I spoke recently at an Associations Forum event on Website Usability and Development and opened by saying that web copy is the poor relation in website development. Organisations spend a fortune on design but often give the copy to an amateur. That’s a false economy and it stems from a misunderstanding about what web copywriters do. We’re not there to just produce a well-written sites. We’re there to increase your hits and to turn more of those hits into sales.
Consulting their website, I can you tell you that Top SEOs is “An independent authority on search vendors”. They are also “your source to finding the best internet marketing agencies and tools in Australia”. But, frankly, who cares? I won!
Only 99%? Where did I drop a point?
TopSEOs has been kind enough to rank my work as Excellent in the categories of:
SEO friendly
Marketable
Conversion driven
Variance
Writing standards
This apparently put me at the top of the 42 companies analysed and produced a ranking of 99%. Obviously I will leave no stone unturned to rectify that. The revenue estimate is, I’m sorry to say, a little high. But, thank you Top SEOs. I will continue to try to meet your high standards. Whatever they are.
Spelling and punctuation mistakes – particularly on your home page – are the quickest way to turn off picky customers – like me. And one of the most common mistakes I see concerns the misuse of “its”, “it’s” and “its’”. Let’s sort it out once and for all.
When to use “it’s”
“It’s” is short for “it is” or less often “it has” – the apostrophe denotes the missing letter or letters. So whenever you go to use “it’s” , in your mind expand it to “it is” or “it has” and see if it still makes sense.
e.g. It’s a very hot day.
Does it still make sense to say, “It is a very hot day”? Yes, it does. So you are right to use the apostrophe here.
It would NOT be correct to say, “Its a very hot day” for reasons I’ll now explain.
When to use “its”
Use “its” when you want to indicate possession. So when you go to use “its”, ask yourself, “Does something possess these qualities or things?”
e.g. Its feathers are brown.
We’re talking about feathers here. Does something possess the feathers? Yes, presumably a bird.
It would NOT be correct to say, “It’s feathers are brown”, because if you use the apostrophe, it really means, “It is feathers are brown”. Does that make sense? No, it doesn’t.
When to use “its’”
There is only one time you can use “its’” – and that would be never. “Its’” doesn’t exist. Never has and hopefully never will.
Quick summary for it’s, its and its’:
It’s – means “it is” or “it has” – it’s a common mistake.
Its – indicates possession – its use is likely do diminish your prospects.
Its’ – indicates ignorance – It’s never correct to use its’.
Quick It’s, Its or Its’ Quiz:
In each case, which is the correct option?
(Answers below)
1. Worst US President
a. It’s arguable that George W. Bush was the worst ever U.S. president.
b. Its arguable that George W. Bush was the worst ever U.S. president.
c. Its’ arguable that George W. Bush was the worst ever U.S. president.
2. Beautiful design
a. It’s design is simply beautiful.
b. Its design is simply beautiful.
c. Its’ design is simply beautiful.
3. Texting with the iPhone
a. Its not easy to use it’s SMS facility in a moving vehicle.
b. Its not easy to use its SMS facility in a moving vehicle.
c. It’s not easy to use its SMS facility in a moving vehicle.
The boost in search ranking of Patent Analysis firm, Filament, was so sharp, it drew the European Patent Office to their site to see what all the fuss was about.
Filament – global leaders in IP Intelligence
Filament works in the area of IP Intelligence, IP Analytics or Patent Analysis. That means that when a company wants to defend their intellectual property, or is looking at a merger and wants to see whether the IP is complementary, they come to Greg. Thankfully, now more of them will be coming Greg.
Boosting Filament’s search ranking
I did some SEO and website copywriting for Greg a while back and it’s just starting to bear fruit. They are ranked on Google’s first page for almost all their keywords – and it’s brought the attention of not just customers – but others keen to see what’s going on.
European Patent Office drops in
On one particular keyword phrase, Filament was ranked behind only the European Patent Office. This brought the European Patent Office to the Filament site to find out what all the fuss was about. Several other major patent players have visited as well. It’s nice to be noticed.
Very reminiscent of the Web Copywriter in full flight
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.
Two types of guys ride Harleys. You’ve got your long-haired disaffected type with tattoos and a second set of handlebars on their top lip. I think you’re probably aware I’m not that kind of Harley guy. But then you’ve got your upwardly mobile Harley guy. Your successful professional type who works in the financial end of town, competes in triathlons and throws a Boxster through the curves of Rose Bay with a blonde paralegal hanging on for grim death in the passenger seat. Yeah, well, I’m not that kind of Harley guy either. And, frankly, I held both types of Harley rider – and the whole Harley legend thing – in total disdain – until I came to write about them.
Creating a Harley Test Ride website
Some time ago now, I was part of a team that was approached by Harley’s local operation to create a site that encouraged more people to take Harley test rides. I wasn’t sure I was the ideal guy to be working on this account, but as usual I threw myself into the task. And got the shock of my life.
Harleys can be lyrical?!?
As part of the brief, I read this fabulous, thick, beautifully art directed brochure on the Harley range, and for the first time I began to understand the appeal of this mysterious cult. The copy in the brochure was almost lyrical in its description of the bike’s details and its visceral effects and I – as always a sucker for the word – began to see these noisy beasts – and the bikes too – in a totally different light. I watched videos on Harley website – particularly the one about the Harley creed – and I began to comprehend why Harleys inspire such irrational loyalty amongst their owners. These words were so alluring, so entirely compelling, that I went out and … got on my pushbike and rode home. The copy was good but it wasn’t that good.
I now look at Harleys differently
I used to look at Harley guys riding past and think, “Wankers”, though of course I was never brave enough to share these thoughts with them. But, now, having penetrated the outer defences of their private club – and my own prejudices – I no longer just see a bunch of noisy bikes of indistinguishable character. I see Fat Boys, and V-Rods and Sportsters (girls bikes!). And I have begun to notice how conservatively most Harley guys ride – if a bike goes past you at 100mph, it’s more likely to be a Jap bike than a Hog. And while I don’t share the same world view, and have no intention of switching my means of transport, I see a certain nobility and pride and honour that I didn’t see before. Any why? All because of some words on a page. Powerful things words – are they working hard enough for you?
For the first time, on pages from the web, The Web Copywriter is ranked #1 on Google for “web copywriter”. Since this is possibly a momentary glory, forgive me if I record it for posterity.
If I achieve nothing else in life, I'll always have this.
But today I had the pleasant surprise of seeing The Web Copywriter on top of the pile for pages from the web. My ranking on pages from Australia remained #2. Why the difference? I’d welcome any explanations.
PageRanks lost in the transition
What is weird is that while the PageRanks for the new domain were initially maintained, they have now gone – at least for the moment. But without affecting the Google search ranking obviously. All the literature says you’ll maintain your PageRanks with a 301 Permanent Redirect, so I’ll watch this with interest.
High Google ranking of secondary importance
This is nice and all. If you’re a web copywriter, it’s better to rank well on Google rather than being an also-ran. But ultimately it’s about delivering sales. So, I’ve done my bit. Now you do yours. The number to call is 0423 653 756 or email The Web Copywriter.
Search engines used to prefer domain names with hyphens. Now they don’t. It was potentially risky changing my domain – and it’s a pain to have to get people to change links. (For them too). But it worked in spades. So now www.personalised-pop-art.co.uk is about to become www.personalisedpopart.co.uk. I’ll keep you posted on the results.
“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”
Write from the customer's shoes - even if personally you'd never wear them.
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”.
I’ve just conducted a live experiment on the SEO effect of a hyphen in domain names and the impact has been swift and spectacular. By dumping the dash from my domain name, my site has leapt in the Google rankings from 29th yesterday to #1 today.
“Hyphenated is not only not better, but in this day and age is clearly worse” Aaron Wall SEO Book
“This is what makes SEO so tricky. The rules are unpublished. And they keep changing”
In the SEO dash, the hyphen turned out to be Ben Jonson
Conventional SEO Domain Naming Wisdom
In his Dummies Guide to SEO, Peter Kent said that if you have a choice of domains between rodentracing.com and rodent-racing.com then you choose the latter. Google, he said, would rank rodent-racing.com more highly. So, when choosing my own domain name, I selected web-copywriter.com.au. But I also bought webcopywriter.com.au and thewebcopywriter.com.au as defensive moves.
Hitting a Google Ranking brick wall
My site web-copywriter.com.au was ranking reasonably well – particularly since it’s only been around a few months:
#1 web copywriter sydney
#1 seo copywriter sydney
#4 website copywriting
But, ironically, for “web copywriter”, the highest I’d reached was about #19 and sometimes I’d languish down in the 40s. Give it time, I thought. But it didn’t get better. Recently I was 29th. And I couldn’t see why domains without hyphens were performing very well – contrary to Peter Kent’s assertions (at least in his book).
Going to Aaron Wall – the SEO source
I decided to join the renowned SEO Book online community and invited their thoughts on the issue. Specifically, would they still recommend using the hyphen? Here is what the SEO guru, Aaron Wall himself, had to say:
“Hyphenated is not only not better, but in this day and age is clearly worse. I would be more inclined to use the version of the domain without the hyphen because it is easier to remember, easier to market, and because some search engines (like Google and Live) give exact match domains a ranking bonus (with a hyphen you lose that bonus).”
There you have it. So, I switched my domain from web-copywriter.com.au to webcopywriter.com.au. How would it affect my ranking?
Waiting for Google to index
You know what it’s like when you launch a new domain – constantly checking to see whether Google has indexed it. It had been about 4-5 days and nothing. Then, just this afternoon, up it popped. Only 4 of the 40 odd pages had indexed, but it was a start. And how did the new domain rank?
The SEO jury is in. The dash is out
Now you wouldn’t think the effect would be immediate. Particularly since so few pages have indexed. But, no. The effect was quick and spectacular. Yesterday, on google.com.au, “from pages from Australia”, my site was ranked 29th. Today, for “web copywriter”, it’s ranked #1. Now, that is what I call a D-R-A-M-A-T-I-C rise.
The shifting sands of SEO
This is what makes SEO so tricky. The rules are unpublished. And keep changing. What was once recommended is now discouraged. But, for the moment, I can categorically report that a domain name with www.keyword1keyword2.com is infinitely better than one with www.keyword1-keyword2.com. And, I can report this from the lofty eminence of Google’s #1 ranked “web copywriter”.
