I am thrilled to report that I am now head web copywriter for the Ten Network’s hit TV show “So you think you can dance”. In reviewing my CV, Ten would have considered that my third placing in a disco dancing competition at the Dalrymple Hotel in Townsville would have helped me to understand exactly the kinds of pressures the performers are under. And, no, I don’t have any free tickets to the show.

I recently did some SEO and web copywriting for Super Safeguard – a company that helps Australians find their lost superannuation. It reminded me how important it is to write from the customer’s perspective rather than the business’s.

“If your site’s structure and content is written from the company’s perspective, that will be really handy if someone from the company is searching the site for your products”

Most websites structure for the company rather than the customer

I’m amazed at how often the structure of websites is based on the way the company views their business – rather than the customer’s perspective. The site’s navigation tends to be product-based rather than attribute based. It’s more “here is what we have in terms that only we understand” rather than “here is what you, our dear potential customer, came on the web to find”. This has two consequences – both of them bad.

Writing from business’s perspective hurts SEO

Firstly, it hurts your Google Search ranking. If your site’s structure and content is written from the company’s perspective, that will be really handy if someone from the company is searching the site for your products. They’ll enter terms that beautifully match the content. But it won’t match what Joe Public enters into that little Google search box – so no-one outside the company will find what you’re selling.

Writing from business’s perspective hurts business

But it hurts you even more where it really counts – in converting visitors into customers. Because if people can’t look at your website and see very quickly what they’re after, they’re gone. How did this come up for Super Safeguard?

I have a super “account” with you?

Do you know much about lost super? The deal is this. Let’s say your super fund loses contact with you. You change jobs, move, whatever. They will generally hand your account over to what is called “a compliant Eligible Rollover Fund (ERF)”. Super Safeguard is one of these ERFs. So from the company’s perspective, it would make perfect sense to say on the site, “Find out if you have an account with us”. And that’s what it did say. Unfortunately, you don’t think about it in those terms, do you?

All I know is I’ve lost my super

If you knew you had an “account” with them, your super wouldn’t be lost, would it? All you know is that you’ve lost your super. So from your perspective, you don’t want to see any mention of “accounts”. You just want to see stuff about “lost super” and “help me find my lost super”. So that’s what I wrote.

SEO keyword analysis provides customer insight

Before we had the net, I guess you might have had an excuse for not knowing what a customer was looking for. You’d have had to do expensive research to discover what their mindset was. But not anymore. With SEO keyword analysis tools, you can identify precisely what they’re after. And you ignore these insights at your peril.

Web Copywriting 101: Use the customer’s terminology – even if it’s wrong

I was reading an SEO blog just the other day and it was saying that a major US telco refused to have any reference to “cell phones” or “cellular phones” on its site because it was “wrong”. They weren’t “cell phones” any longer (sorry, can’t remember what they thought they should be called). The only problem is that the US punters are still calling them “cell phones”. And when they go onto the net, that’s what they search for. Well, they won’t find this telco’s products, will they? Rule #1 in web copywriting: use the customer’s perspective and terminology – even if it’s “wrong”.

Working for Clean Up the World’s new website presented some particular copywriting challenges because all the copy needed to be translated into French and Spanish. In the process, I developed 3 simple rules to help you avoid “hilarious” translations.

“Get a wriggle on”, for example, is probably not a great call to action on a site that’s going to be translated into 12 languages.

Clean Up the World now mobilises 35 million

Clean Up the World was founded by Australian solo yachtsman Ian Kiernan and now mobilises 35 million people across 120 countries to help clean up, fix up and rejuvenate the planet. A friend of mine, Tricia Wilden, is the campaign manager over there and invited me to help her on a special project to literally put Clean Up the World on the map.

Putting Clean Up the World on the map

To help people share their activities with other team members and the world, Tricia teamed with partner organisation Google to create a special Clean Up the World Activities map. Want to clean the park at the end of your street? Simply register your group and activity and see it appear on Google’s global map.

Get personal with a Clean Up the World My Map

Using Google’s MyMap application, you can also create a special map of your activity and personalise it. Show your route, add pictures and videos, and really inspire your team. It’s a neat site and Tricia, Ian, Terri-Ann and the team over there can be very proud. But what did I learn as a website copywriter on the job?

Website copywriting challenges of the multi-lingual website

I’ve worked on a few multi-lingual sites – for Merino Innovation (which needed to be translated into Chinese) and Sydney Airport Shopping – and they present some special copywriting challenges. Here are three rules that could keep you out of a whole lot of translation trouble:

1. Write clearly and simply
2. Avoid the use of idioms
3. Limit your vocabulary

Write clearly and simply to avoid translator confusion

Website copywriting should always be clear and simple, but you need to be especially careful with a multi-lingual site. If you’re not, the translation could take on a wholly different meaning to the one you intended. Rather than trying to use clever language, you need to use the most easily and universally understood word for each particular situation.

Avoid idioms in copywriting for multi-lingual websites

We all love a good idiom and they can add colour to the language. But they are totally inappropriate for a multi-lingual site because 1. The translator might not be familiar with it and 2. The Translator probably won’t admit they’re unfamiliar with it and come up with some “hilarious” misinterpretation. Hilarious for the rest of the internet. Not so hilarious for your client. In this context, “Get a wriggle on” is probably not a great call to action on a site that’s going to be translated into 12 languages.

Limit your vocabulary in multi-lingual websites

The general rule of writing is to use our vast English vocabulary to add variety, texture and additional layers omeaning. Not when you’re writing for a multi-lingual site. Every time you come up with a new way of saying the same thing, you force the translator to come up with a new translation. And with that comes a fresh opportunity for another “hilarious” misinterpretation.

Get involved with Clean Up the World

When all is said and done, the website copywriting challenges of the multi-lingual website fall just a little way short of the problems facing the planet. So please reward Tricia and her team and do something for a beleaguered globe by getting involved with Clean Up the World.

I wrote copy for a couple of high end brochures this week and absolutely loved it. It reminded me how much fun copywriting can be and made me question the whole SEO-at-all-costs approach to website copywriting. Is SEO killing off great copywriting? If you write beautifully for the web, will online sales go up or down?

“Try to imagine Shakespeare writing Hamlet within the constraints of search engine optimisation. ‘To be or not to be?’ Hey, Bill, can you squeeze a keyword in there, pal?”

The best kind of copywriting clients

The best clients are those who are absolutely passionate about their product. People whose love of what they do is reflected in the quality of their product. And I’ve been lucky enough to work for two of them this last week. One is Poronui, a luxury sporting lodge in New Zealand’s North Island. And the other is Wine Odyssey Australia, an innovative business offering a sensory wine adventure down in The Rocks that is going to be a total trip for Australian wine lovers. But, I wasn’t doing their websites. (Though in time I will.) I was writing their brochures.

Why some clients still need brochures

Anybody remember brochures? They’re kind of glossy paper things. And for certain products they still do the business. A good brochure is a sensual storybook that helps you forget how much money you’re shelling out and how great life will be once you have this object of desire in your life. They create a perception that helps shape reality. I love brochures. I love them as a consumer. And I love them even more as a copywriter.

Brochure copywriting is a blast (from the past)

Not all brochure copywriting is fun. Writing a brochure on toilet paper, for example, wouldn’t be a whole lot of fun. Wasn’t a whole lot of fun. (I wrote a couple for Kimberly Clark.) But when you’re writing for a high-end product and it’s appropriate to be lyrical, sensual and evocative, copywriting becomes an absolute joy. The same can’t be said of a lot of website copywriting.

SEO has killed beautiful copywriting

I’ve had my SEO training. I know how to lift your Google search ranking. I know how to write for an attention-deficient online audience. But unfortunately Search Engine Optimisation and writing for the web in the way that you’re told to write for the web means the elimination of style, the narrowing of vocabulary, the foregoing of beauty. Is that the right way forward? If you re-introduced truly great writing to the web, would your online sales go up or down?

Should we forget all about SEO?

No. I’m not about to throw my SEO manuals out the window (though I might as well since I’ve long ago internalised their contents). And I’m not about to write great swathes of copy for an online audience that insists on scanning. Because if you forget about SEO, the web will forget about your client. But having been reminded this past week of what writing can be, I’m going to be bringing more of that flavour to my website work from now on.

Great copywriting is good for online sales

Not for my sake. But because selling is ultimately about storytelling. Clinical website copywriting might appeal to search engines but search engines don’t buy your product. If, through your copy, you can transport people to another place, they’re more likely to reach into their virtual pockets – and feel good about doing it. If you can use more of your storytelling skills, if you can use words to weave a magic web, you will increase online sales for your client. And have more fun into the bargain.

A tiny SEO job I did free for a mate has led to a fascinating brief from a massive new client.

“As Confucius once said, “To open yourself up to the possibilities of the universe, you occasionally need to do an SEO freebie’.”

The ‘optimised’ website that showed no evidence of SEO visitation

A friend of mine asked me to look at his site and I didn’t have good news for him. Despite the fact that it had supposedly been search engine optimised, I could see little evidence of it.

The keyword strategy seemed flawed, but the damage was limited because they hadn’t really optimised for those keywords in any event. There was not a single keyword in any Page Title for example. He appreciated my candour but couldn’t afford my services. What the hell, I thought. I’ll do it anyway.

The freebie SEO job that snowballed

I spent a few hours doing keyword analysis and surveying what his competitors were doing. I then spent another few hours rattling off the page titles and meta tags for each page of his site. Unable to help myself, I went on to make recommendations about a switch of domain names, and crafted individual page URLs that were keyword-rich. In for a penny, in for a pound – I then rewrote the home page copy using the principles of Persuasive Architecture. All for the same very reasonable price of nada. But, as things transpired, I got paid back in spades.

I optimised for free but not without expectation

I can’t say I did this free SEO job without expectation. I’m not that altruistic. I did it in the belief that some day in some way I would be repaid for my efforts. My faith was rewarded – more quickly than I could possibly have imagined.

The web lets Karma work its magic

Within days of doing the work – and before my mate had even implemented my SEO recommendations – I got an email from a seriously large client who’d found me on a Google search. When we got to chat, I asked him what it was about my site that convinced him to get in touch. You guessed it. It was my blog post about the work I’d done for my mate. And he wasn’t impressed by my generosity of spirit. He liked what I had to say about Persuasive Architecture. He’s now presented me with a fascinating brief that I can’t wait to get started on, and I feel fairly confident it will cover the cost of the SEO work I did for my mate.

The devout atheist with boundless faith

I’m a devout atheist – don’t get me started – but I do have boundless faith. I genuinely believe that if you make a habit of doing good things that ultimately things will work out for you. This faith can be tested at times. For example, when you promptly respond to a request for a free SEO report card and you don’t get so much as a thank you – let alone a follow-up commission of more work. But this latest episode is a wonderful reminder of why economic rationalists never have any fun. As Confucius once said, “To open yourself up to the full possibilities of the universe, you occasionally need to do an SEO freebie”.

In your website copywriting, you should try to harness the mystical, eternal, magical power of the number 3.

The Olympic motto is not “Faster, Higher Stronger, And make sure you use a good masking agent”. It’s just “Faster, Higher, Stronger”.

In website copywriting, as in life, good things come in threes

The advertising for the telco 3 says, “Three is a magic number”. And they are absolutely right. People love things to come in threes.

It’s not the holy duopoly: Father and Son. They knew that wouldn’t fly. It’s the Holy Trinity. Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Who’s the Holy Ghost? No-one. He’s just there to make up the numbers. Or, more specifically, the number. The number 3.

Alexandre Dumas, that wonderful French novelist, wrote a cracking yarn about four swashbuckling heroes – Arthos, Porthos, Aramis and D’Artagnan. But did he call it The Four Musketeers? Well, he wanted to. But his publicist said “Are you kidding?”. And the rest is publishing history.

The Olympic motto is not “Faster, Higher Stronger, and make sure you use a good masking agent”. It’s just “Faster, Higher, Stronger”. Three truly is a magic number. But what relevance does this have for website copywriting?

It means that when you’re creating your web copy, you should be looking to harness this magical power of the number 3. Two has no magic – unless you’re planning a candle-lit dinner. And four is only good if you’ve finished that candle-lit dinner and you happen to be Bob, Carol, Ted or Alice.

I’m prompted to remind you of the power of 3 because I was recently asked to rejig a site that had not a 3-step ordering process but a 4-step ordering process. Customers want things to be simple. But a 4-step process doesn’t say simplicity. If it did, we’d all say that things were “as easy as 1-2-3-4″. We’d say it was as easy as “A-B-C-D”. But we don’t, do we? We say they’re “as easy as 1-2-3″. We say it’s as easy as A-B-C. We crave for that magic little number 3.

So, with a little bit of literal re-engineering, voile, suddenly my client had a 3-step ordering process.

Now, you could say, how could you do that? It’s not a 3-step ordering process – it’s a 4-step ordering process. And I’d say – as was drilled into during my time at IBM – “don’t confuse selling with installing”. Your business is as your customers want it to be. And your customers, by an overwhelming majority, want the number 3.

Even Bob, Carol, Ted and Alice – if they were to launch an online business – would by trying to harness the mystical, eternal, magical power of the number 3.

Some SEO tips from the Web Copywriter are hopefully going to lift the Google Search Ranking of a UK company that turns photos into Personalised Pop Art on canvas.

Which bits did the SEO guy optimise exactly?

Email Marketing leads to SEO opportunity

I recently sent out a Web Copywriter email update and heard back from a mate I used to play tennis with when I lived in Brighton, UK. Dave – who’s worked for some of London’s top design consultancies – had just created a website and invited me to take a look.

Personalised Art – turning photos into pop art portraits on canvas

His business is called Photo2Art and the idea is that they turn your photos into Andy Warhol-inspired pop art portraits on canvas. A cute idea but they’re not the only ones doing it and they need to distinguish themselves from firms that just print your photos onto canvas. Unfortunately, even though he’d employed a web copywriter (rather than The Web Copywriter) and an SEO guy, site traffic had been poor, and conversions had been low. What was the problem?

No evidence of SEO

The site had a Google PageRank of 3/10 which wasn’t bad but it showed no evidence of being optimised at all. It had poor (and repetitive) meta page titles, few relevant h tags, no highlighting and no terms being emphasised. I was left thinking, “Which bits did the SEO guy optimise exactly?”.

Why Keyword Analysis Tools need to be used with discretion

I asked to look at the SEO guy’s keyword analysis and discovered that they’d recommended “unusual gifts” as the best keyword for this business. Why? Because their Keyword tool said it had the highest Keyword Effectiveness Index (KEI).

KEI is a measure that you’ll use in SEO to try to unearth a niche keyword but it needs to be used with discretion. How many people who are looking for “unusual gifts” will want this offering? How many will you actually convert? Meanwhile, you have failed to optimise for the keywords that would attract people who are actually looking to convert their photos into personalised pop art portraits on convas.

Revisiting Keyword Analysis

I used Wordtracker with its UK database option to identify a bunch of keywords that are popular in this category and was surprised at the results.

1. “personalised pop art”
2. “personalised art”
3. “personalised wall art”
4. “personalized wall art”
5. “personalised pop art portrait”

Who would have thought that “personalised pop art” would be the most popular – for a factor of almost two.
“Pop art portraits” and “pop art canvas” were also rated highly.

“Photos on canvas” was searched for much more frequently than any of these – but it’s too broad and too competitive. You get those people who just want to put their photos on canvas and you’re competing in a very crowded and better resourced market.

But before making any recommendations, I wanted to see what Dave’s competitors were doing?

Which keywords? Look at your competitors

Dave had identified the number one competitor as You Are Art so I checked out their site and guess what I found? They were optimising for the terms that Wordtracker had identified. What’s more, Google ranked them #1 for these terms. Clearly they must be the right terms. But could Dave’s firm hope to compete?

Can you compete for the prime keywords?

This competitor only had a Google PageRank of 3/10 – the same as Dave – and its page titles weren’t as good as they could be. Other competitors who were ranked highly also weren’t too intimidating. So I recommended that Dave optimise for these keywords and rattled off some meta tags at very affordable rates (ie free). But I didn’t stop there.

Domain names – .co.uk vs .net and usability

Dave’s domain name – www.photo2Art.net – was problematic. Firstly, it’s a .net domain, which means that when people in the UK look at a Google search results page, they can’t be sure whether it’s a UK firm or not. Secondly, if people have been to the site, when they come back – assuming they remember your name – they are more likely to go to photo2art.co.uk than photo2art.net. I sure did.

A keyword optimised domain name

It’s always a good idea to try to have a domain name that includes keywords – particularly if you are first and foremost an online business. While www.personalisedart.co.uk and www.personalised-art.co.uk were both taken, www.personalisedpopart.co.uk was not. So the domain name with the most searched for keyword phrase in the category was available. Fabulous. They bought that. But I made a further recommendation.

Domain name usability and defending your turf

I said they should also buy www.personalised-pop-art.co.uk for three reasons. Firstly, Google will rank more highly a domain that has words delineated. So it will prefer www.personalised-pop-art.co.uk over www.personalisedpopart.co.uk.

Secondly, it’s easier to read on a Google Search Results page. People can look at it and at a glance see exactly that it is “personalised-pop-art” whereas “personalisedpopart” is much harder to discern and can be read as “personalised po part” amongst others.

The final reason is a defensive move. Because it’s a better domain name, you don’t want anyone else to get it.

So I recommended they set up the site as www.personalised-pop-art.co.uk. However. when they tell people where to go, they should say “personalisedpopart.co.uk” because it’s easier to remember. They then redirect all traffic from www.personalisedpopart.co.uk to www.personalised-pop-art.co.uk.

But – and this is a very big but – I said they MUST use a 301 Permanent Redirect from all their old pages to their new ones. This way they get the advantage of the SEO improvements while preserving their existing PageRank.

Practise what you preach

I do this with my own Web Copywriter domains. I own web-copywriter.com.au and the site is set up there, but I also own webcopywriter.com.au and I use this for my email address because it’s easier to type in and remember. I also own thewebcopywriter.com.au. Domain names are partly about SEO, partly about usability and partly about keeping your competitors at bay.

Beyond SEO

I have also recommended that Dave rejig his information architecture (IA) and website copywriting to make it clearer, cleaner and more action-oriented. I wanted him to implement Persuasive Architecture. This means guiding people through your site step by step, massaging them past all of their psychological barriers in turn until they WANT to press that order button. But this will have to wait – and I might have to get him to part with a few sheckels for that.

I also said that link building was important and that they should get themselves listed on a reputable gifting website. Those inbound links from high ranking sites are gold.

Watch this space

The recommendations are in. Let’s see how they go. I’ll keep you posted.

Self interest aside, doing your own website copywriting is a false economy that can cost you in search traffic, sales conversions and brand development.

Paying top dollar for design but doing your own copy means you end with a David Beckham website – it looks good but the voice is a right turn-off.

Now, this might seem like a self-serving post. Of course, I’m going to say you’re stupid to do your own website copywriting. But there are at least 3 good reasons why it’s dumb to write your own website copy. (Unless you happen to be me.)

1. Google Search ranking. The ability of your website to generate sales depends largely on its Google Search ranking. And your Google ranking depends on its level of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). You need to choose the right keywords and then optimise for those terms through meta tags, the body content and links.

Now some people think they understand SEO but this is an area where a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. I had a client who didn’t want to pay for SEO and made a right pig’s ear of it. They didn’t go up the rankings – but down. Way down!!! For the sake of a few thousand dollars, this company will have lost thousands of dollars in sales. A good website copywriter is a good SEO copywriter and will easily repay the investment in increased site traffic.

2. Online Sales Conversions. When people get to your site, your copy needs to convert this visitor into a customer. This is a combination of what you say, how you say it, and the different access points you give to the visitor. A good website copywriter won’t limit themselves to the copy – they’ll feed back to the designers and the information architects to improve the sales effectiveness of the site. A good website copywriter will increase the probability that people actually buy something from you – rather then disappear into the ether.

3. Brand Development. Companies seem quite happy to pay a squillion for website design but then want to get cheap on the copy. But when you pay top dollar for design and go DIY on copy, you end up with a David Beckham website – it looks good but the voice is a right turn-off.

You might be a competent writer, have sound grammar and  excellent punctuation. You might be able to communicate perfectly. But, with all due respect, you are unlikely to bring the verve, life and character that a professional writer can. A good website copywriter can turn your brand from an also ran into the cock of the roost.

In the grand scheme of things, website copywriting is only a small percentage of a total website budget. But it can make a huge difference to your website traffic (through SEO), your sales conversions and the voice your website projects to the world. Don’t let your website be a squeaky Becks. Let it be a smooth talking George Clooney. Hire the Web Copywriter today.

One of the nicest website copywriting projects I’ve worked on went live this week – the site for Ausfine, the makers of the finest merino wool in the world.

Ausfine is a small group of Australian Merino farmers who grow traditional merino wool – with modern sustainable methods. Each year, there is a global search for the “Golden Fleece”, and in three out of the last four years it’s been grown by an Ausfine farmer. New Zealand Merino? Get out of here.

Through writing web content on the Merino Innovation website, I got to know quite a bit about this amazing fibre and got to spend a day on some Ausfine farms up around Armidale. I did some copywriting on a brochure of theirs that won a National Print Award, but more importantly it helped them win a contract with Brooks Brothers in Manhattan. This website is an online version of that brochure – with the added functionality of being able to browse merino fabrics. Best of luck with it, Murray!