Archive for the 'SEO Copywriting' Category

Writing a PPC ad that contains a “Unique Selling Proposition” can significantly increase conversions. The USP concept offers consumers something desirable & different than the competition. The challenge is getting your USP stated in so few characters. You’re limited to 95 characters on Google.

There are 3 general principles behind a USP - Unique, Selling, and Proposition.

A classic example of a USP message is the M&M’s slogan: “The milk chocolate melts in your mouth, not in your hand” [56 characters].

Uniqueness:
It’s best if your product or service is unique. But, if it’s not unique, then think of something unique about the package, message, or benefits.

Benefits can be classified into “checkable” and “uncheckable” benefits.

- An example of a checkable benefit is FedEx. Their USP is: “When your package absolutely, positively has to get there overnight”. The consumer can easily check that.

- An example of an uncheckable benefit is Wonder Bread’s USP, “Wonder Bread Helps Build Strong Bodies 12 Ways”. It’d be pretty tough for somebody to check that benefit.

Selling:
The PPC ad copy needs to be so persuasive that it helps the consumer decide to purchase. The ad copy should be targeting the basic needs of the consumer. Base it on deep motivations or threats to either learned and unlearned needs.

- Learned needs are things like appearance weight, social prestige.
- Unlearned needs are physiological needs such as health, shelter, hunger, and thirst.

Just remember to target a specific need rather than a solution to everything. Specific targeting has been shown to increase conversion rates.

Proposition:
Ideally, the proposition should indicate that the promised benefit will be obtained upon purchase. In order to accomplish this, the USP needs to be believable & credible. Credibility is the most important aspect of the USP.

Methods to aid credibility:
1) Illustration and demonstration.
2) Prestige through association with a person, or organization.
3) Testimonials by ordinary people, (not celebrity endorsements).

Writing compelling PPC ads that contain a USP can be very challenging. If you are running large search campaigns, you might want to consider using an experienced PPC ad copywriter.

Stop Words are commonly used short words like: the, a, and, here, etc. The search engines don’t either index and/or search for them for 2 reasons.
1) To save disk space.
2) Speeds up searches.

You can imagine across millions of webpages, if they stored stop words, it would consume a lot of disk space. Google ignores Stop Words.

Other search engines store every word, but just don’t “stop” to search on those words. Therefore, speeding up the time to deliver your search results (eg: 0.22 seconds).

Each search engine has their own list of stop words.

Stop Words are important for a SEO Copywriter to be aware of. When it comes to SEO Copywriting, it is always best to create usable and easily readable content.

The less stop words are used, the more your webpage will appear as if your content is packed with more relevant text. And, that could add to the “authoritativeness” of your webpage. Which ultimately could increase your Search Engine Ranking.

It’s most important that your pages are written so they read well. That’s the trick. Incorporating keywords into content that is easy to read, written in plain language, thoroughly gets your message across, and minimizing the use of Stop Words.

This post is not about all the typical page optimizations. It is about how to write content optimized for the Search Engines, and human visitors.

SEO Copywriting can be the secret sauce that’s needed to boost your position in the Search Engines to a top spot. Search Engines are looking for the most content-rich, relevant, resourceful page to rank higher in the SERP’s. Sometimes that means just writing an an additional paragraph, and using the keyword in it. Sometimes it means writing several paragraphs.

Users will appreciate the content development especially if it is sincere, quality content. Not junky filler that is stuffed with keywords.

Depending on your website ( ecommerce vs brochure ) you may only need an additional paragraph or two. Or, depending on the competitiveness and difficuly of the keyword phrase, you may need a “long-page” of SEO Copywriting. Ecommerce sites are typically content-light. So, writing additional copy can provide the boost you’re looking for.

The content should have keyword density (between 2%-5%), but it’s not crucially important. Insert hyperlinks within the content that deep link to other relevant areas within your website. Remember to use keywords in the anchor text. External linking to “authority sites” is also recommended. This will provide the Search Engine spiders with the impression that your webpage is a content-rich resource page. The resource pages tend to rank higher in the SE’s.

Make sure your SEO Copywriting is unique content. Beware of reusing product descriptions on an ecommerce site.

Perhaps create a common theme on each product page. Remember, sell benefits, not feautures. Eg: the feature is *blah blah*. The resulting benefit is *blah blah*.

SEO Copywriting strategies include Placement on page, creating a Call-to-Action, and copy that converts. The Titles/Descriptions on the webpage will appear in the SERP’s, so be deliberate in writing optimized copy for your meta tags.

Besides writing content to provide your webpages a lift in the Search Engines, you might want to consider SEO Copywriting to just add copy to your site. Additional pages are good! Some sites with 10 webpages wonder why they can’t outrank a site with 1000 pages. Hmm. There could be many reasons, but one glaring reason is the site is “content light”. So, use SEO Copywriting to add useful, relevant content to your site that the Search Engines & users will appreciate.

Use SEO Copywriting to write Viral articles, that act like Linkbait besides adding value. Use SEO Copywriting to write optimized Press Releases. Use SEO Copywriting to write great email Newsletters. Then, publish those email Newsletters on your site. Create a section on the Navigation bar for Newsletters. Use SEO Copywriting to write “How-to” articles on an ecommerce site.

SEO Copywriting pricing can range by project & copywriter. But, an average is approximately $1/word.