SEO web copywriting Archives - Page 2 of 2

A brief summary of Google’s Panda update and what it means for businesses and writers

By Patrick Gant

A few of my clients have been asking me about this issue, so here’s a quick post to talk about Google’s Panda update, who it affects and what it means in terms of search-engine optimization (SEO).

[Update] The first of several major updates to Google’s search algorithm, Panda was designed to weed out the growing number of link farms that have been propagating online.

You’ve likely hit one yourself while doing a search for something. They’re annoying and provide zero value when you’re searching for something.

Most of these sites use unscrupulous SEO methods of obtaining a high page ranking: a practice that benefits no one other than the owner of the site in question.

Broadly speaking, most businesses and writers with an online presence have very little to worry about with respect to adapting their website content in response to Panda.

That said, as matter of adhering to best practices when writing for the web, the following tips are now especially important to note, lest you be wrongly tagged as link farmer:

Proof your copy. Readers like to see that you have taken the time to get things done properly.

Be succinct but don’t be stingy. Each post should be something that can stand on its own for readability and topic detail.

Eliminate guesswork. Have a linking structure that is easy to understand at a glance.

Good links matter. Focus on obtaining quality backlinks that are directly related to what you are talking about. Links are like the friends you keep. People do judge you by who you hang out with.

Be evergreen. Update your content regularly. Stale websites look like lonely, empty restaurants.

Avoid duplicate content. This doesn’t just apply to pages within your site, but on the web, too. At very least, it looks sloppy. And at worse it makes you look shady.

A hard truth about your audience today: people are busy

By Patrick Gant

Among the rules we have here at thinkit creative for creating writing that sells, we adhere strictly to this one: people are busy, so don’t waste their time.

Let’s face it. Distractions are everywhere today. As Dr. Pamela Rutledge of the Media Psychology Research Center observes, today “we live in a socially-networked, transmedia world.”

In other words, it’s a space with a lot of people in it who have a lot of interesting things to say.

Distractions are everywhere.

Your audience gets distracted easily. That’s not a judgement on your communications skills. It’s just the way things are.

As Harvard psychologists Matthew Killingsworth and Daniel Gilbert point out in their 2010 study: “people spend 46.9 percent of their waking hours thinking about something other than what they’re doing.”

Some worry that all these distractions are making us kind of, well, dumb. For instance, Nicholas Carr (essayist and author of “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”) warns that “we are evolving from cultivators of personal knowledge into hunters and gatherers in the electronic data forest.”

Old methods don’t work anymore.

Age-old marketing disruptors don’t work anymore.

The market is changing in terms of demographics, media savviness, in how people connect, and also what they use to do that. It’s reshaping the way people make choices. Despite all the handwringing you might see in some circles, the problem today isn’t that people don’t read. It’s that they have more choices. Possibly even too many choices.

There’s also a very healthy collection of research in the area of cognitive load and human behaviour all suggesting that the risks of so-called information overload are very real and can play a role in turning off an audience from your message if what you have to say strikes them as being too demanding of their time.

It doesn’t have to be as bad as all that.

What you can do to help your audience.

When you recognize something as a problem, you find solutions that are tailored to address that problem.

Since people are busy and easily distracted, make it easier for them to do business with you. The number-one place to start doing that is in your marketing content, whether it’s online material or hard-copy collateral.

Use succinct, enticing headlines to draw attention to your content.

Use plenty of subheadings to help break up your ideas into smaller chunks of knowledge.

Challenge yourself to find ways to say more with fewer words.

Be consistent and persistent in what you have to say. This is often harder to do than you might think.

Make good use of infographics and professionally developed charts to explain complex data.

Don’t confuse simplifying with dumbing down. Audiences appreciate elegant solutions to tough problems.

Professional copywriters, editors and content marketing specialists can help you with these steps to help you attract an audience and grow your message.

People embrace ideas best when they gain things that matter to them.

Four steps to a more reader-friendly website

By Patrick Gant

Whether you’re a large organization that’s keen on carving out new market share or a small-sized operation that’s looking to build a presence in the marketplace, your web copy plays a key role in reaching readers and turning them into clients (and for some, turning readers into investors). Building an online presence is never easy, but you can make far less work for yourself just by paying extra careful attention to how you present your business case in your online copy.

Here are four ways you can make your web copy more reader friendly, including handy exercises to make it all happen today.

1. Focus less on you and more on them—your reader. It’s often tempting to cram a site full of copy, detailing who you are and what you do. Don’t give in! Granted, your readers do need to understand what your business is all about, but never do so at the expense of demonstrating what’s in it for the reader to do business with you. Here’s a simple exercise that I do with my clients (and I even do this with my own copy). Print a copy of your website and circle each and every reference to “I” or “we” or “us.” See if you can cut back those references by about 25 percent. For each instance, ask yourself if there’s a way you can change your copy so that it refers less to you and more to the readers. The result will be copy that sells readers on the benefits of doing business with you, while still leaving room for you to tell your story.

2. Be useful. There’s broad appeal to being seen as a resource that saves time. Websites are no exception. One exercise that I like to do with clients is the “10 points” test. Looking at your existing site, find 10 things that a reader might come looking for when visiting. Award yourself a point for each item you find and then think of ways to improve your score. Being useful can be as simple as including an always-fresh list of links to favourite books. The key is to put yourself in the shoes of the reader.

3. Be easy to reach. This might seem obvious, but consider the bulk of websites out there and how they treat vital contact information, such as phone numbers, email and postal addresses. They bury them under some tab called “Contact us.” Don’t make your readers work hard to reach you. Even if you simply include a footer at the bottom of each page with just your main phone number, readers will appreciate the thought. And you’ll have just earned a point in the “10 points” test.

4. Be brief. Do you really need to plow every detail of your company’s purchasing process onto the main area of your website? Even for readers who love details (and yes, there are many out there), they’ll appreciate it if you keep your online copy brief and punchy. Use links to archived material or to PDF documents for cases where there’s important background material that needs to be in the public domain. Try limiting every page to no more than 150 words.

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