Should You Really Customise and Write a Website Yourself?

SEO tips, Small Business Brisbane, Website Design 1 Response »
Aug 262010

Small business owners are a busy lot; today we consider… do you have time and skills to DIY your content and run a full CMS?

We wrote a little about this when we considered the question, DIY Template or Employ a Web Designer?

Recently I found another web company offering an ‘all-in-one’ solution – where business owners pick a template and do their own content and optimisation. This really assumes that business owners have an eye for design and colour, copywriting skills, and knowledge of keywords and where to put them.

That’s quite of a lot of assumptions. Most people who are very good at what they do, whether plumbing a roof or consulting to business, don’t have the time to research and get good at these varied skill sets. Hell, they don’t even have the time to consult with us on what they want in their website at times, much less always be doing it themselves.

Content Updates to Websites

In our new publication ‘Small Business Websites… Finally Explained’ we express the need for regular website updates if you want your website to be fresh and ranked well in Google. (And we practice what we preach).

If you or your partner can set aside 3 to 5 hours per month and you are a concise writer, please go ahead and pay for a full CMS (content management). If you’re normally in a car or up on a roof for work, then look into getting Hosting Maintenance included in a standard small business website. This means you can send in your website updates every couple of months at no extra cost.

Remember, you can optionally add a WordPress blog to a small business website and easily enough put in articles. Blog writing can be a simple affair and help your site be found for very specific subjects and locations. These can be articles which encourage the reader to purchase from you. When (notice I don’t say if) you realise that you can’t possibly keep up with writing these posts then I’d be happy to do it for you on a regular weekly basis, from $40 per post, or less for editing. Cheers.

Posted by Jennifer at 2:36 pm Tagged with: , , , , ,

Copywriting for Sales Conversion

copywriting tips No Responses »
Aug 182010

Strong SEO Copywriting will attract customers to your website, sure. This involves researching and including relevant keywords in your site.  Some people think that’s where the story ends.

But if you want people to take the next action step and buy from you, the writing must be strong enough and use emotional appeals. Mr Sturk at Mequoda Daily calls these trigger words:

“Trigger words are words that motivate people to act on something. There are a variety of trigger words, but the strongest tend to make an emotional connection with the reader.” – Mequoda Daily post

Customer Benefits

Using customer benefits is one trick of many successful copywriters to create these emotional appeals. A lot of people have the wrong idea about what is a benefit. I can give you a real example from financial services – a topic that can be dull as dishwater or a real motivator. Headline:

“If Growing And Protecting Your Wealth For Future Generations Is Important To You – Contact The Family Wealth Generation And Wealth Protection Specialists, Bronson Financial Services…”

The ‘trigger words’ in this headline are ‘growing and protecting your wealth for future generations’… this is what gets the reader thinking yes, that’s exactly what I want… however, there is no direct emotional appeal like fear, anger or love. But as this headline clearly relates very well to target market needs and what they provide, I believe it does its job very well.

Some people might be afraid of using a headline in their home page, but on the complete home page we put in eight headlines/subheadings, each relating to different selling points.

Sheep huddle together and all look the same. Be confident enough to stand out – and connect to your audience.

Posted by Gino Lancaster at 12:41 pm Tagged with: , ,

Prevent Marketing Material Project Delays

Small Business, copywriting tips No Responses »
Jul 292010
Power of Words website

Power of Words - our Copywriting site

When business people think of getting a brochure or website developed, they often start by getting a quote from their favoured graphic designer, who then obliges and starts asking about the design. The designer makes a start, but then find he can’t go any further with the project without content.

Unfortunately, business owners are often juggling many balls – and the copy (words) gets overlooked and left… sometimes for months.  The reason for this could be lack of time (busy on earning activities), or lack of knowledge of how to approach the writing.

Either way, the business owner or marketer should not be the sole person who is responsible for the copy and content. Just as designers exist to ensure artwork is balanced, attractive and print ready (or web ready), editors exist to ensure your grammar is perfect, consistent, and correct in voice. People wanting professional material hire an editor.

But if you struggle to write, the solution is hire a copy-writer (that’s a writer of copy). A copywriter is trained to write to get results – so the approach is a little different. If sales conversion from written collateral is important to you, the solution is… a copywriter. Making a document compelling to read is what makes our heart sing.

All you will need to supply is info on your target market, your business proposition, benefits to customers (these can often be found in client testimonials), product features, what you will use the brochure for, and what you want to achieve. Even the desired length and form of the piece can be worked out collaboratively from what you say about its purpose (with a mind for practical things like posting through the mail and printing costs).

Posted by Jennifer at 8:28 pm Tagged with: , , , ,

Writing Content for Engineers, IT people, and Logical Thinkers

Small Business, copywriting tips No Responses »
Jun 182010

Content marketing is a strong force today – that is, offering free white papers and niche content instead of pure advertising. Of Marketers surveyed by Target Marketing magazine (US), 83% said either that content marketing compliments or works in tandem with traditional marketing communications. Even 12% agreed that content is replacing traditional marketing as the primary selling tool. Only 15% of marketers said they don’t really do content marketing.

So How Do you Sell to the Technically Minded?

Certainly not with the usual advertising copy and emotional appeals. You see, these types of people like to rationalise first and they need a sound basis on which to judge a firm’s offerings. Hence the need for a white paper or similar report.

Thanks to ex-engineer and copywriter Bob Bly, you can receive a free 18-page report giving you some great tips on how to sell technology business-to-business. The direct link is here:
www.bly.com/content/Marketingwithcontent.pdf

Writing from Engineers to Other Business / Government Officials

While most Australian engineers can easily write technical data, when it comes to writing a winning tender submission many highly-intelligent, highly-qualified people struggle to write tenders effectively. Recently I had the opportunity to rework an engineering company’s Expression of Interest document, and I found many areas that could be subtly improved. Every time I came to a point which explained that they were the best for the job (so to speak), I put in a sentence that proves WHY they are the best – as specifically as possible.

I can just imagine the head honcho looking through several of these tender submissions, with his cynicism arising if any superlatives or unsubstantiated claims are put into the text. Never mind also having little time to wade through poorly written verbage. With tenders, your company ultimately wants to win, so the text must wake them up, not put them to sleep.

So you see it’s not black and white – you don’t just apply the usual advertising appeals when writing for technical professionals, but you don’t make it mindlessly monotonous either. There is room for true user benefits to be weaved in. You also want to satisfy the logical side of their brain and back up any claims.

Posted by Jennifer at 11:38 am Tagged with: , , ,

Blogging for business… worth the time?

Small Business 10 Responses »
Mar 192010

Some busy owners have asked lately, “Is it worth it to start and run a blog for my business?” Frankly if your billable rate is $60+ ph and you have plenty of work, probably no. Pay someone else to do it.

For one thing, you are most definitely not going to have time to keep posting at least once or more per week. Secondly, you may not have time to ensure you ping and tell all about your new blog posts.

And thirdly, the only reason it would be advisable to run your own blog is if you really enjoy the process. Because most people find it a proverbial pain after the novelty wears off, and it becomes a task usually left undone.

While you consider someone else to do it, remember these benefits of having a blog:

  • your writer gets brief snippets of your expertise across in plain English (they act like a translator to bring it to the masses)
  • blog posts go viral: people find it on searches or in twitter or stumbleupon, and soon you may be talked about in others’ blogs
  • it’s an informal way to connect with readers and find out what they want from your type of business or your products (by their comments)
  • enhances your SEO – the keywords used in posts may show up in searches. Also, linking your blog to your website means it too will be found (your blog listed on your domain name is best).

Do we offer blog post writing? Yes, it’s a new service at RPD. WordPress or Infusionsoft users can get multiple posts written in advance – ongoing. (Just ask for your ideas to be written up).

Jiggling the Web to Enhance SEO

Another concept to understand is why bloggers post blog content and then highlight it on the social media: twitter, facebook, digg and stumbleupon. So the spider at Jiggling the Web says:

“Jiggling the Web gets my attention because it uses a combination of links and social media properties. Links are how I get the meat. Social media is where the conversations are. If you combine the two, it gets your blog post to the top of the search engines quickly.

Unlike “industry standard” SEO methods it doesn’t take weeks or months. Top rankings are usually achieved in less than an hour.”

When you Jiggle the Web, you brace your positioning with a precise linking strategy. This makes your blog post stick in the rankings.

(See more on the strategy at www.jigglingtheweb.com)

So is business blogging worth the time invested? It is when it’s strategic not haphazard, as part of an online attraction strategy.

Posted by Gino Lancaster at 5:00 am Tagged with: , , , ,
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