You want to grow your business. Raising its profile in the community or industry can be an effective way to get more visitors to your website. But, if you launch a public relations campaign prematurely you could be doing more harm to your business than good.
Before you start pitching to media outlets and bloggers, there are a few things you need to consider.
Adding a blog to your website is a simple and affordable way to enhance your online marketing efforts. By following a few guidelines, you can create a blog that helps strengthen your connection with both current and potential clients, while improving your search engine rankings.
Add personality to your brand. A regularly updated blog introduces your website visitors to the real people behind your business. Since blogs are often written in a casual, conversational style, you can let your personality shine through. Don’t be afraid to express your professional opinion on new developments in your industry, offer useful tips, or share something entertaining in your blog posts.
Demonstrate your knowledge. Blogging can also help you establish yourself as a source for information on current developments in your industry. If your blog content is relevant and well researched, your visitors will view you as an authority and keep coming back for more. They might even share links to your blog with their social networks, increasing your visibility among potential clients.
Get noticed by search engines. Your website’s search engine presence is determined by many factors, including the amount of incoming links to your site, and how often you add relevant content. The more your blog readers enjoy and create links to your content, the more search engines are likely to recognize your site in their search results.
As an attractive feature for both humans and search engines, a blog is a valuable addition to your online marketing. But blogging does require time, so use it wisely.
1. Update your blog regularly: a short post a few times a week, coupled with alerts to your social networks, will do wonders to keep you top of mind with your clients, and top of page with search engines.
2. Make your posts useful: provide concise, informative, and entertaining content, and your site visitors will be encouraged to return. Post something you found useful – chances are your visitors will agree, and they’ll appreciate your sharing. If it’s not your original content, don’t forget to give proper credit to the source.
3. Keep it simple: like any other web content, it’s important to keep your blogs short and to the point. People will leave in a hurry if you don’t offer something useful right away, so don’t get carried away with a lengthy rant.
4. Add visuals: adding photos, videos, and audio can make your blog posts more visually appealing to your readers. Most blog programs make it easy to incorporate these elements into your posts.
5. Have fun: online marketing is becoming increasingly social, so let your blog readers know that you have personality and like to laugh just like everyone else. Like life, your blog doesn’t always have to be about business, so share something hilarious or beautiful once in a while, and connect on a personal level with your audience.
You want to grow your business, and raising its profile in the community seems like the perfect strategy to get more visitors to your website. But, be warned, if you launch a public relations campaign prematurely you could be doing more harm to your business than good.
Before you start pitching to media outlets and bloggers, there are a few things you need to consider:
Studies show you have just a few seconds to make a positive first impression on the Web. Your website must have engaging web copy a friendly, pleasing design. Anything less and you’ll lose potential visitors. Installing a user tracking system like Google Analytics will help you determine your visitors’ behavior. Heed the results. Pay attention to how long people are staying on your website. If your current visitors aren’t engaging with your website, why would media outlets and bloggers bother to stick around?
Most of the media outlets and bloggers you’ll be pitching to write for a living. Spelling and grammar mistakes are huge distractions for most people, but even bigger issues for professional writers. Sloppy web copy distracts from your message. Proof your web copy. Then proof it again. Have trusted colleagues, friends and family help with this task. If you can, hire a professional copywriter to catch any errors. Create a site that reads well, that won’t distract media and bloggers and give them a reason to leave your website.
Have a clear idea about what makes your business unique from your competitors. How are you staying ahead of the curve? Ensure your unique message is communicated on your website. Media outlets and bloggers are constantly looking for fresh angles and innovative material. Know your story and what makes your business special before reaching out to the media and bloggers.
List the outlets and blogs you’d like to cover your story. Do your research. Whether it’s reading and commenting on targeted blogs or watching the television show you’d like to appear on, know the organization, publication or person you’re approaching. Make sure your story would work with their format and content.
Traditional press releases can be passé. Writing a cover letter-like pitch is usually much more effective, especially when dealing with bloggers. In your pitch, illustrate how you understand their format and content needs and how their audience will benefit from the information you are presenting. Paint a colourful story with an angle that would work for their blog, program or magazine.
Email is often the preferred method to send your pitch. Keep in mind that media outlets and bloggers commonly receive dozens or even hundreds of pitches daily. To break through the clutter and get them to open your email is a challenge. Creative, enticing subject lines that paint a story can make all the difference.
The economic downturn has affected many media outlets. One person is often handling the workload of three. Presenting them with ‘ready-to-go’ stories and being conscious of their time constraints could give your pitch the edge it needs to get covered. The easier you make their job, the better.
When media outlets and bloggers show interest in your story, accommodate their needs. Expect tight turnarounds and respect their deadlines. Treat them as your client. The benefits to your business and web traffic will be well worth the effort.
When you get professional web copy on a website, you can also leverage it in other places in a bid to:
To get the best possible ROI from your online marketing investment, here are 10 ways to repurpose your web copy so it works overtime for your company, online and offline.
When it comes to the Web, web content writers do audiences a favour by getting right to the point. Spend too much time trying to set up an atmosphere and you’ll lose them.
Why? When people arrive to a business website, they’re looking for information to solve a problem. As a result, they promptly:
1. Scan web copy to locate areas of interest
2. Scan subheads or kickers to identify topics
3. Skim the main web copy body for keywords and phrases
4. Input and process details of interest
5. Click to see more web copy, leave the site, or take the desired action
So get to the point. Don’t get wrapped up in being cute or clever. Let your readers get what they need quickly and easily complete the desired task—whatever it may be.
The best web content copywriters understand keywords, which are the foundation to a successful website.
Keywords drive desired traffic to websites, and can help engage and convert visitors into customers. Unfortunately, when businesses hire uninformed web content copywriters, many opportunities are missed.
There are basically three types of keywords a business can target:
1. Keywords for browsing
These are generic terms that people often use when they start the search process. While it’s difficult to attain top 10 positions on search engines for terms such as web design, it can gain a business broad exposure on an international scope. But don’t expect high conversion rates, as most of these people have just started their search, and might just be looking for free tips and ideas.
2. Keywords for comparing
Now the person searching has some insight and is starting to look at particular products or services. For instance, a person might type in website designer and start browsing portfolios, rates, specialties, processes, and so on. They’re likely at least semi-serious prospects.
3. Keywords for buying
At this stage, the person has a good idea of what he wants to purchase, so he might type in web designer New York, or ecommerce web designer, or even ecommerce web designer in New York. He’s specific, and more than likely ready to invest.
But, remember, while keywords can bring prospects to your website, you have to deliver your message with impact. Otherwise visitors will be quick to leave your site, and find your competition.
Service seekers are excellent customers to target, reports Forrester’s Bruce Temkin.
In previous research, Forrester created four segments of consumers based on their interest in low prices and good customer service: service seekers, price seekers, price & service seekers, and others. The research firm examined the loyalty of these segments across 12 industries.
“Across all industries, service seekers were more likely than price seekers to buy more products, stay with their current provider, and recommend their provider to friends and colleagues,” noted Temkin.
It validates our belief that merely positioning your product on the lowest price is a slippery route. There’s always a business that will come in and undercut you, and swiftly steal your marketshare.
Alternatively, the more reasons you give people to choose your brand, price becomes a less important purchase decision factor. As a result, you’ll attract people that value quality, are willing to pay for it, and will stick around for the long haul.
Most of us are aware of the golden rule for plain writing on the Web: Keep It Short and Simple.
But there’s no getting around it — at some point you are likely to have a long piece of complex material that you have to put up on your website.
It might be a ‘terms and conditions’ page for a contractual agreement. A set of instructions for a new product. A detailed explanation of a business policy. Whatever it is, you want your customers to read it because it will improve your business.
You can’t force them to read it, but you can encourage them to read it. You can make it inviting. Enticing. Kissable. Here’s how.
Nothing is more forbidding to an online visitor than a long page of unbroken text. If you can break the text into shorter pages, do so. And be sure to put a navigable menu at the top or left of the page, so users can see at a glance what the material covers and get to the page they want easily.
If you do have to keep a long piece of text on a single page, put a clickable list of subheads at the top of the page, so users can jump down to the section they want. ‘Back to top’ links every two or three paragraphs are also thoughtful and help visitors cut down on scrolling.
Online visitors get lost in long sentences. Don’t present them with something that they’ll have to reread and decode. Keep sentence length to about 15 to 20 words, with no more than two clauses.
One way to keep sentences short is to break them, with the most natural break being at a second ‘and’. The sentence ‘This agreement is between the Widget Communications Company and customer and applies to the customer’s use of Widget services’ isn’t that long, but would work better as ‘This agreement is between the Widget Communications Company and the customer. It applies to the customer’s use of Widget services.’
If a sentence has a long list of words or points, recast it using bullets.
Officialese is so pervasive that we hardly recognize when we read it. But it still has an effect, and it still sounds pompous and impersonal:
The list goes on. Review your text and mercilessly strip it of officialese, which only alienates visitors.
You’ll recognize these when you see them-words or phrases that add nothing to the meaning of a sentence, clutter up a page and make it longer. Strike out useless words:
Sometimes you’ll need to rewrite or amend capitals and punctuation, as in this stem for a bullet: ‘Please note our refund policy, which is outlined in the following list:’. This would be better as a straightforward subhead: ‘Our refund policy’.
The passive voice is a dead voice: ‘Your bill has been designed with you in mind’ is a good message, but would be livened up with the active voice: ‘We’ve designed your bill with you in mind’. Put the subject first, then the verb.
Perfectly good verbs get turned into long noun phrases to make the text sound more authoritative. It doesn’t work. It makes the text longer and it’s tedious for a visitor. There’s no good reason to use:
Double negatives sound hedging and leave the visitor not knowing where you stand. Instead of saying ‘I do not disagree’, say ‘I agree’. A ‘not unwelcome move’ should be ‘a welcome move’. Positive constructions sound committed and their meaning is easy to grasp. A common marketing blurb says: ‘Saving energy doesn’t go unnoticed.’ Does that mean it does get noticed? Not necessarily. ‘Saving energy gets noticed’ makes the meaning clear.
Lists of bullets or numbered points are great for:
Subheads help website visitors get straight to the section of web copy they are interested in. They also make a long piece of text look less overwhelming. Use simple, everyday expressions for subheads and be sure to clearly explain what each section is about.
If you can present the subheads as questions in the first person, even better. This shows visitors you’ve really thought about what they might want to know:
Finally, take a close look at your web copy and ask yourself if it has to be straight text. A user guide or help text works well in a question-and-answer format. Tables and flow charts are ideal for presenting statistics and financial information. And although it’s not always a solution, a picture really does say a thousand words.
Many web content writers create urgency in a bid to get visitors to buy products or services now. It’s often in the form of a limited time offer. The logic: visitors might not come back, so get them while you can.
However, if a web content writer is overly aggressive, it can hurt credibility, diminish trust, and backfire. So it’s best to maintain a professional, tasteful tone. That way, people don’t get their backs up against the wall, and end up with a bad taste in their mouths.
I recall a website that indicated: “This One-Time, INCREDIBLE DEAL is ONLY Available for 4 Hours and 24 Minutes!!! Act Now, Before it’s Too Late!!!”
The time ticked away. Out of curiosity, I checked back the next morning, and the clock was reset—16 hours and counting! The ‘incredible’ offer stood. Scammers! That was my perception, anyway, and they weren’t getting my money.
You can stop visitors from procrastinating without appearing like a fly-by-night con artist. For example:
Order before Dec. 15, 2009, and you’ll get a free bonus!
You can also include a “while supplies last” element. Just go easy on the exclamation marks, as using too many can get you labeled a spammer.
On the other hand, if you want to contribute to the spam-filled Web, be sure to start a long-winded letter with “Dear Friend,” and include four or five P.S.’s at the bottom of your pitch.
Before you start your website’s development, it’s a good idea to determine who will be in charge of website updates and how much time will be required to stay on top of them, suggests Brad Haima of Circle, an Abbotsford-based Vancouver web design firm.
“Many companies have great expectations but are often too busy to do simple website updates,” said Haima. “Having a good game plan ahead of time will allow you to prepare for how much time and staff you are willing to commit to website updates.”
He points out there are a number of pros and cons for each site editing option:
Outsourcing to a Web Design Firm
Pros:
1. Work will be done professionally and reflect the image your company deserves.
2. Because each page is edited manually your site can have a unique look throughout rather than a website that uses the same template over and over on every page.
3. Many web firms can also provide automated software solutions.
Cons:
1. Good web design firms are busy so getting edits done right away may not always be possible.
2. The costs for their services are more expensive than hiring an in house web master or using an automated solution.
Hiring an In-House Webmaster
Pros:
1. You have a designated person who can do any changes to the website right away.
2. Because each page is edited manually your website can have a unique look throughout rather than a website that uses the same template over and over on every page.
Cons:
1. If your website is small then there may not be enough work to keep a full-time webmaster busy.
2. The abilities and quality of the work done by a low-cost webmaster or employee many not reflect the image and/or quality your company is looking for. So, over time, your website can degrade from its original design.
For more information about website maintenance solutions—and websites in general—you can visit Circle’s web design site, or contact their web designers directly at info@circle.bc.ca.
“The final product we received from Webcopyplus far surpassed our expectations. The process was a breeze, deliverables were always on time, and the level of professionalism with which we were treated was very refreshing. But all of that is nothing compared to the satisfaction of hearing new clients say ‘I found you on Google’ several times a day.”
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