Have you ventured ‘outside the box’ today?
Many businesses claim they’re innovative when it comes to the Internet, but few seem to demonstrate it.
Most stay on the cushy path, eagerly following cyber herds with the tried-and-true. “Why take a chance?” After all, going outside the box can be downright scary.
One group that relentlessly ventures into the unknown is “an ideas studio” named Burnkit, which is made up of 14 “thinkers” in Vancouver, BC.
Clever entrepreneur and author Seth Godin posted an interesting piece on editors today. His point: the easy route for editors is the safe route, which avoids trouble – but also eliminates success.
“Sometimes, a great editor will push the remarkable stuff,” stated Godin. “That’s his job.”
I wholeheartedly agree editors often take the trouble-free route, which can result in lame material. However, it’s often not the choice of editors, but rather the suffocating layers of policies and bureaucracy enforced by the poor soul’s boss, department or company. Editors are, frankly, politicized and homogenized into submission.
Webcopyplus recently conducted a web poll that asked 215 website owners: Who typically writes your web copy?
The results:
1. I do it myself 74.9% (161)
2. Web designer 12.1% (26)
3. Staff 7% (15)
4. Copywriter 6% (13)
These numbers reveal why the majority of web content is so hyped up, convoluted and difficult to digest.
To get the right web copy working for your online business, you need to know exactly what market you’re targeting.
For instance, I recently consulted HR firm directors who want to invest in keyword-rich web copywriting to boost their organic search engine rankings. But they’re putting the cart before the horse; they have yet to clearly define their target market.
You can’t optimize your web copywriting with the right keywords if you don’t know exactly who you’re targeting and in what market or region. It turns out they will attempt to incubate a local network, and moving forward they’ll try to make themselves known to select organizations across Canada and the U.S.
Depending on the nature of your business, your SEO copywriting might need to be ‘regionalized’ to reach your target market. For instance, a North Vancouver-based skin care clinic we recently performed work for would have little or no benefit receiving traffic from other cities as all services are performed locally.
Hence, all SEO efforts had strong regional emphasis in a bid to attract local consumers. Again, online visitors from New York would have no value to this client, so we didn’t water down our efforts by targeting global or general terms.
The strategy and effort paid off. Within five weeks, the client benefited from 58 number one positions on the top three search engines: Google, Yahoo and MSN. In fact, the client reported a significant number of website-generated leads — all made possible by purposefully targeting regionalized keywords and phrases.
Those who tap into their raw talents and passion get ahead further and faster in the ever-expanding Web world.
It seems obvious, but most web types get drawn toward immediate, short-term opportunities and wander far from their true calling.
Renew your drive by specializing in an area where you naturally thrive.
