Writing for the Web

What would happen if you improved on everything you did by a factor of 10?

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a ten times iimprovementLet me give you an example.

Let’s say you’re a freelance writer, focusing on Business-to-Business clients, and want to create a free report to offer your website visitors when they sign up for your newsletter.

We’ll call your report, “The 7 Secrets to Converting Prospects into Clients”.

You create a short outline. You do some research. Maybe you download a few reports from your competitors’ websites to see how they did it.

You then write the report. Let’s say it’s 14 pages long. You get a cover designed. You’re good to go.

That’s the “factor of 1” version.

Now let’s look at what a “factor of 10” version might look like.

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Optimizing a web page doesn’t mean it has to be all new.

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Start from a blank pageClients like to feel they are getting their money’s worth when they pay you to improve on an existing web page.

This is true whether you are writing an online sales page, subscription page or some kind of content page.

In my experience, clients not only want you to completely rewrite the current control, but they also want you to base the new page on a totally new idea.

If you give them a variation on the current page or, heaven forbid, just make some tweaks to what they already have, they become very disappointed and will likely throw your draft back in your face.

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Without segmentation, email marketing just ticks people off.

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email list segmentationWhen it comes to buying gifts for my wife, I’m pretty useless.

So I fall back on jewelry almost every time.

And I often buy her jewelry at a particular online store. I like their stuff, and so does she.

After over 5 years buying from them, I would consider myself a fairly valuable customer.

Which is how they fooled me, just for a moment, when they sent me an email recently.

Here’s the subject line:

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3 Ways to put an extra $12,000 in your pocket every year.

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Dog and coffeeAs the end of each year approaches, and the holiday season looms, most of us come up a little short.

We wish we had a little extra money in our pockets. More to save. More to spend on our families over the holidays. And more of a cash cushion so we can sleep better at night.

An extra $12,000 – one thousand more each month – would certainly make a big difference. In fact, for many of us, that extra thousand dollars a month would change our lives.

So how can we do that? Really, there are only three ways.

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Don’t create a mobile app until you’ve mastered social media.

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being antisocial on social media and mobileI work with companies from a variety of different industries, and I also keep an eye on what other companies are up to. In other words, as well as being a writer for the web, I’m also a student of the web.

And here is what I see…

Most companies finally “get it” when it comes to what they should be doing on the web. They pretty much understand what their websites can do for them, and why the web is different from offline media. That isn’t to say they couldn’t improve their websites. 100% of businesses online could improve their websites.

But when you take a look at their social media channels, it’s a whole different story.

Most companies don’t get social media at all.

(Stick with me, we’ll get to the topic of creating mobile apps in a while…)

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If a business isn’t social, it has no business on social media.

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Social group of friendsLet’s say you’re not a very social person. Antisocial even.

When you go to a local bar, you don’t talk to anyone. And people rarely talk to you because, well, you give off a vibe that you’re not interested in listening to them.

It doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. Doesn’t even mean you don’t like people. It just means you’re not social. So people leave you alone.

Now let’s say you do have one friend, and that friend suggests you try a different bar. It seems this second bar is a really, really social place. Your friend thinks it might change things for you.

So you go to the second bar, and you don’t talk to anyone. They get that same vibe of yours and leave you alone.

The point being, in spite of his or her good intentions, your friend should have known that a change in bars wouldn’t make any difference.

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