Why should prospects invest in your product or service? If you can make a strong claim and support it on your website, you’ve got a winning brand.

Are you the biggest? Provide the widest selection? Offer patented technology? Feature convenient locations? Or are you young and small, allowing you to churn out customized solutions swiftly, unlike your much larger and slower competitors?

Define your strengths and leverage them. And be sure you get them right because they are key to your short- and long-term success.

Paint a picture that clearly demonstrates how your prospect’s world will be easier, more lucrative, healthier, happier, etc. with you in the picture. The overall messaging can then be continually reinforced not just in your web content, but also your print materials, advertising, tradeshow presentations, press releases and so on.

Remember, web designers aren’t the only ones with the ability to shape your brand. Well-versed web copywriters can also build your brand with words.

When it comes to website copywriting, design and development, simple is always better.

It makes it easier for online visitors to:

• Answer basic questions, starting with “Am I at the right place?”
• Absorb and digest key messages
• Fulfill a desired course of action, e.g. subscribe, purchase, etc.

All of the above promote satisfied needs, happy customers, and a healthy bottom line.

So why are so many websites so complex? The fact is “simple” is difficult to achieve.

Consider the wise words of historic French aviator and writer Antoine de Saint Exupery: “A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”

While he was reflecting on the development of airplanes long before anyone heard of Bill Gates or Steve Jobs, his logic fully applies to the Web.

Why Simple is Difficult

Conceptualizing and developing a simple, user-friendly website can be challenging for many reasons, from strains on time and resources to conflicting motives and objectives.

Web designers and copywriters are often pressed to churn out creations at a moment’s notice. But, whether manipulating words, images or code, it takes knowledge, experience and time to plan and develop appealing, functional and simple websites.

Good web writers invest a high percentage of time determining key messages before hammering away at the keyboard. Likewise, experienced web designers study their clients’ needs and sketch out ideas before hitting the computer.

Simple isn’t Stupid

There’s a vast difference between communicating simply and communicating poorly.

Simple website content promotes effective communications. It is easily processed, understood and connects with readers. Poor communications – whether caused by inferior writing or flawed designs – rarely hits the mark.

People are often surprised to learn web writers at Webcopyplus aim to deliver web content at a grade-eight level. Clients and students alike ask: “Won’t this offend your audience?” Many people fail to realize that most reputable national newspapers are also written at this level. Even TIME magazine, which is by and large deemed sophisticated, is written at a grade-ten level.

While there are exceptions, most targeted online audiences have varied expertise in both the Internet and subject matter. An expert can endure simplicity, but a novice might not be able to identify with or comprehend complex information.

Invest in Simple

To promote your website’s readability, scanability and usability, ensure your web designer and web writer take extra time and effort to scrap any useless elements, from extra fonts to extra syllables.

Effective web content isn’t about flashy graphics and fancy words. It’s about communicating key messages and getting tasks completed.

Simple connects.

Web content has the ability to deliver a message to prospects at the right moment — precisely when they’re looking for a product or service. Unfortunately, the right message is rarely delivered.

Self-centric copywriters and business owners are to blame.

Some copywriters believe it’s more important to win awards than for clients to win new customers. They write for themselves, disregarding key business objectives.

Meanwhile, numerous micromanaging business owners insist prospects are interested in their mission statements and corporate values. Employees have a hard time getting excited about these things, so why would consumers care?

So what engages visitors and turns them into customers? Read Web writing: The Good, Bad and Ugly.

How do you get online visitors to take interest in your products or services? Write about things they care about. Most would say that’s brain-dead obvious. Yet, it seems 90% of websites miss the mark completely. The problem: self-absorbed web content. The cause: self-absorbed copywriters and business owners.

To engage prospects and turn them into customers, you need to appeal to the visitor’s self-interest — not yours.

Is Your Web Copy Written for the Right Audience?

Who is your website written for — your audience, your business, or your writer?

The following insight will help you answer this critical question, and guide you toward higher online engagement and conversion rates.

Continue reading →

While discussing Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs at a web writing workshop, a student asked what the most powerful consumer appeals are. Great question.

I suggested sex, greed and fear top the list.

Sex Sells

First of all, does sex sell? Just ask Calvin Klien. The concept has been around as long as advertising.

However, during the past decade, it seems consumers are more sophisticated and have greater expectations of companies and their marketing ploys. Hence, to achieve the fully desired effect, flesh-induced images and suggestive word plays might require increasingly developed strategies.

Greed and Fear

As for greed and fear, they are timeless motivators.  That’s because humans naturally: (a) have a desire to improve the status quo; (b) or fear losing the status quo.

Mix a person’s wallet into the equation, and you have a powerful formula to get people to act.

To clients and students alike, I always preach “less is more” on the Web. It applies to web design, web copywriting and even programming.

So I was fascinated to find an applicable quote from French aviator and writer Antoine de Saint Exupery. While reflecting on the development of airplanes some decades ago, he wrote:

“A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”

So true. It reminds me of another relevant quote from Thomas Jefferson: “Had I but more time, I would have written less.” Actually, Mark Twain wrote something similar: “If I had more time I would have written less.”

The common premise is web designers and web copywriters must take extra time and effort to scrap any useless elements, from extra colours to extra syllables.

Good web content isn’t about flashy graphics and fancy words. It’s about communicating key messages and getting tasks completed.

When it comes to web content, some web copywriters still clash on the classic “features versus benefits” debate.

A web copywriter might choose to stack web content exclusively with features. For instance, web content promoting binoculars might focus on certain features, such as oversized lenses, rubber coating and ergonomic design.

That can score points with consumers in terms of credibility, but the web content should not omit the benefits: low-light performance; bright, crisp and clear images from dusk until dawn; and toughness and easy handling.

For consumers to take action, they need to care. Benefits tell readers why they should care.

Benefits engage. Benefits inspire. Benefits get people to act.

Psychologist Abraham Maslow conducted lifelong research about mental health and human potential. Seeing human beings’ needs arranged like a ladder, he devised his renowned hierarchy of needs.

Here’s a breakdown of the needs and desires people try to fulfill, as compiled neatly in Chip and Dan Heath’s New York Times bestseller Made to Stick:

• Transcendence: help others realize their potential
• Self-actualization: realize your own potential, self-fulfillment, peak experiences
• Aesthetic: symmetry, order, beauty, balance
• Learning: know, understand, mentally connect
• Esteem: achieve, be competent, gain approval, independence, status
• Belonging: love, family, friends, affection
• Security: protection, safety, stability
• Physical: hunger, thirst, bodily comfort

Ensure your web content taps into these basic human needs to appeal to your visitors’ emotions. You’ll engage and convert.

A common pitfall for web writers and journalists alike is it’s easy to get caught up in too many details.

Writers must step back regularly and ask: “What’s important and interesting to the readers?”

If you’re writing web content and feel you’re losing direction, chances are you’re missing the integral story. You might be saying too much. And if you say too many things, you’ll lose your audience on the fast-paced Web.

Well-versed web writers recognize the need to prioritize. There’s one shot at the headline, lead sentence and body. Don’t miss the mark.

Don’t get lazy with search engine spiders, or they’ll bite you.

A long-time client contacted Webcopyplus to find out why their high rankings went downhill. In a matter of two months, they went from page one to falling off the radar for a couple of lucrative search terms. Their Google PageRank, indicating Google’s trust in their website, also dropped from 5/10 to 3/10.

We reviewed their web writing and meta data, and both checked out. Their inbound links were also relatively stable.

Upon further inspection, it was discovered that they were using duplicate web writing on many blog posts.

Google doesn’t like duplicate content. It’s considered a spam or black hat SEO tactic, and can result in dropped rankings, or even elimination from the search engine altogether.

A simple way to find out if your website has been penalized is to search for your domain name on Google. If your site doesn’t appear as the first result, there’s a good chance you’ve been penalized.

And if Google can’t find any page of your site if you search for “site:yourdomain.com” then it’s almost certain your site’s been knocked off its index.

Continue reading →