Divine Write Copywriting Blog

An interesting topic came up in the Divine Write Copywriting Forums today. If copywriting is an art, how do you make it work in a structured business environment? Specifically, how can you force art?

Every copywriter has asked themself this question, at one time or another. Unfortunately, there’s no simple answer. But there are a few things you can do to reconcile art & business ROI. Here’s the relevant part of my response in the forum…

… copywriting is an art. Like any other art, it requires you to be ‘in the zone’. If you need to let your mind wander to be in the zone, then that’s just how it is.

However, having said that, every business needs return on investment. If you feel like you’re taking too long (or that your boss may fire you), perhaps you just need a little more structure for yourself. The way I do this is to set myself a series of questions to which I must know the answers BEFORE I start writing. Ask yourself / your boss / the subject matter expert the following.

• What is this copy about?
• What is the objective of the copy?
• What is the overriding call to action (e.g. Call our hotline)?
• Who is your typical reader (e.g male, 30-45, professional, affluent, physically active)?
• What problem / need / situation has caused the reader to read this copy?
• How would your reader achieve their objectives without your offering?
• What are your overriding / strongest or most unique selling points?
• What makes your delivery of this offering better than that of your competitors?

Then, when it comes time to actually write the copy, try applying a standard logic each time. I find that almost all copy can follow this structure (more or less):

1. Identify reader’s need / problem (to illustrate domain awareness and to engage the reader - e.g. “If IT is core to your business operation, you can’t afford downtime. Unplanned downtime can result in significant loss of profit, possibly even business failure.”)
2. Discuss generic solution (e.g. “The most effective way to avoid unplanned IT downtime is to ensure you have a comprehensive disaster recovery plan in place. Disaster recovery…”)
3. Discuss your specific delivery of this solution (e.g. “Widgets Disaster Recovery Services is Australia’s leading provider of disaster recovery and business continuity solutions. We have data centres all around the country, and blah blah blah…”
4. Summarise with a brief statement which subtly but explicitly links your delivery of the solution with the resolution of the reader’s problem or resolution of their need (e.g. “Widgets Disaster Recovery Services has the experience and expertise to help ensure that your business doesn’t lose business due to unplanned IT downtime.”)

Obviously, you need to overlook the simplistic (i.e. poor) copy in these examples.

Oh, and in practice (depending on the length of the copy), sections 2 & 3 often overlap (or are combined).

Hope this helps!

Popularity: 4%

Yesterday I was asked for advice by an aspiring copywriter. This happens all the time, but on this particular occasion, I think I actually helped a little! So I thought I’d post the original question and my response in the hopes that it might help someone else…

The question:

I am looking at returning to study, specifically with the aim of gaining work as a Copywriter within the advertising industry. Which of the courses available in Melbourne would you recommend as being the most recognised and/or rewarding? The Creative Director at the agency I was freelancing for recommended ‘Award School”. Do you have any thoughts or feelings on that option?

My response:

Thanks for your email. To be honest, I don’t know much about copywriting courses. I’ve never done one and I don’t pay much attention to the educational background of my freelancers. What I’m interested in is proven copywriting ability. I think this is the case for most people in my position (i.e. writers who outsource a bit of work) take this sort of approach. I suspect qualifications help if you’re trying to get work from non-writers, ‘cos they can’t always tell how good you are just by looking at your work.

Having said all of that I’ve heard of Award School, so at least that says that it’s fairly well known. (If I’ve heard of it, it must be!!!). You might also consider the copywriting course offered by Magneto. I know the guy who runs it. He’s a good writer and a decent guy.

And finally, you might consider:

• reading some of the articles I’ve written for aspiring copywriters.
• joining the Divine Write Copywriting forums. There’s a forum on copywriting as a career, which includes a general advice forum and a ‘post your full time job’ forum - http://www.divinewrite.com/forum/index.php?c=4&sid=83fc10edd00007c6d98cc1287770c419.

Hope this helps.

Popularity: 4%

Within the HTML code behind your page, there are things called ‘meta tags’. These are short notes within the header of the code which describe some aspects of your page to the search engines. Although there is some debate over how important meta tags are when it comes to SEO, it’s generally agreed that they shouldn’t be ignored.

Whether you’re building your website yourself, or you’re getting a web designer to do it, it’s a good idea to understand the basics. There are four main meta tags you need to consider:

1. Title
2. Keywords
3. Description
4. Alt

Following is a bit of discussion of how these meta tags should look and a few tips for writing them.

Title - e.g. <title>Cheap second hand computers – Widget Computers</title>

The title is the most important of the meta tags. Try to use your keyword at least once in the title, preferably towards the beginning. Also, it’s not just important for your ranking; it also has the biggest impact on your Click Thru Rate (CTR). The text you put in the title will appear as the link text in your Google listing – the bit that people will read first and click on. Think of it as an ad headline – the better it is, the more people will click on it.

TIP: Google only displays 66 characters in the clickable part of your listing. So try to keep your Title text to a max of 66 characters.

Keywords - e.g. <meta name="KEYWORDS" CONTENT="cheap second hand computers" />

Search engines used to look only at this tag to identify a site’s subject material. This isn’t really the case any more, but some search engines still give it quite a bit of weight (such as Yahoo). There are various ‘rules’ about how many characters you should include in this tag. The most recent I’ve been working to is 300 characters (including spaces). I’ve never been too strict about enforcing it though.

IMPORTANT: The most important detail about the Keywords tags is that Yahoo pays quite a bit of attention to it. If you do it wrong, you’ll be penalized. I learned this the hard way. You need to ensure that your Keywords tag is aligned with your web copy. By that, I mean that you shouldn’t include keywords that don’t appear in your copywriting. And I’m not talking about arbitrary stuffing or spamming here. I’m talking about legit keywords. For instance, I used to use my suburb, Bateau Bay, as a keyword for every page of my site. However, “Bateau Bay” hardly appeared at all in my web copy. There were quite a few other examples like this, too, like my state (NSW), and some of my neighboring suburbs. After ranking really highly in Google for about a year, I couldn’t understand why I was ranking so poorly in Yahoo. Turns out, this was the reason. I made the change, and my ranking shot up about 60 positions!!! And I don’t mean from position 1000 to position 940 (that wouldn’t be noteworthy at all). I mean I shot up from about 80 to about 20 (then gradually moved onto the first page).

Description - e.g. <meta name="DESCRIPTION" CONTENT="Cheap second hand computers for sale – keeping your business running efficiently without breaking the bank." />

The search engines pay some attention to this text when identifying your site’s subject material, so make sure you include your keyword at least once in the Description. Also, most search engines use this text as their description of your site (i.e. it’s the site snapshot that follows your link in the search results). Make sure it’s informative and compelling. Think of it as the copy for an ad.

TIP: Google only displays about 160 characters including spaces. So keep your Description text to a max of 160 characters.

Alt - e.g. <img xsrc="filename.gif" alt="Cheap second hand computer in use" title="Cheap second hand computer in use">

The Alt tag is designed to help visually impaired people use the World Wide Web (WWW). They use software to read out loud the content of your website. When the software encounters a picture, it looks for the Alt text to learn what the picture is, then reads that text out loud. The Alt tag is relatively important to search engines because they assume that your pictures have something to do with the subject material of your site. But like the visual aid software, they can’t actually see the picture, so they look at the Alt text as well. Try to include your keyword at least once in your Alt text.

Summary

You can use the same meta tags on each page, or you can make them unique. It all depends on how many keywords you’re targeting. If you’re targeting a different keyword in the copy of each page, your meta tags for each page will be unique (i.e. you’ll target that page’s keyword within these meta tags).

TIP: If you have any high ranking competitors, take a look at the way they’ve done their meta tags, and follow their lead. You already know they rank highly, so chances are they’ve done a good job.

Popularity: 15%

Whether you’re an SEO copywriter or not, you’ve probably heard plenty of rules (accurate and otherwise) regarding how many words you need on each page of your website. Chances are, the loudest voices in the clamor are those advocating HEAPS of copy. But remember, the person with the loudest voice isn’t always right…

While I definitely agree that ‘content is king’, there is no need to write volumes. You can reach the top of the search engines with a page wordcount of between on most pages. As a rule of thumb, below 100 is probably too little for the search engines, whereas above 1000 is definitely too much for your visitors.

Don’t be intimidated into writing pages and pages of copy for your home page (or any other page where short, succinct copy is required). When it comes down to it, Google and the other search engines don’t count your number of words and strike you off the list if you’re too high or too low. They’re only interested in your word count insofar as it’s an indication of the helpfulness of your website. Typically a helpful website will have a lot of words and an unhelpful website will have very few. (It’s a very limited way of looking at the world, but you have to remember that search engines aren’t as good at assessing the relevance and usefulness of a website as humans are. Also, remember that they use other rules to help them decide what sites should rank highly.)

When it comes down to it, the one and only thing that you should absolutely do is write for your visitors first. After all, they may buy from you; there’s absolutely no chance the search engines will!

Popularity: 13%