(What follows is the outline I wrote for myself in advance of recording the video. This is just an outline. Not a regular post or article.)
A while back I was sent a bit of a challenge by a reader who didn’t agree with much of what I have been writing about the thrust of my course, Conversational Copywriting.
Fair enough.
Here’s what he wrote… slightly edited for brevity…
Read the full post…Traditional versus conversational copywriting. One guy thinks traditional wins.
(What follows is the outline I wrote for myself in advance of recording the video. This is just an outline. Not a regular post or article.)
This isn’t one of my Q&A videos.
Nobody asked me this question.
So I’ll ask it myself.
“What do I think is the most powerful way to get conversational with a website’s audience?”
In my course, Conversational Copywriting, I talk about a few different ways to get your clients started.
But if I had to choose one, and only one way… it would be this…
Read the full post…Start new conversations by inviting your visitors to ask questions.
When you walk into a car dealership and a sales person walks towards you, you can feel a change take place in your body.
There’s some kind of chemical adjustment happening in your brain. You feel a sudden tension in your muscles. Not relaxed at all.
You feel ready to fight. Or at least, to negotiate.
This is a little weird. It’s not like you’re walking down a dark alley at night, twitching at every sound, preparing to fight or run for your life.
But the symptoms are the same, even if not quite as elevated.
How come?
According to a recent report from PageFair, the use of ad blockers grew by 30% in 2016 alone.
By the end of 2016, there were over 615 million devices with ad blockers installed worldwide. 62% of those devices were mobile.
A couple of years ago it was only the nerds who were blocking ads. Now it’s gone mainstream. And it’s not just younger people who are doing this. The spread across age groups is surprisingly even.
This spells big trouble for both advertisers and the media sites that carry their ads.
The advertisers sense, quite rightly, that their ads are being viewed by fewer and fewer people.
And the websites that carry advertising as a core part of their revenue stream are facing an uncertain future.
So what’s happening here? Why the sudden surge in the use of ad blockers?
Read the full post…The rise of ad blockers is a warning about the future of selling online.
I’m going to be writing quite a bit about conversational copywriting over the next few weeks.
So I thought it might be a good idea to first define what I mean, and give the term a little history and context.
I first began writing and talking about conversational copywriting way back in the late 1990s. In 1998 to be exact. Hence the 19-year romance.
I made the simple point that as the web is a two-way communications medium, shouldn’t we adjust our marketing and promotional language accordingly?
Traditional media, like TV, are one way. The advertiser gets to speak at you, but you can’t talk back to the advertiser through your TV.
The language of advertising developed accordingly. Advertising spoke at you, through TV, radio, magazine ads, bill boards and so on.
Then along came the web… a two-way communications medium. Huge change.
Read the full post…My 19-year romance with conversational copywriting explained.
When it comes to attracting more traffic to your blog or website, everyone is all over search engine optimization, content marketing and social media.
These are the hot tickets.
Optimize for the search engines!
Spend more on content marketing!
Go viral through social media channels!
There’s nothing wrong with focusing on these three areas. They are all important.
But that doesn’t mean you should forget one other area of activity that is just as valuable to online marketers.
Link building.
Link building means attracting inbound links to your site from other relevant and high-value sites.
Read the full post…3 Ways to attract quality inbound links to your website or blog.