Web Content

The more skills you have in your online copywriting toolbox, the greater your value to your clients.

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online copywriter toolboxWay back when I wrote copy offline, I was pretty much a one-trick pony.

I wrote direct mail. That was my thing. I have never written a radio spot. I have never written a TV commercial.

Back then, it was fine to focus on a single copywriting skill, because there was no connection between what I wrote for a client as a direct response writer, and what their agency copywriter wrote for TV.

Sure, we all worked to the same brief, keeping within the same campaign idea.

But the key point to understand is that the quality of my direct mail piece didn’t depend on my knowing anything about writing for TV, radio or any other medium. Why? Because each medium was separate from the other.

All that changed with the arrival of the web.

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When quality content serves no purpose at all.

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rubbish web contentWhen the topic of web content comes up, whether I am talking with a solopreneur or someone at a large company, I ask a simple question: “What is its purpose?”

Right now everyone seems to be focusing on the quality of content. I get that. Quality content is good for your readers, and good for increasingly picky search engines.

In particular, quality content builds reputation and trust.

However, we still need to come back to the question of purpose.

Let’s look at this at the page level and at the strategic level.

What is the purpose of that individual page?

Yes, you want to wow and impress your readers. You want to entertain, surprise or educate them. No cut and paste. No boring stuff. Each page of content you publish needs to add to your reputation.

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Monday Spark: You don’t have to start at the bottom.

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bottom of the ladderLast week I was speaking at an event in Austin, Texas, and had a chance to talk with dozens of freelancers at various stages of their careers.

I was particularly interested by what I heard from those people who had high-level, professional careers behind them and were now on the verge of starting a freelance business.

Here is the part that got me thinking. Several of those people seemed to assume that they had to get started on the bottom rung of the ladder as a freelancer. It’s as if a switch in careers somehow required that they start over and look only for low-paying, low-challenge projects.

Well, I don’t think that is necessary.

If you have some solid business experience behind you, why not start closer to the top?

OK, so you don’t yet have a ton of experience as a freelance writer or copywriter. So your first client probably won’t be with a sophisticated direct-response company that is used to working with A-level copywriters.

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Are you writing in Go-Away-Green?

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go away greenFirst let me explain what Go Away Green means. It’s the color Disney uses in its theme parks for any object or building they don’t want people to look at.

Garbage bins, fences, administrative buildings…stuff like that. They want your eyes focused on the rides, stores and scenery, not on the infrastructure.

The idea of Go Away Green is that it’s such a boring and unattractive color, your eyes just pass over it until they latch on to something more interesting.

The concept of Go Away Green is important to grasp when creating anything that is a combination of attraction + structure.

This certainly applies to web design and yes, also to writing and copywriting.

The “attraction” in what you write is the story you tell, the core of your message and the supporting information that surrounds it.

The “structure” of your writing represents all the words and sentences you use to set up the opening, create transitions throughout and wrap things up at the end.

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Take the stress out of SEO by focusing on the long tail.

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long tail seoLike many people, I have spent the last couple of years furiously trying to figure out what Google is up to.

Over that period, some of my websites have seen an increase in search engine traffic while others have seen a decline. And no, I haven’t always been able to figure out exactly why each increase or decrease has taken place.

It used to be relatively easy to figure out what Google was looking for. Not any more.

The Panda and Penguin updates in particular had a huge impact on people who thought they knew what Google wanted.

Yes, many sites that deserved to be impacted saw their listings drop off page one.

But there were many false-positives too. People who had worked hard to play by Google’s rules suddenly saw their traffic drop significantly. It was toughest of all on those people who really couldn’t see where they might have gone wrong.

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Why writing great headlines is like creating a soap opera.

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writing great headlinesOne of the things you’ll notice about soap operas is how hard the writers work to let you know that the best part is yet to come.

For example, just before each commercial break the drama is built to a point of peak suspense…so you just have to sit through the commercials to find out what happens next.

The same devices are used at the end of each episode to make sure you tune in again next time. Will she run off with the pool cleaner? Did he survive the plunge off the cliff? Will she be found guilty and sent to jail? And so on.

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