and financials and the only thing that you want to see is an increase in sales and products, and of course moolah, dollars, pounds, deniro, pesos, yen, dosh, bucks – it doesn’t matter, everyone is aiming to make more.

The harsh reality is that this is never easy when it comes to building and designing websites that need to convert. Some of the common reasons are that it usually comes down to user behaviour and trends, and like the moods of all women, this is unpredictable and can change at any second.

Here are a few enlightening ideas to help with taming this 500 pound gorilla.

Heat Map Software - Of course there are a few tools that you can use, like heat mapping software, which lets you see where most of the clicking activity takes place on your site, try some of these:

Google Analytics – This is so useful that entire books could be written about how to use this advanced website tracking software platform. If you are not using this already, then you’re either a newbie internet marketer or a complete idiot. Try some of these ideas:

Set up some goal funnels within analytics to track and see where users are entering and exiting your website throughout the purchase process. Take note of which exit pages have the highest exit rates, and optimise them immediately by using tricks like “Calls-to-Action”, “easy sign up forms”, better content, and high quality “Trust branding”.
See which pages keywords are driving the most traffic to your site and also to which pages. Armed with this info you can change your tactics and re-design those specific pages that are already receiving high amounts of traffic.
Dig a little bit deeper and find which areas, countries and cities your biggest fans and visitors come from. Knowing this allows you to shift your focus on your customer demographics to better target your products to those areas, cities and countries.

Google Adwords/PPC – Also not something to miss in your arsenal for making sales online. If you don’t know what this is, then you definitely need to talk to one of our consultants or you need to find yourself an updated version of “PPC/Adwords for Dummies” – because you’ve got a lot of catching up to do. Try some of the following on for size:

Use your AdGroup themes to set up your landing pages. When you’re using AdGroups, you’re already testing ad copy to see which ads and keywords work best, so why not use this information to optimise your conversions campaign.
See which AdGroups convert best and export these. Design your new landing pages using the top 3 keywords per AdGroup that have the highest search volume (plug them in here to find your search volumes). Begin creating onsite copy for these landing pages using only these keywords while keeping the use of standard conversion basics in mind, like, opt-in forms, trust branding, etc…

Headlines – This is probably one of the most important focus points of your landing page so make it count and – try not to use any old and tasteless approaches like: “Hello, and Welcome to my Site Blah Blah Blah”. Get creative and get ideas by seeing what the best of the best in your niche are already doing and using. You can also use your Google’s Adwords Title Snippets, which you use for your PPC Ads that appear on the search listings in Google, as an indicator on which types of headlines work best.

Benefits- Emphasise these in a list format in the order of your product’s “value hierarchy” to your target market. Bullet points work well and make it easy for people to consume this type of information.

Testimonials – Consumer trust is so important – I can’t stress this point enough. If and where you can, try to use live testimonials recorded in video format and upload them onto your site via YouTube. Some of the biggest players are doing this very successfully. Alternatively, use quality images of your customer’s faces with relevant and clickable links, combined with their valued statement about your company. The more you can get from your customers, the better for your conversions.

In the end you need to take serious note that once you’ve set up a conversion campaign, you need to look at it, study it, and constantly tweak and re-asses your strategies from time to time. If this is too time consuming for you, then you need to consider another career, job, or business model. Keeping on top of this is not easy, but you only need to strike gold once to feel that the payoff was worth every second you spent.

Here are some very useful resources to peruse at your own leisure, and be sure to make notes and follow through:

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/heat-map-tracking-do-you-feel-the-heat
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_map
http://www.seomoz.org/ugc/increase-landing-page-conversion-rates
http://www.conversion-rate-experts.com/articles/101-google-website-optimizer-tips/
http://www.bplans.com/business_calculators/
https://gomockingbird.com/
http://searchengineland.com/how-to-build-multi-purpose-landing-pages-for-small-budget-advertising-84997

Almost Famous

Steven — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 06:45:37 +0000

Fame is a deceptive beast. The allure of money, popularity and renown cannot be beat. Writing fills this aching gap with pages upon pages of well-constructed content that will hopefully live forever in the minds of your audience. SEO copywriting, unlike above-the-line copywriting, may not rocket my name into a glittering pantheon of stardom, but it will elevate any standard website, causing it to climb up the search engine rankings faster than my friend would climb up an oak tree to avoid the police. And like a drunken miscreant, this process takes times.

Writing is an art, SEO copywriting is a skill – sometimes you are painting a wall, other times you are designing a ten foot mural with ghosts and ninjas, or ninja ghosts. In essence, the search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo and Ask.com want decent content. They crave it and the absence of engaging, typo free, grammatically correct content will cause your rankings to plummet, if you are investing in an online marketing strategy. Did you ever wonder how a website such as Google remains the king of the hill? Relevant content that people can use keeps the punters coming back for more, every time. If there as an answer, Google can find a solution. Its fame is its relevance.

You can’t copy a great artist either. One of the biggest crimes for any website (SEO-wise) is to include duplicate content on your site. This includes stealing two fabulous lines from one site. Plagiarism in any form must be avoided, or risk your work sinking to the bottom of the rankings faster than Jennifer Lopez’s film career.

You can’t put a price on fame – so research the very best keywords before you begin ranking for arbitrary keywords that make little sense. If you own a car rental site, look towards the holy union of ‘car rental’ plus whatever city you live in. In time, your understanding of the keywords in correlation to your websites will improve – this is a priceless skill; for everything else, there’s Google AdWords Keyword tool. Keep your writing to the point, filled with the correct amount of keywords and relish in improved rankings and a steady growth. Your personal fame is a measurement of your creativity; continue writing and find success in your growth as an SEO writer.

The Copywriters Desire

Steven — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 12:46:13 +0000

I’m copywriter, and it means the world to me. Copywriting promotes an idea; it generates interest in the topic of my choice. Yet, I do not write for magazines and my work will never be displayed on a billboard high above Long Street. I am an SEO copywriter and my work targets both the casual browser and the search engines. It has to be well-written, correctly structured, typo-free and keyword rich. I began with little knowledge of the realm, with only my innate writing ability and a desire to learn guiding me through my first months of copywriting. This however, was not enough for my job.

Copywriting for the web is an entirely different beast to copywriting for print media. The balance between pleasing your audience and the hidden search engine spiders (more on this later) is initially, incredibly tricky but grows to become second nature once you have discovered the skills of this trade. It is not an easy road to follow, but for any decent writer it remains a lofty challenge and a goal worth pursuing. This takes practice, endless months of practice repeating the same techniques again and again until they become second nature. So what is SEO copywriting exactly? It is a finely tuned skill which few can correctly apply to their work.

Copywriting begins with a few straightforward techniques which anyone can apply to their content in order to enhance their overall web presence.

• Know your target audience

The client will often dictate the tone which they require from your content. If your content is for ‘Car Rental’ then a thorough knowledge of rental cars is essential. If you write needless paragraphs which idle on about unnecessary information which is difficult to sift through, then your audience will instantly become disinterested and even abandon the site altogether. A good copywriter writes for both their intended audience and their client. A hard line to walk indeed.

• Stick to the SEO guidelines

This point is canon, unless you intend to keep your work hidden amongst the sea of other top ranking pages. SEO is search engine optimisation and without it, my copy would never reach the lofty heights of Google ranking number one, two or three. Keywords pertaining to the site (such as ‘top car rental’ or ‘best car hire’) are thoroughly researched and then strategically placed into my copy. This rockets any work straight into the top tiers. There are countless SEO hints and tips on the web which you can locate and implement into your work.

• Keep it readable

If your copy reads like a fifth graders essay about his holiday in Mykonos, then perhaps it’s time to take your work back to the drawing board. Stuffing in keywords for the sake of a better ranking in the major search engines is poor SEO copywriting and a guarantee that your work will never see a number one ranking. Inject your own unique personality into all of your work; this includes correct paragraph and sentence structure as well. You are writing for human beings, not the computer. Always keep this in mind.

Copywriting is more than a job; it is my life’s ambition and a skill which I will continue to fine-tune for the remainder of my days. Good luck for those who wish to develop their own writing skills. Be proud of your work and everything else will fall into place.