Anyone following my status of late knows I’ve been fully immersed in a complete retool of my website. Now, most might think it’s easy for a marketing professional to bang out copy or just drag over the old stuff. Unfortunately, knowledge can make it even harder because I know what converts – for the most part. This brought me to think how extraordinarily different writing web optimized copy is from informational copy. Actually – it’s night and day. As one of my clients said just last week, “Paula, you have a knack for getting inside my client’s head and then telling them just what they want to hear.” That’s the crux of web optimized copy: no fluff, no long explanations. Just tell me what I’m going to get from you so I stay on your site or click to know more. After last week, I’ve come up with the
5 Deadly Sins of Website Copy strategy that most writers commit.
1. Too long: We have become a blog reading species. Anything over 500 words (about one page) makes us run away. While it’s a lot easier to write a long passage since you can ramble on it’s much harder to tighten your copy down to the bare bone facts that your user wants to know.
2. Poor Targeting: Most sites are either too niche targeted or so general their users have no clue what the service is. Having highly targeted copy and direction is very important – particularly on the home page.
3. No calls-to-action or Closing Vehicles: After reading a section do your users know where to go next? If you’re just babbling on about what you do they are gone in 3 seconds flat. Seduce and entice, then ask them to do something. And, ask them over and over throughout the site.
4. No Plan to Process Luke-Warm Prospects: There are always prospects that aren’t ready to buy right now. You need something of value that gets them to give you their contact information (usually a free report on a hot industry topic or a CD with the same). Continuous contact will help them get to know you and want to buy.
5. Ignoring Potential Objections: When a prospect leaves your site, it’s because you didn’t give them the answers to their burning questions. If you have some icky parts to your business, product or processes handle them up front. Better to scare away the weak and focus on the strong prospects.
So, does your copywriter or web developer think like this when working on your site? If not, you need to find someone who understands website optimization. Although it integrates with technology, my work on my site and others is based entirely on prospect psychology.
If you’re a DIY Marketer – get back to those Freudian basics: id, ego & superego and start writing!
