Killer Content!
With the multi-millions of web sites that are competing for
attention, attracting new visitors is a tough task. Once you get
them the visitor there, the hard part is convincing them to stay
or even buy. Web designers often turn to flash, fancy graphics,
killer sound and other catchy features. While these devices
might draw visitors into your site, it's what and how you say it
that makes the repeat visit or sale. Establishing credibility is
huge. Customers expect the world and are suspicious of almost
everything. The words on your site must be intelligent ad well
thought out. This article will show you how to grab a visitor's
attention, intrigue their interest and motivate them to action.
The killer copy has, and always will rule. Just having the
coolest look doesn't SAY anything for you, literally. Copy is
time tested. Wether it be the newspaper, a T.V. news script or
the article like you are reading now, it is the words that gain
trust and acceptance of a company or image. Proper copy online
is a different animal when you take into consideration of proper
SEO, but the same premises stands. While the visitor doesn't
often care where your site ranks if you gain there trust through
words, it is still important to make sure they see you. Take for
instance a company like Google: No matter what they say they can
get rankings (hmmm. I wander how that works? ;C)~ ). They can
design copy that will be read so they only need worry about how
the user will view it. Same goes for any traditional print
media. The journalist with the front cover story of the N.Y.
Times doesn't need to worry about exposure, only how grabbing
the words in the article displayed on the front page will affect
the reader. We are all not so fortunate. We the masses need to
combine a balance of exposure to our copy, but more importantly
user attention and appreciation. To reach this equilibrium I
suggest the following tips:
1. Write for the buyer. Keeping this in mind will never point
you in the wrong direction. First and foremost you are here for
the customer. Wether your selling information, ideas, products
it doesn't matter: COPY NEEDS TO BE DIRETED AT THE AUDIENCE
FIRST AND FOREMOST! This is the number one rule when creating
copy.
2. Backup your claims. Give the user want hey want. When
designing your copy: make sure you view it from the user's
perspective, not yours. The best salesman (or woman) always
keeps things in perspective. You want to view and edit your copy
as if you are the one being pitched. If this means: adding
media, flashy headings or any wording in your pitch that's
great, as long as the user or buyer will appreciate it. Try to
go through revision stages only looking at your selling copy
from a perspective users P.O.V. (point of view).
3. Keep in mind search engine optimization. I made this the
last point because, while important, the other two theories
trump. Keywords are just that: KEY! When writing text for online
publication it is great to have a properly winning sales pitch
but the online world throws another kink into it. You must
include your related keywords. By this I mean you need to
include words relevant to what you are selling. This shouldn't
be hard since these words will be the topic at hand. It is
important to to have a higher saturation of these words in your
text than other terms used throughout your sales pitch. The
search engines work with relevancy, so the more relevant your
text is, the better it will be received by the engines.