Here are some of my favourite nuggets of wisdom from the greatest minds in website copywriting, e-marketing and search engine optimization:
Website Copywriter Wisdom
Here are some of my favourite nuggets of wisdom from the greatest minds in website copywriting, e-marketing and search engine optimization:
It’s the words that make the sale
“Flash animations don’t make sales. CRM software doesn’t make sales. Pictures of products don’t make sales. If you have trouble believing that, remove all the words from your site and see how many sales you make. Without great copy, your online presence is dead in the water. It’s the words that open, build, and close the sale.”
Nick Usborne, Net Words
How Do You Make Your Website Credibile to Visitors?
A couple of weeks ago web copywriter Nick Usborne queried readers of his (excellent) Excess Voice e-newsletter about what makes a website credible. The question was: “If testimonials are somewhat unreliable as a means for establishing credibility, what DOES make you trust a site and believe in its integrity?”
The “Biggest Workload” of Creating a Website
Came across this brilliant illustrated article about The Website Development Process.
Regarding content it says: “Working from the sitemap and wireframe, you and the client get together to start planning the content – specifically the text. Content planning and writing is probably the biggest workload the client will have during the project – and it can really take some time.”
That’s exactly why you need a web copywriter on the team. Not only will they be able to produce the copy faster than the client, they can do it better.
The Dark Side of the CMS
There has never been so much bad photography as there is now. Why? Because mobile camera phones and cheap digital cameras have made enthusiastic snappers out of a huge proportion of the population, most of whom don’t have the first idea how to create a compelling image.
Check out Flickr’s most recent photos and you’ll see what I mean. There’s page after page of mostly ill-conceived and boring photos.
It’s always been this way when advances in digital technology put the power of creation in ordinary people’s hands. The advent of user-friendly page layout programs unleashed a tsunami of badly designed documents, as business took their graphic design in-house. The first wave of web design tools helped populate the web with ghastly looking sites built by business owners with zero design knowledge.
And so it is with content management systems. They make it much easier for businesses to update their websites. And so they also make it much easier to publish poor quality content that erodes brand equity.
How Content Can Create Web Development Roadblocks
Yesterday I got a call from a web developer who needed a copywriter to refer his clients to. He told me he has several stalled projects. The clients had paid a deposit, he’d built the sites, but there was no content forthcoming… for several months!
This is a very common scenario. In fact just about every developer I’ve spoken to says there’s almost always a hold-up if the client is responsible for supplying web copy. The other scenario is the client supplies the copy but it’s rubbish.
This is a lose/lose situation. If the content’s bad the client gets no value from their website, and the dud site also makes the developer look bad. The client is upset when their website doesn’t work so the developer gets no repeat business or referrals.
There is an alternative. Developers should convince their clients to hire a copywriter. Clients need to understand that they can’t maximise the return on investment of their site without high quality content. With a copywriter onboard, everybody wins.
Charles Cuninghame – Website Copywriter
Online Punctuation #2 – URLs, Full Stops and Semi Colons
If you have a URL at the end of a sentence, don’t put a full stop after it. You’ll only confuse people.
You probably shouldn’t be writing out URLs on a web page anyway. Rather than writing: “Visit the text-centric website at www.text-centric.com“, you should create a text link e.g. “Visit the text-centric website.”
I avoid using semi colons when writing online. They’re too easily mistaken for colons. According to Strunk & White, the proper use of a semi colon is to join two independent clauses into a compound sentence e.g. “It’s nearly midnight; the restaurants will probably be closed.”
On the web you’re better off using a full stop (period for my US readers) or an em-dash (long hyphen) e.g. “It’s nearly midnight. The restaurants will probably be closed.” or “It’s nearly midnight – the restaurants will probably be closed.”
Charles Cuninghame – Freelance Copywriter
DIY Website Copywriting is False Economy
This week, just by chance, I happened to be emailed a client proposal for a website by a web developer. I was reading through it and came across this sentence: “By [you] supplying us with the text and content, we are able to keep your costs down.”
It strikes me that asking a client to supply their own content to keep costs down is false economy. Clients rarely create high quality content. And why should they? They’re usually not writers. And even if they are, it’s unlikely they have any experience writing for the web.
Without high quality content not only is the site unlikely to achieve its goal (to sell a product), but it could easily tarnish the reputation of the company. By trying to save a few bucks they’re jeopardising their entire web investment.
Failing to educate clients about the necessity for high quality content on their websites is a losing strategy for web developers. Sure they might make some money in the short term. But when their websites fail to create value, their clients won’t be happy and won’t be coming back or singing the developer’s praises around town.
Read Gerry McGovern’s latest spray on the importance of high quality website copywriting.
About the author: Charles Cuninghame is an expert website copywriter and marketing trouble shooter who helps business owners and marketing managers attract more clients.
Website Taglines: “Solution” is the Problem
One of the most overused words on the web is “solution”, as in “web marketing solution” or “SEO solution”. It’s a meaningless cliché that says nothing about the nature of your business.
Take IT&e for example. Their web tagline boldly proclaims “Cutting Edge FINANCIAL SOLUTION Provider” (view website). But what does “financial solution” mean exactly?
Are they a bank, finance company, investment advisor or financial planner? Do they offer credit cards, home or personal loans, financial services staff for business or personal wealth planning? Actually, it’s none of the above.
Flash Back? (It Never Went Away… Unfortunately.)
I dug up some old research from my filing cabinet the other day. According to a 2003 study 80% of Consumers Hate Flash Intros. At around the same time this research came out I also discovered a hilarious parody of the odious Flash intro. But despite this public bollocking the Flash intro persists to this day.
10 Years of Websites That Suck. Why?
The other day I re-discovered Vincent Flanders’s Web Pages That Suck. Its mission is to help visitors “learn usability and good web design by looking at bad web design”.
It’s totally irreverent and a hilarious and enlightening read. Flanders mercilessly parodies real life examples of clueless web design. He explains why to avoid mystery meat navigation and why you shouldn’t confuse web design with sex along with dozens of other useful design and usability principles.
SEO – Who do you Believe?
Today I read a couple of articles about buying text links to increase the Google PageRank of your site. While not totally contradicting each other, they each presented a radically different take on the issue.
This article by Armand Morin highly recommends buying a text ad on a site with a high PageRank in order to improve your search engine rankings.
However, my trusted source, Jill Whalen, writes in her latest newsletter that buying text ads, while a valid strategy now, will probably only work in the short term.
This got me thinking about who I believe when it comes to SEO strategies and why. Because the only people who really know what factors make a high-ranking site are the folks who write the search algorithms at Google, Yahoo, etc. And they aren’t telling.
All the SEO “experts” are just second guessing. So if you’re choosing to take the advice of an expert, the trick is to choose the best second guesser. I put my money on Jill Whalen. Why? Because I think she’s credible, her SEO process is systematic and her tactics pass my test of reasonableness. I’ve followed her advice and it’s worked.
Web copywriters note: Jill has written a very good book on SEO copywriting. It’s a quick read and tells you everything you need to know. There are some useful before and after examples as well.
About the author: Charles Cuninghame is an expert website copywriter and marketing trouble shooter who helps business owners and marketing managers attract more clients.
Make Words the Hero of Your Website
Last year I was hired to do the copywriting for a large website. The agency’s brief to the client said that a large flash animation would be the “hero element” of the site. The agency poured a huge amount of time and money into the flash animation. It takes up about a quarter of the home page – just sitting there looking pretty.
Meanwhile I wasn’t given a brief. There was no content strategy. My two superiors gave conflicting views on the client’s marketing strategy. I was asked to rehash second-rate press releases and scavenge other content off the web. The result: a pretty site with nothing of value for the target audience. In short, a waste of money.
Mobile Internet – First Impressions
I got hold of a 3G mobile phone last week. While I’m excited about the potential of mobile internet, the technology isn’t quite there yet. My main gripe is speed. It’s just too slow. I felt like I was back in 1995 with my 9K modem.
The content that has been created specifically for the medium is generally useable and useful. The provider I was using has a restaurant and bar guide with pithy reviews and tabulated contact details. You can click the phone number and your mobile speed-dials the restaurant or bar.
Website content that had been adapted for mobile wasn’t as user-friendly. Browsing through search results on eBay or dating sites is nigh impossible. It’s very hard to orientate yourself on such a small screen. Also, without a QWERTY keyboard entering text into forms is painfully laborious.
One thing is for sure – on mobile, copywriters must make every word count. They need to be absolutely ruthless with their copy editing.
About the author: Charles Cuninghame is an expert copywriter and marketing trouble shooter who helps business owners and marketing managers attract more clients.
Online Punctuation #1 – General Principles
The essence of grammar and punctuation is to facilitate communication. This is as true on the web as it is in print.
But due to their lower resolution and flicker, computer screens are harder to read than printed pages. So some punctation should be modified to increase readability online.
Punctuation marks serve to control the flow of sentences and to organise ideas. But they’re small. They get lost easily on-screen. I recommend using online punctuation sparingly.
Web writers need to maintain readability while they communicate their message. Use short sentences and short paragraphs. Arrange information into lists.
Charles Cuninghame – Website Copywriter
