Associations spend a fortune on web design but typically skimp on web copy. That’s a false economy. A good web copywriter can increase your website visits and turn more hits into “sales”.
OK, he's a bit over the top, but too many sites don't sell hard enough.
What the job of a web copywriter isn’t
Associations generally get experts to design, build and host their websites. But they’ll give the job of writing the content to an amateur. They do that because they think the job of a web copywriter is just to produce a “well written” site. It’s not.
“The job of a web copywriter is not create ‘well-written’ sites.
The job of a web copywriter is to boost online sales”
How a web copywriter can help associations
As an association you’re constantly selling – not just subscriptions, training courses, manuals and bumper stickers. But your agenda. You want the public to think that you and your members are performing a vital service. That the association’s view of the world is self-evident. You want governments to take your views and enshrine them in legislation. Believe me, you’re selling. And if you’re not, you should be. A good web copywriter can help you “sell” in two ways:
- Drive more traffic to your site
- Get more visitors to “buy”
Why your site needs to be search engine optimised
Most people will currently come to your website in 3 ways:
- By typing in your URL e.g. www.association.org
- By Googling your association’s name e.g. osteopaths association
- By Googling your acronym e.g. MFAA
In short, most of your traffic comes from people who already know you. You should be getting more visits from people who want what you have to offer but who DON’T know you exist – from people who just type a search term into Google and up you pop. To do that your site needs to rank highly in Google search results. And for that to happen your site needs to be search engine optimised.
The common misconception about SEO
A lot of people think Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is all about keyword density – about using common search terms frequently throughout your copy. It’s not. Increasing keyword density has hardly any impact at all – and overdoing it can actually damage your Google ranking. So how do you optimise your site?
The key to SEO is keywords
Yes, keywords are important. They’re the words or phrases that people type into Google when they search. You need to discover what the keywords are for your organisation and then use them in key locations in your site. Where exactly? We’ll get to that. For the moment, let’s focus on keywords.
The mistake most people make with keywords
Do you know what people type in when they’re looking to buy what you “sell”? If you’re a typical association, the answer is probably not and there’s a reason for that.
Most associations – in fact, most organisations – make the mistake of thinking about what they’re selling rather than what people are looking to buy. They view the world from inside out rather than outside in. To improve your web traffic – to improve your organisation – you need to switch perspectives.
What they’re buying rather than what you’re selling
For example, let’s take the example of a plumber. Now a lot of people will Google “plumber” so that’s not a terrible search term – but it’s also one that will be fiercely competitive. But a lot of people won’t search on “plumber”. They’ll search on “leaky roofs” or “leaky taps” or “instant hot water”. They’ll search on the problem rather than the solution. Your keywords should reflect what they’re looking for rather than what you think your products are.
If you’re an osteopath, you might think the primary keyword for your occupation is “osteopath”. But that only speaks to people who know what osteopaths do. A lot of people who could use an osteopath won’t search on “osteopath”. They’ll search on “back pain” or “headache relief”. Again, think problem rather than solution.
A cabinetmaker would attract a certain level of traffic if “cabinetmaker” was their keyword. But a lot of potential customers – who don’t know what cabinetmakers do – will search on “built in wardrobes” or “kitchen renovations”. Don’t think about what you’re selling. With keywords, you must think about what they’re buying, rather than what you’re selling.
Which keyword tool should you use
Fortunately, there are tools to help you discover the terms your customers search with. SEO professionals in the States use
Wordtracker but I’d recommend you use
Google’s keyword tool. It has 2 advantages. It can be targeted specifically to the search terms Australians use. Plus it’s free. Here’s what it looks like:
- Google’s free keyword tool helps you discover what people search for when they’re looking to buy what you sell.
How to choose your keywords
Your keyword tool will spit out hundreds of keywords. How do you decide which ones to use? There are three things you need to consider:
Popularity – Search volume is obviously important. You want a term that is popular with the people you’re trying to attract. However, it would be simplistic – and foolish – to simply select the term with the highest traffic as your keyword. Here’s why.
Relevance – You don’t just want traffic. You want targeted traffic. For example, if you run a boutique, luxury hotel there is no point choosing “hotel” as a keyword. Yes, a lot people search on “hotel” but most of them are going to choose on lowest price. You don’t want them. You want people who want a top end hotel. So “boutique hotel” or “luxury hotel” is going to be more appropriate.
Competition – You need to pick search terms for which you have a chance of ranking highly in Google. For example, “home loans” is a popular search term. But unless you’re a big bank, you’re not going to be able to top Google’s rankings. Their pages are going to viewed as more credible than yours because of their massive traffic. So there’s no pointing choosing “home loans” as a keyword. You need to get smarter and carve off a niche. For the Mortgage and Finance Association of Australia, that niche might “home loans advice” or “mortgage tips”.
Choose keywords for each page
The bad news is that you have to go through this process for every page of your site. In fact, you might decide to alter the structure of your site to give yourself a better chance of ranking highly for that content. e.g. If you currently have a single page for your training courses, it’s going to be difficult to optimise for any one course. It might make sense to create a page for each course so that you have a better chance of getting a hit from someone looking for that particular course. But once you have your keywords, what then?
If keyword density doesn’t matter, what does?
It would make sense to learn how Google works, right? Unfortunately no-one knows. Some things help. Some things hurt – like “stuffing” your content with keywords. But what helps and what hurts changes over time. The closest we have to a guide is a survey conducted by
seomoz.
Seomoz survey of SEO ranking factors
Every 2 years seomoz surveys the world’s top SEO professionals to get their views on what are the most important factors in determining your Google ranking. Here are the current top ten on-page keyword-related ranking factors – according to their
2009 survey:
- Keyword in the Title tag – 66%
- Keyword in the first few words of Title tag – 63%
- Keyword Use in Root Domain Name – 60%
- Keyword Anywhere in H1 Tag – 49%
- Keyword Use In Internal Link Anchor – 47%
- Keyword in External Link Anchor – 46%
- Keywords in first few words in H1 tags – 45%
- Keywords in first 50-100 words – 45%
- Keywords in Sub-domain name – keyword.assn.org
- Keyword in page name URL – assn.org/keyword/ – 38%
SEO Ranking factor #1 – Keyword in Title tag – 66%
66% of experts considered this to be important. So what is the Title tag? Possibly not what you think. The Title tag is what appears across the very top of your web browser. If you “View Source”, it will appear like this in the code:
<title>Whatever is in here will appear across the top of the browser</title>
It’s also what will appear as the first line of each entry on a Google Search results page. The Title Tag is VERY important to search engines but very few associations have effective Title tags. Many will have “Home” or “Welcome to AMSCRAM”. That is a huge waste of valuable SEO real estate. Here are some Title tag tips:
- Tailor it to the specific page with appropriate keywords
- Max 60 characters (including spaces)
- Doesn’t need to include your association name
- Doesn’t need to include your tagline
- Doesn’t need to be a sentence
- People don’t read it but search engines do
- Include 2 or 3 keyword phrases
- Try to double up keyword phrases – “back pain relief” includes “back pain”
SEO factor #2 – Keyword in the first few words of Title tag – 63%
So this title tag thing really does matter. How good are yours?
SEO factor #3 – Keyword Use in Root Domain Name – 60%
e.g. Your URL ideally would be keyword.org.au. That’s not going to be possible for most of you. But you should buy up domain names that include important keywords and point them to your main site – so that if someone types the URL in directly (e.g. backpain.com.au) then they get redirected to your osteopath association site.
I have first hand experience of the importance of keywords in domain names. Originally, it was thought that Google preferred hyphens separating words in domain names, so I had web-copywriter.com.au. With that domain name, I ranked about 24th for “web copywriter”. When I got rid of the hyphen – and switched to webcopywriter.com.au – I leapt to #1 almost overnight. Google loves keywords in domain names.
SEO factor #4 – Keyword anywhere in <H1> tag – 49%
What’s an <h1> tag? It’s a way of signifying what you believe to be the number #1 heading on the page. If you “View source”, you should see something like this in the code:
<h1>Keyword-rich heading</h1>
<h> tags have fallen out of favour since designers started using CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). But they haven’t fallen out of favour with search engines. Google will look for <h1> tages to discover what the page content is about. So you should have <h1> tags and they should include your keywords. Most associations don’t.
SEO factor #5 – Keyword use in internal anchor link – 47%
This means that you should have keyword-rich text on your pages that links to other pages in your site. For example, if you look at the
Mortgage Choice site, you’ll see links from “award-winning home loan broker” and “find your local mortgage broker”. That’s good. Links to their own pages that include keywords.
However, you’ll also see that they have a link from “Read our tips and checklists”. That’s not good because there is no keyword. A better link in SEO terms would be “Read our mortgage tips and checklists”.
Similarly, a link from “Find out why we’re different” doesn’t help improve your Google ranking. But “Find out why we’re Australia’s leading home loan broker” would – because the link text includes a keyword phrase.
Most associations would benefit from:
- Including more internal links
- Including more keywords in those links
SEO Factor #6 – Keyword in External link anchor – 46%
Similar to #5, but the link is to a page on another website.
SEO Factor #7 – Keywords in first words in H1 tags – 45%
This means that it would be preferable in your <h1> tags to have “Mortgage tips for first time home buyers” rather than “Would you like a few mortgage tips?” – if “mortgage tips” is your chosen keyword phrase. This is a further reminder of the importance of the often-overlooked <h1> tags.
SEO Factor #8 – Keywords in first 50-100 words – 45%
I finish reading the opening paragraph on some websites and I’m still not quite sure what they do. This is bad from a conversion point of view but it’s also bad from an SEO point of view. Google thinks that those first 50-100 words will be a good indication of what the page is about and Google is right. They should be. Are yours?
SEO Factor #9 – Keywords in Sub-domain name – 42%
We’re now starting to get down to factors where less than half of the world’s SEO experts believe this is important. For the record, a keyword in the sub-domain name would look like this e.g. keyword.assn.org.
SEO Factor #10 – Keywords in page name URL – 38%
So this means that your page URL should NOT look like this:
Your page URL should look like this:
However, at 38%, we’re down in very marginal territory.
How important is keyword density?
Clearly not very. It’s not even in the Top 10. It actually ranked !7th with only ¼ of experts thinking that it mattered at all. If you’re relying on keyword density for your Google ranking, you’re in BIG trouble.
Why Meta Description matters more than you think
Having “Keywords in Meta Description” ranked only 21st with just 19% of experts saying it plays a factor in SEO. So don’t even bother, right? Wrong.
You should include a Meta Description because it’s what (generally) appears on a Google Results page. That means that it will play a big part in determining whether people click on that link and go to your site. So it’s not so important for SEO but very important in terms of conversion.
Here’s what it will look like if you “View Source”:
<meta name=”description” content=”The Web Copywriter is an award-winning website and SEO copywriter. Get Australia’s #1 ranked content creation company to boost your web traffic and online sales.” />
2 ways in which web content matters
65% of SEO experts believe that “substantive unique” content is important for your Google ranking. In fact, it’s the #1 factor in on-page, non-keyword factors. So your sites should have lots and lots of quality, relevant content. And not just for your ranking.
A good web copywriter turns hits into sales
It’s not enough to get web traffic. When people turn up at your site, you need to get a result. You want them to:
- Join your association
- Rejoin your association
- Enrol for that course
- Buy that manual
- Be convinced by your arguments.
And that’s where a good web copywriter helps again. They’re your online closer.
What’s wrong with most association websites?
Most association websites are not poorly written. But they don’t have good web copy. My major criticism is that they don’t sell hard enough. They just house information. They’re more like libraries than arcades. Most web copy could be improved in 3 ways:
- a. More targeted
- b. More direct
- c. More clickable
How to write more targeted web copy
When I read most association websites, it’s often not to clear to me who you’re selling to or what you want them to buy. Good copywriting begins before you write the first sentence by asking 3 fundamental questions:
- Who is your target audience?
- What do they want to buy?
- Why should they buy from you?
Good web copy is more direct
Good brochure copy is “well-written”. But good brochure copy doesn’t necessarily make good web copy. On the net, people have a short attention span and tend to “scan” rather than read. So huge blocks of relentless text are a turn-off. Yet, we know search engines like lots of content. What’s the solution? To structure your content into snack-sized bites.
Structure your web copy into snacks
Here are 3 ways to make your web content more scannable:
1. Short sentences
2. Short paragraphs
- 3-4 lines
- 50-100 words max
- Use sub-headings to break up copy and help guide readers
3. Links above the fold
For SEO, you should create long pages. For scannability, you should have a list of links above the fold to subheadings below.
The key to writing better opening paragraphs
The opening paragraph is incredibly important. It’s important for SEO and it’s important to hook your visitor. You can’t afford to save your best ‘til last. You need to use the “inverted pyramid” approach and write an opening paragraph that summarises the rest of the page.
How to write for the web
In terms of writing style for the web, there are 3 guiding principles:
- Shorter sentences
- Simpler construction
- Less formal language
Web copy should be less formal
Here are some examples of how you should modify your language for the web. Frankly, I would encourage you to use the informal language in your offline communications as well. Simpler is almost always better.
Examples of how to improve your web copy
I visited a few association websites to find examples of web copy that I felt could be improved. I have, however, changed the names to protect the guilty.
Before: “This Help Sheet describes diverticulosis, who gets it and some of its most common forms. It describes some early signs of diverticulosis and emphasises the importance of an early medical diagnosis”.
After: “What is diverticulosis, who gets it, what are the early signs and why early diagnosis is critical”.
Comments: “This help sheet describes” is redundant. Get to the point.
Before: “This is the official home page of the Australasian Beekeeper Association. It is intended to provide information about the Association and its members as well as current activities and meetings. The mission of the ABA is to lead and promote bee health in Australia and New Zealand and to advance the professional interests of its members.”
After: “The Australasian Beekeeper Association (ABA) promotes bees and beekeeping in Australia and New Zealand.”
Comments: Again, the first 8 words are redundant. “It is intended to provide information about”? Well, that doesn’t narrow it down very much, does it. Leaner, meaner.
Before: “The spirit of sharing, collaboration and innovation is solid within WWA and along with our many industry partners and sponsors WWA will pursue every opportunity to ensure our industry is well placed to support, protect and conserve what our communities’ value.
After: “WWA’s mission is to ensure Australia’s weather forecasting services are able to support and protect our communities.”
Comments: I have to read the best part of two lines before I hit any hard information. Snap to it!
Before: “BBP’s strategic direction for the next seven years is guided by five key Goals. These goals are a high level statement of the outcomes BBP wishes to achieve.”
After: “Over the next 7 years, BBP has the following 5 goals:”
Comments: Strategy guided by goals? Surely it’s the other way around. Goals are a high level statement of outcomes (you) wish to achieve? At best, that is fluff. At worst, it sounds like you’re welshing on your commitment. Think short, clear, precise.
Make your sites more clickable
Once you know who your audience is and what you want them to do, you need to make it easy for them to do it. If you want them to join, book a course or buy a T shirt – they should be able to do that with a simple click. Some tips to help drive online sales include:
- Clickable images
- Clickable buttons
- Keyword links in your opening paragraph
- Keyword links in your middle paragraphs
- Keyword links at the bottom of the page
The Psychology of Selling subscriptions
The job of web copy is not just to get people to buy – it’s to get them to buy NOW! You can lay out all the benefits of joining your association but most people need something extra just to get them over the line. So I thought you might be interested in this example cited by Dan Ariely in his fascinating book Predicatably Irrational.
The curious case of The Economist subscriptions
The Economist originally offered these subscription options:
- Web only $59
- Print & Web $125
68% chose the web only option and just 32% chose the print and web option.
As an experiment, they offered an additional option:
- Web only $59
- Print only $125
- Print & Web $125
The print only option attracted no-one. Not a single person took it up. Yet its addition radically altered the options they did take.
Just 16% now took the web only option – down from 68%. But now a whopping 84% took up the print and web option – up from just 32%. Clearly the Economist was delighted. Without changing their prices, they had encouraged nearly 3 times as many people to pay nearly double their subscription outlay. Are your subscription options as smart?
3 things I hope you’ve learned about web copy
1. Web copywriter is the most important member of team
You should engage a professional web copywriter, involve them earlier, and pay them more (wink).
2. The web copywriter’s job is not to produce a “well written” site
You don’t engage a web copywriter because you want it look pretty. You engage them because they:
- Deliver more web traffic
- Convert visitors into customers
3. Areas where your sites can improve
Google rankings – Have keyword-rich page Titles, H1 tags & links
More targeted – think who, what & why
More direct – shorter, simpler, less formal
More clickable – make it easier for people to buy
So, please, don’t leave web copy til the last minute and don’t hand the job to whoever doesn’t step back quickly enough. Web copy matters, so give it someone who can really make your site sing.
This is an edited version of a talk given by Allen Palmer, The Web Copywriter, at an Associations Forum seminar at the Sofitel Wentworth in Sydney on Feb 22, 2010.
Here’s a link to the slideshow which is about why good web copy is a wise investment.
I got my start in the web game at digital agency Devotion and still love writing freelance for them. This week, they’re moving across the road to new premises and saying farewell, after five years, to 3/137 Pyrmont St. To mark the moment, I penned this heart-felt eulogy.
“This is where Simon and Chris – well, probably mainly Chris – talked their way into FCB on the basis that there was a natural synergy between the two firms that would allow both to flourish. Well, he was half right.”
Devotion's exit from 137 Pyrmont will hopefully be a little more dignified
Goodbye, old girl. We’re going to miss you.
Apart from the dust. And the leak over Frank’s desk. And the blinding sunlight. And the dodgy lifts. And the goofy boardroom. And the now-you-see-them-now-you-don’t carpark boom gates. And the cavernous space that meant to get from Creative to Client Service you had to pass through Customs. So, not at all really.
But you’ll always be etched in the annals of Devotion’s history – or some variation of it.
This is where Simon and Chris – well, probably mainly Chris – talked their way into FCB on the basis that there was a natural synergy between the two firms that would allow both to flourish. Well, he was half right.
It’s where a young, chubby-cheeked whipper-snapper called Andy came, went, came, went and came again. Kat’s interest is finally explained.
It’s where a red-head came through the door talking fire-breathing strategy – and her husband and his no-hoper mate snuck in behind her.
It’s where Lynn didn’t work, did work, then didn’t again.
It’s where Russell did work, didn’t work, did work, didn’t work, and then did again – all in the same week.
It’s where Beardy (aka Gareth) organised the Futsal team, ate, placated his pregnant wife, ate, placated his infant son, ate some more and haggled with dealers over cathode ray televisions – all while holding down a part-time job as Technical Director.
It’s where, in the height of Melbourne Cup hysteria, we released two cockroaches in the hope they would colonise the world but, in a very Sydney moment, found they were both male.
It’s where Devotion got two AIMIA gongs while 4 of its principal members were ranked in the top 10 ping pong players in the country.
It’s where Simon gratuitously shared his music, fashion tips and suggestions for how Australians could become, well, more like him.
May life be half as interesting when Devotion picks up her skirts over the weekend and crosses Pyrmont Bridge Rd. One small step for Devotion. One giant leap for Digital Kind.
