Divine Write Copywriting Blog

It’s been a while since my last post. Sorry! But I have a good reason, honest…

As you’ve probably already guessed from my headline, Divine Write has launched a copywriting forum. It’ll interest copywriters, business owners, marketing managers and webmasters most, but ‘regular’ writers will also find it useful (I hope). Current forums include:

• General copywriting
• SEO copywriting
• Web copywriting (non SEO)
• Direct Marketing (DM) copywriting
• Advertising copywriting
• TV, print & radio copywriting.
• Grammar, punctuation, etc.
• Copyright of copywriting
• Copywriting as a career
• Critique my Copy

You can register by clicking the ‘Register’ link at the top of the main page. Hope to see you there!

Anyway, that’s it for today.

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You may have noticed in the About page for this blog that I threatened to occasionally chat about the lighter side of writing. Well, given the dry nature of my recent SEO copy posts, I’ve decided that the time has come to carry out my threat!

So I’m gonna talk about the lyrics of perhaps Australia’s greatest pub rock band, Cold Chisel.

Anyone who’s heard Jimmy Barnes sing/scream might instantly ask, “what’s that got to do with copywriting?” Many would also ask, “why discuss the lyrics of a screaming pub-rock band?”

My answer? Cold Chisel’s songwriters – particularly Don Walker and Ian Moss – were excellent writers; I wish I were half as good!

The very fact that you might question my choice shows how good they are; Cold Chisel enjoy the status of one of Australia’s greatest ever pub rock bands, but most people – even fans – overlook the quality of their lyrics. That’s because the lyrics do their job so well. They’re elegant without being pretentious, and evocative without being ‘soft’. They meet the needs of their audience perfectly. (And isn’t that what every writer aspires to?)

Take, for example, “Bow River” (the song that inspired me to write about Cold Chisel today). Penned by Ian Moss, Bow River celebrates an escape to the Australian desert and the northern tropics.

But what’s important about this song isn’t so much the destination – although many Australians do identify with the Australian outback; it’s the way in which Moss strikes a chord with the Australian working class. He successfully combines youthful romanticism, profanity, escapism, contempt for authority, slang, and visual, aural and tactile imagery. The result is an elegant piece of writing that captivates its target working class audience, yet still lends itself to fast-paced, raucous vocals and a hard rock arrangement.

Take a look at the lyrics below (quoted from the Cold Chisel website). Of course, as with all good song lyrics, you have to hear them in context to fully appreciate their inherent meter and timing, so whether it’s your first time or – like me – you’re revisiting after a long absence, it’s well worth a listen…

Bow River
Ian Moss

Listen now to the wind babe
Listen now to the rain
Feel that water lickin’ at my feet again
I don’t wanna see this town no more
Wastin’ my days on a factory floor
First thing you know I’ll be back in Bow River again

Anytime you want babe, you can come around
But only six days separates me and the great top end
I been working hard, twelve hours a day
And the money I saved won’t buy my youth again
Goin’ for the heat babe, and a tropical rain
In a place where no man’s puttin’ on the dog for me
Waitin’ on the weekend, set o’ brand new tyres
And back in Bow River’s just where I want to be

Listen now to the wind babe
Listen now to the rain
Feel that water lickin’ at my feet again
I don’t wanna see this town no more
Too many years made up my mind to go or stay
Right to my dying day
I don’t wanna see another engine line
Too many years and I owe my mind
First set o’ wheels headin’ back Bow River again
First thing you know I’ll be back in Bow River again

Got the motor runnin’, got the rest of my days
Sold everything I owned for a song
So anytime you want babe, you can come around
But don’t leave it too late you just might find me gone

Listen now to the wind babe . . .

I don’t need the score
I’m goin’ through the door
Gonna tell the man I don’t want no more
Pick up a fast car and burn my name in the road
One week two week maybe even more
Piss all my money up against the damn wall
First thing you know I’ll be back in Bow River again

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When you’re writing your SEO copy, chances are there’ll come a time when you’ll wonder whether you should target the plural of your keyword or the singular.

e.g. Do I target “tennis shoe” or “tennis shoes”?

To answer this question, the first thing you need to do is find out what your target visitors are actually searching for. If the vast majority are searching for “tennis shoes”, then you’d target that, and forget about “tennis shoe”.

However, in the real world, things are rarely so black and white. More often than not, the number of searches for each will be similar, and you’ll still be left wondering which would be the more effective keyword.

Your next step is to think about why visitors search for one and not the other. It may be that people search for “tennis shoe” when they’re researching whether to buy a tennis shoe or a running shoe. On the other hand, people may search for “tennis shoes” when they want to actually buy a pair online. In this case, if you were selling tennis shoes, you’d most likely choose “tennis shoes” as your keyword phrase.

Still no closer to a decision? Maybe you can target both… If the only difference between the singular and the plural is the addition of an “s” or “es” on the end, you can simply target the plural. You’ll be targeting the singular in the process. e.g. Target “tennis shoes” and you’ll be automatically targeting “tennis shoe” at the same time.

But if your plural is more than the addition of an “s” or “es”, never fear. In reality, you can target either and still enjoy a high ranking. Google is smart enough to identify the relationship between plural and singular. It knows that people who search for the plural may still get some value out of sites that target the singular. It’s true that - all else being equal - when a user searches for the plural, a site that targets the plural will outrank your site that targets the singular. But you can swing the balance in your favor simply by working harder on the number and quality of your inbound links. e.g. Take, for example, the distinction between “copywriters” and “copywriter”. My copywriting website, Divine Write, targets “copywriter”, but it still outranks most sites that target “copywriters”. That’s mostly because I have more inbound links.

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