by Charles Cuninghame on August 7, 2008
Some website design schemes make it impossible to know what’s a link and what isn’t. So visitors end up mousing over text and graphic elements hunting for a link, before they give up in frustration.
Here are three important guidelines for links:
- Make it obvious what’s clickable. Use coloured, underlined text for text links. Don’t underline non-link text.
- Change the colour of visited links so people know what they’ve already seen.
- Don’t open pages in new windows.
Charles Cuninghame – Freelance Copywriter
by Charles Cuninghame on August 6, 2008
Most people go to a lot of effort to make their home page a welcoming entrance for first-time visitors. But in reality many – if not most – visitors will bypass your home page and enter your website on an interior page via a link in a search engine listing.
When you consider every page on your website is an entrance, you start to view your pages differently. You start to think of every page as a “home” page which must entice the reader to stick around, read the page and, hopefully, click a link to explore your site further.
Click to continue…
by Charles Cuninghame on August 5, 2008
A good rule of thumb for web pages is to put the most important content “above the fold”. But what does this mean?
The term “above the fold” comes from the newspaper industry. Visualise a stack of broadsheet newspapers at a news stand. Because the paper is folded, all you can see is the top half of the first page. This section became known as “above the fold”.
Editors realised that in order to sell more papers they had to put the most interesting stories above the fold to attract people’s attention.
In website terms “above the fold” refers to the top part of the web page that readers can see without scrolling. Most users will not scroll unless they find something of interest above the fold.
Charles Cuninghame – Freelance Copywriter
by Charles Cuninghame on August 4, 2008
Deep linking is creating a link to an interior page of a website, rather than the home page. Deep links can be found on websites, search engine listings, pay per click ads, and in emails.
Unlike generic links to a home page, a deep link points to a page containing specific information. They are designed to direct readers to additional information that’s relevant to the page they’re reading.
For example, an article comparing various cars would link directly to each model’s information page, rather than the car manufacturers’ home pages. This linking of information is central to the philosophy of the World Wide Web.
The implication of deep linking for website owners is that visitors can enter their site on any page.
From my experience many business owners don’t realise search engines index individual web pages (not websites) and deliver a list of pages that are most relevant to the searcher’s query. Thus, a lot of search engine traffic bypasses your home page.
Charles Cuninghame – Website Copywriter
by Charles Cuninghame on August 3, 2008
When people arrive at your site for the first time they have a few questions on their minds, such as:
- Am I in the right place? Does this page match what I was expecting?
- Does this page have the information I’m looking for?
- Whose site is this?
- What is this website about?
- Should I bother reading more?
Visitors scan and skim to make a quick assessment of the page. So you need to include enough information above the fold to provide answers at a glance. Otherwise they’ll hit the back button immediately.
The elements visitors use to orient themselves on a web page are:
- The page header containing your company name, logo and website tagline
- Headline and lead paragraph
- Sub-headings
- Highlighted text and links
- Navigation labels
These elements must work together to communicate quickly and clearly what a page is about and why a visitor should keep reading.
Charles Cuninghame – Website Copywriter
by Charles Cuninghame on November 19, 2007
To create good website content you first have to understand how people read on the web.
People don’t read websites word for word – they scan the page looking for the information they want. Therefore your website content should be written for scanners:
- Online text should have roughly 50% of the words you would use for print
- Include lots of bullets, lists and meaningful sub-headings
- Use links to break longer information up into parts.
Charles Cuninghame – Website Copywriter
by Charles Cuninghame on November 19, 2007
Nothing you can say for yourself is as valuable as what customers have to say about you. That’s because people find the endorsements of actual customers more persuasive than the hype of faceless copywriters.
Every marketer has the same problem: overcoming a prospect’s fear of making a mistake. Faced with a buying decision prospects will often sit on their hands. They need to “think about it”. It’s safer to do nothing than risk making the wrong choice. In this situation smart marketers use psychology to overcome the prospect’s inertia.
Click to continue…
by Charles Cuninghame on October 22, 2007
You’ll win much more business if you show your target audience how you can solve their problems.
What is the one thing every person is interested in? The weather? Politics? Health? Sport? Religion? Shopping? Sex? Money? While many people are interested in some of these things, not one of these topics holds universal interest.
Click to continue…
by Charles Cuninghame on October 8, 2007
Always budget for your web content before you hire a web developer.
I know it seems counter-intuitive; you want to build your house before you decorate it. But, as web usability guru Jakob Neilsen states in Designing Web Usability
, “Ultimately users visit your site for the content. Everything else is just a backdrop.”
by Charles Cuninghame on October 3, 2007
If your print ad, direct mail piece, press release or home page isn’t getting the results you want a weak headline may be to blame.
Research shows that readers respond more to headlines than any other element of a print ad. So no matter how eye-catching the images and design, or compelling the body copy, without a strong headline an ad will most likely be ignored.
Click to continue…
by Charles Cuninghame on August 14, 2007
It doesn’t matter how good your website is, if no one sees it, it’s absolutely worthless. You need a strategy to ensure your prospects and customers see your website. The best options are SEO, PPC and drive to web initiatives.
by Charles Cuninghame on August 11, 2007
Building a website without a traffic strategy is like printng a stack of brochures and then leaving them in a box in your storeroom.
But the end goal is not more traffic… it’s more profit. So once you have a stream of visitors to your site you must convert them into sales leads or customers.
by Charles Cuninghame on June 25, 2007
First there was SEO.
Then came PPC.
Now the latest TLA (three-letter-acronym) in search engine marketing is SMO.
Click to continue…
by Charles Cuninghame on March 6, 2007
A review of BRW’s “definitive guide to winning on the internet”: Australia Online, in the form of a letter to the editor.
Dear Sir
I regret to inform you of my grave disappointment with your flagship edition Australia Online. Given that it was billed as “Your definitive guide to winning on the Internet” I was hoping for at least a couple of insights and some inspiration on how to realise a return on investment on business websites.
Click to continue…
by Charles Cuninghame on January 9, 2007
“If your website is nothing more than an electronic brochure, you are squandering the power of the medium.”
Mark Stevens, Your Marketing Sucks.
PS If you work in a corporate marketing department you absolutely MUST read this book!
by Charles Cuninghame on December 13, 2006
Copy* is the single most important element of a business website.
If you don’t believe me try this experiment. Remove all the copy from your site. Can it still sell? Not likely. Strip all the graphics off your site and leave the words. It might not be pretty, but if you’ve used the right words it will still make the sale. It’s the words that sell.
* “Copy” is a marketing term which refers to any text that is used to promote a sale.
by Charles Cuninghame on October 31, 2006
Despite being one of the most efficient, cost effective and intelligent marketing weapons, direct response marketing (aka DR) has an image problem. It’s usually associated with junk mail, infomercials, and ads for nasty porcelain figurines in the back of the TV guide.
Click to continue…
by Charles Cuninghame on September 22, 2006
If you read just about any book on how to write well it will tell you to avoid cliches. Unfortunately most website owners haven’t read those books.
Two of my all time most hated, worn out web cliches are “innovative” and “solutions”. Trouble is, sometimes clients actually ask me to include these words in their copy. One client even described them as “power words”!
Click to continue…
by Charles Cuninghame on September 1, 2006
In the nine years I’ve been working as a website copywriter I’ve met many people who sell their services as web marketers: web designers and developers, copywriters, web marketing consultants and strategists, interactive agency bosses and creative directors, etc.
Yesterday I had the great pleasure of meeting someone who I rate as one of Australia’s great web marketing brains.
His name is William Swayne. Some time ago I found his website and I was greatly impressed by how spot on his web marketing philosophies are.
Will’s company, Marketing Results, specialises in online lead generation. His website offers a ton of free information on how to increase the ROI on your website. And if you’d like to transform your website into a lead generating machine I would definitely give Will a call.
by Charles Cuninghame on August 28, 2006
“Branding” is the most overused marketing buzzwords these days. Everyone keeps rabbiting on and on about their brand. But there doesn’t seem to be any consensus about what branding actually is or entails.
Click to continue…
by Charles Cuninghame on August 25, 2006
Recently I was talking with a client about some fresh content I was writing for his website. He asked me about seeing some “concepts” and maybe even some “storyboards”. Thinking about it later I realised he was talking the language of advertising. I wondered if he viewed each new piece of content as a mini ad.
My philosophy on websites is to take a publishing approach with a marketing orientation. A publishing approach in terms of creating and managing the content and a marketing orientation for the substance of the content.
Perhaps I am blinkered by my background which is in marketing and publishing. But I am not alone in my beliefs. In a recent article for RainToday.com, David Meerman Scott wrote: “The best websites are designed by marketers who have learned to think more like successful publishers.”
Charles Cuninghame – Website Copywriter
by Charles Cuninghame on August 22, 2006
Recently I found this quote on an online marketing agency’s blog: “Macromedia Flash is the key to making your websites look funky.”
It really got me wondering. Why do you want to make your website look funky? And more importantly, what’s the ROI on funky?
I’m no great fan of Flash. It has its place and I believe it can improve the ROI of a website. But only if it offers something that’s both useful and efficient.
Most of the Flash I see is gratuitous “show business” and does a website more harm than good. I fully endorse Gerry McGovern’s acerbic observation: “What is a Flash intro except a fourth rate TV ad by someone who knows that they will never get the chance to do a real TV ad?”
I think the main reason Flash remains so popular is that many website owners are still under the misguided impression that their website will be better if it looks “funky”. And their web developers/agencies don’t know enough about what makes a successful website to advise them otherwise.
Charles Cuninghame – Website Copywriter
by Charles Cuninghame on July 28, 2006
No one builds a website to fail.
And yet many business websites fail to meet basic customer needs. Poor writing is often to blame. The information is vague, badly written, poorly organised or impossible to find.
A good website copywriter can help remedy these problems. Here are five reasons why you need a copywriter on your website team:
Click to continue…
by Charles Cuninghame on July 18, 2006
When I started my freelance copywriting business I decided to call it text-centric because I though it was a witty description of what my business was about.
Click to continue…
by Charles Cuninghame on June 23, 2006
Here are some of my favourite nuggets of wisdom from the greatest minds in website copywriting, e-marketing and search engine optimization:
Click to continue…
