Copywriting: Start With the Person, Not the Product

Copywriting - audience 1

Any experienced copywriter knows when you take time to explore your prospects, you’ll produce more effective content, a stronger marketing campaign and boost conversions. So, to truly connect with and engage your desired audience, be sure to consider their emotions, attitudes and aspirations.

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Stick Your Finger in There: Find the Pain for Persuasive Copy

Persuasive web copy

Most marketing campaigns can be stripped down to one of two themes: build the dream or stop the pain. Marketers tend to favour stop the pain. After all, not everyone has a dream, but everyone has a problem.

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B2B Web Copy to Get Them Banging on Your Door

B2B copy

We all know that B2B marketing differs from B2C. B2B’s longer and more complex buying process has implications for marketing — and your web copy. Here are some tips to get your B2B web copy right.

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Using Humour to Sell? Don’t Fumble the Punchline!

Humour in marketing

Humour is a great way to sell. It catches people’s attention, engages them, and injects an element of humanity into otherwise static information. People love to be entertained, and if you can keep them amused while promoting your products or services, then all the better (nice job, Old Spice). What’s more, humour can be a great way to distinguish yourself from the competition (take a bow, Groupon).

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Converting Customers: Copywriters Need to Go Psycho

 

Psychographics and marketing

Good marketers and copywriters alike know the more you understand your target audience, the better job you can do writing and delivering your message. Sure demographics help — age, location, marital status, ethnicity and religion. But you’ll have a much richer understanding of your ideal customer if you get to know their psychographics — their lifestyles, behaviors and attitudes.

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Will Google’s Latest Move Kill Your Website?

Google Panda Update Photo

That depends… does your website contain quality content? Google’s latest algorithm change, which they are calling significant compared to the ongoing subtle changes, will impact 11.8% of search queries. What kind of impact? Essentially, high-quality content will be rewarded with higher rankings, while websites with low-quality content will plummet, and in some cases, disappear from search results. Even websites containing predominantly good content can be hurt by a few bad pages. Ouch!

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Fight Fluff With Our Web Content Quiz

Web content fluff photo

Some companies post fluff on the web as a marketing strategy. We’ve all seen it: “helpful” articles written without the benefit of a decent encyclopedia by writers paid pennies per post. Until recently, Google’s preference for content-heavy sites rewarded these content farms with improved search rankings.

In February, Google took steps to downgrade the search rankings of high volume, low quality sites by making a significant adjustment to it’s algorithm. In April, Google expanded its algorithm change from just U.S. sites to all English-language sites. By some estimates, visibility of some of these sites fell as much as 94% after Google’s initial adjustment.

But fluff isn’t just limited to content farms. Could your site get caught in Google’s fluff reduction efforts? How much of your website is fluff?

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The Pros, Cons and How-Tos of FAQs

FAQs are frequently asked questions

FAQs are questions your website visitors and customers frequently ask. But sometimes you need to ask yourself: “Why do they keep asking these same questions?”

The answer could mean there are problems with your website content. What message are you not getting across? What information do people often have problems finding?

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How to Not Flush Your PPC Dollars Down the Toilet

Toilet Paper Roll

Did you forego your venti half-sweet hazelnut soy latte habit to experiment with a pay-per-click ad campaign this month? We’re offering some tips to help you get started, so you can sleep tight knowing you didn’t renounce your coffee princess throne for nothing.

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The Mission Statement: Your Website’s Worst Enemy

Mission Statements

Dear business owner,

We know vision, mission and value statements make you feel warm and fuzzy. They may even make a few of your keenest employees feel giddy. But inflicting them on your website visitors is cruel, and it’s time to put a stop this sleep-inducing torture.

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