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A cliffhanger in copywriting is also called the “curiosity gap”.
You want your readers to read your entire copy, right?
Making them read the entire copy is important for call-to-action and conversion.
You want to keep them hooked.
You need to pique their interest.
They should quickly want to read what comes next.
What makes reading gripping? What do you call a page turner?
When the writer always keeps you on the edge.
Something is always just about to happen.
You must have seen cliffhangers in many Netflix series: the current episode ends at a drastic juncture, and you desperately want to know what happens next.
So, you watch the next episode instantly.
You can use cliffhangers similarly for writing copy that you want people to read till the end.
Why is it important for your readers to read your copy till the end?
You are building a narrative.
You want to inform, educate and motivate them enough so that they convert.
Your entire narrative builds towards your call-to-action.
If they lose interest midway, they will never respond to your call-to-action. They will never be motivated enough.
Therefore, it is important that you keep your readers hooked with the help of cliffhangers.
Build the suspense. Tantalize them. Hook them with incomplete sentences and opportune questions.
Here are some examples:
“He wasn’t sure if he could afford it, but then…”
“Just when he thought he had seen whatever could have been seen, something totally unexpected unfolded.”
“This app doesn’t just help you manage your tasks, it does much more than that. Want to know what?”
Don’t overdo, though. Use cliffhangers in copywriting strategically for maximum benefit.
This is the first thing that I want to know when take up a new content writing project: what exactly does the client do?
The answer is not as simple as it may seem in the beginning. For most of the clients, it is often difficult to tell in a couple of sentences what they do and exactly who they serve.
And then they wonder why their websites in general and copywriting in particular don’t convert.
It helps you target better if you know exactly what you do.
What do I do?
I provide content writing and copywriting services.
Big deal. There are thousands of content writers and copywriters on the Internet, and some may be even better than me.
So, what do I do to deserve your business?
I write engaging content that helps you convert better. I also improve your search engine rankings.
Now, this is a bit more precise. What next?
My writing is confident. It may not win a Pulitzer or a Booker Prize, but I write with conviction and confidence.
I always know the right words for the message that you want to convert.
I don’t use fluff. I come to the point straightaway. I don’t try to impress the readers. I try to inform them.
Instead of worrying about how many words I should write, I focus on the message (although, most of the clients are more worried about the number of words, but that’s a different story).
So, as a content writer and a copywriter, I do the following:
Write conversational content.
Write content with conviction.
My content writing helps you improve your search engine rankings.
These are the basic traits that a small business owner is looking for in a content writer.
Similarly, if you want to communicate your message without confusing your visitors, you must know exactly what you deliver.
Don’t leave it on your content writer to first understand what you do and then write. He or she will be wasting his or her time and you too will be wasting your time.
Write down somewhere exactly what you do whether you are getting content written by a writer or you yourself are writing it.
What do you deliver?
What is the benefit of working with you?
How do you define your target customers and clients?
What would they be looking for when they search for you?
Is there something that you can deliver that the others cannot? What is it?
Simon Sinek wrote a complete book exhorting businesses to find the “why” of their existence. The same holds true for individuals. Why do you do what you do? Why do you work as an engineer? Why do you work as a graphic designer? Why are you in politics?
And the same holds true when you are writing. Know the why of your writing. I’m not talking about the larger picture, I’m talking about a particular blog post or a particular article or even a particular social media update that you’re going to write: why are you writing it?
We all have a general answer. You want to improve your search engine rankings. You want to “engage” your customers or clients. You want to publish fresh content on your website. You want to maintain visibility on LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter. You want to regularly reach the inbox of your email subscribers.
These are larger whys. Important, but vague, and cannot be achieved unless you know why you are writing this particular blog post or social media update.
So, the next time you sit down to write something or you take out your mobile phone to write a quick update, think of the why.
What impact do you want to make? What is new you’re going to add? How is it going to help your readers or your followers? How do you want to portray yourself through this piece of writing or this update?
Write as many whys as possible. The more whys you can figure out, the more impactful will be your writing.
Main copywriting mistakes covered in this blog post:
Writing without having a central vision.
Ignoring search intent or buyer intent.
Not doing methodical keyword research.
Using too many complex and compound sentences and big paragraphs.
Not using the main keyword synonyms and LSI alternatives.
Not writing the copy from the user’s perspective.
Using main keywords when linking to internal links (something new that I have learnt).
SEO copywriting is intended to improve your search engine rankings.
Want to know which SEO copywriting mistakes to avoid so that you don’t harm your SEO?
There is a complete branch dedicated to such writing.
There are numerous blogs that teach you how to improve your search engine rankings through targeted web copywriting.
The problem with pursuing web page writing mainly with the objective of improving your search engine rankings can be a double-edged sword.
Standard SEO copywriting process.
Normally, people who want to improve their SEO do the following
Create a list of keywords and search terms they think people should be using to find their websites.
Create titles and topics around those keywords and search terms.
Write and publish content based on those titles and topics.
In theory there is nothing wrong in this approach but then there may be something completely wrong in it.
Remember that the purpose of optimization is not to get traffic for your keywords.
The purpose of optimization is to help people find your useful content so that they can find the information they are looking for.
Hence, if you’re using copywriting just to improve your SEO, you may be harming your search engine rankings instead of improving them.
Fortunately, most of the copywriting mistakes are easily avoidable and you just need to make some tweaks and keep in mind certain aspects when preparing the copy of your web page.
I’m listing below some copywriting mistakes that are bad for your SEO.
1. Not having a vision for your
In my profession, content writing and copywriting are often interchanged so for the purpose of this blog post, you can assume that whatever I’m writing about SEO copywriting, I’m also writing about content writing.
Although, in terms of advertising and sales copy writing, copywriting is different from content writing, but when it comes to writing for the web, many people use this term interchangeably.
With this minor detail out of the way, whenever you’re writing the copy of a web page or blog post, it is very important to have a vision.
What does “vision” mean here?
What is the purpose of writing that web page?
What do you want to achieve with this blog post?
What am I trying to achieve with this blog post?
The simplest answer would be, I’m trying to improve my search engine rankings for the phrase “SEO copywriting” and even “copywriting mistakes” and I won’t deny that.
But, better search engine rankings for these phrases will be a byproduct.
In the video below, I have explained this concept by comparing your higher search engine rankings with the money that you earn by providing a product or a service.
My primary aim is to provide you the best possible content on this subject.
After reading this blog post, you should have a list of copywriting mistakes that you can avoid to improve your search engine rankings.
Instead of just talking about this copywriting mistakes and listing them, I’m also suggesting improvements.
Similarly, for every web page and for every blog post, you must have a clear vision, a clear purpose, of what you’re trying to achieve, not just in terms of improving your SEO, but also in terms of providing the best possible value to your readers.
2. Ignoring search intent when copywriting
This is one of the most important SEO copywriting mistakes to avoid.
Search intent is gaining importance with every passing day.
What intention do people have when they search for your content?
Here is a small video I created to explain what is search intent.
For example, what intent would there be, when people are looking for this blog post?
They want to improve their search engine rankings.
They want to avoid content writing and copywriting mistakes so that they don’t inadvertently harm their search engine rankings instead of improving them.
They want to learn from the mistakes of the others.
Knowing the search intent helps you take the right direction.
Your copywriting must always be focused on a particular search intent.
Do you simply want to educate and inform (like this blog post)?
Do you want people to buy from you after reading your web page or blog post?
Do you want them to download your e-book or white paper or case study?
Do you want them to subscribe to your newsletter?
Search intent is also known as “buyer intent”.
3. Not doing proper keyword research
All said and done, keywords are still matter.
Google, when analyzing your text, looks for patterns to make sense of what you’re trying to say or convey to the reader.
It analyzes every possible combination.
For example, for me, what matters is the keyword “copywriting mistakes”, but to Google, in the above paragraph, even “when analyzing your text” is as important as “copywriting mistakes”.
The Google algorithm is least bothered with what you think is your important keyword.
It goes through every single word and every single phrase and does its computations.
Hence, the words that you use when you are writing your copy are very important.
It is an age-old advice: choose your words carefully.
The same applies to selecting your keywords when copywriting.
Not making a list of the right keywords may send you on a tangent and you may end up optimizing your copy for all the wrong keywords.
Wondering why your traffic is increasing but your business is not?
It is because you are attracting traffic for all the wrong reasons.
You may be optimizing your content for the wrong keywords.
4. Not using simple sentences when preparing your copy
A few years ago, I read that the processing power of a supercomputer is less than the processing power of the brain of an earthworm.
No matter how smart machine learning becomes, it gets confused when you use compound sentences.
I often come across webpages and blog posts containing complex sentences.
People use lots of ands, alsos and buts.
Compound and complex sentences may make you sound smarter and intelligent, to the search engine algorithm, they are confounding.
For better SEO, it is always advisable to use simple sentences.
Don’t use multiple sentences in a paragraph.
Try to limit your sentences to 5-10 words and not more.
Of course, it is not possible all the time, but whenever you are talking about the central theme, for example, the biggest benefit of doing business with you, use single, simple sentences in every paragraph.
5. Ignoring to use synonyms and LSI keywords
Instead of saying “I want to improve my SEO” every time you need to use this expression, sometimes you can also use “I want to improve my search engine rankings”, or even, “I want to improve my Google rankings”, or even, “I want higher rankings for my web pages”.
You need to dominate your copy with the central theme, and this may require you to use your keywords repeatedly.
Hence, instead of “harm your SEO”, I can also use “hurt your SEO” or “adversely affect your rankings”.
This is because if you keep on using your main keywords Google may take it as keyword stuffing, which it actually is.
If you repeatedly use your keywords without alternating between LSI keywords and actual keywords, it will harm your SEO instead of improving it.
LSI stands for “Latent Semantic Indexing”.
It is a natural language processing technology that helps Google understand the context of your content rather than merely analyzing keywords.
For example, when you search for “what are the benefits of having an apple everyday” through LSI Google knows that you’re talking about the fruit and not the company.
There is another benefit of using LSI as well as synonym keywords.
Not everyone uses the same search term when looking for information.
For example, instead of someone searching for “copywriting mistakes”, he or she can also search for “bad copywriting” or “copywriting blunders” or “what makes my copywriting harm my SEO?” or “what makes my copywriting suck?”
Hence, accommodating different keywords and search terms increases the scope of your content being rank for different keywords without diluting the central topic.
6. Not writing from user’s perspective
Again, one of the most common SEO mistakes to avoid.
This is important for your rankings as well as conversion rate.
Why does your content exist, after all?
It exists to serve your readers.
Why do search engines like Google exist?
They are there to help you find the information you’re looking for.
From every angle, it is a human angle.
If you ignore the human angle and write your copy only to cater to the algorithms, the entire purpose of SEO is defeated.
The Google search algorithm depends a lot on how people perceive the quality of your content or copywriting.
When writing copy for your web pages and blog posts, you’re often encouraged to link to other inner pages of your website and even external pages when you want to link to the source of your information.
Google sees this as an act of manipulation.
Since you cannot control how people link to your website, Google doesn’t penalize you if your main keywords are used as anchor text from other websites, but for interlinking (linking to your own web pages and blog posts within your domain), instead of using something like SEO copywriting as anchor text, use a long phrase.
Until a few years ago, I remember this was a prevalent advice that you should use your primary keywords as anchor text when linking to different parts of your website or blog, but it remains no longer kosher.
You can read in the above link, you can get penalized for this.
Concluding remarks the most common SEO copywriting mistakes to avoid
Whenever you are copywriting there is a 99% chance that you are doing it to improve your search engine rankings.
There is nothing wrong in that.
The biggest mistake I have come across is that when clients approach me for my copywriting services, they are less concerned about providing value to the readers and more concerned about “the keyword density must be around 3-5%”.
It rarely happens that a client says that I should first focus on quality and then, if possible, I should include the main keywords.
Anyway, the purpose of writing this blog post was to throw some light on the issues that can negatively impact your search engine rankings while in the sincerity of your heart, you are trying to improve it with certain copywriting practices.
Ummm… yes, I know, the above sentence is not good for SEO.
These days I’m working on a project where I’m writing vision and mission statements not just for the main company, but also for individual departments.
This gave me the idea of writing this blog post on how to write effective vision and mission statements for your company.
Over the years I have written countless vision and mission statements for different businesses and I can remember just 2-3 instances when the client was passionate about what was to be written for vision and mission statements. Otherwise, most of the clients just ask me to go through other websites and come up with my own (“but highly unique” – quote/unquote intended) versions.
Yes, it reflects on what sort of clients I attract, but that’s another story.
They don’t even know the difference. Just because everybody seems to have vision and mission statements, and without these statements, the “About us” page seems incomplete, they want to have them.
On second thought, why blame them? While trying to research for the topic, I came across many blog posts, even from the so-called reputed websites, that ended up mixing up vision and mission statements. I mean, the topic says something like “20 best vision statements” and they then go on to quoting mission statements from famous companies.
But first,
What is the difference between your vision and mission statement?
Sometime back I read a very good statement on the Internet about vision and mission statements:
Your mission statement is about what you are doing today, and your vision statement is what you are going to do in near future.
You must have come across the phrase “man with a mission” (or for the sake of feminists, “woman with a mission”). Or something like “we are on a mission”.
It means, you are doing something right now.
A mission statement answers the following questions:
My mission at Credible Content is to provide business writing services that actually help my clients grow their businesses.
Vision statement is about the future. What are your hopes and dreams? What bigger changes do you want to bring about in the world? What do you inspire to be?
Your vision gives your clients and customers an idea of what are your bigger goals. Remember that your bigger goals define the direction of your smaller goals.
Why is it important to have mission and vision statements?
Above I have written that very few clients take their mission and vision statements seriously. But there are some individuals and organizations, that do take your mission and vision statements seriously.
Your mission statement tells them your current focus. It tells them what problems you are currently solving. It tells them who your customers and clients are. It basically informs them of the nature of your current activities and whether the profile of these activities makes you suitable for them or not.
Your vision statement tells them where you are heading. Serious businesses want to associate with serious businesses. If you are not serious enough to even focus on your vision statement, then you are not reliable.
Hence, if you feel that your website is turning away good customers and clients, maybe you need to work on your mission and vision statements.
How to write a great mission statement
I will say it again: most of the people don’t know the difference between mission statement and vision statement and they tend to mix them up. Even reputed company sometimes end up mixing up vision and mission statements.
Your mission statement is about today. It must answer the following questions:
What do you do?
Who are your customers and clients?
What processes and procedures do you follow?
Providing answers to these questions may seem like a long affair, but it doesn’t have to be. Restrict your mission statement to just 2 sentences and if possible, just a single sentence. But, no matter how many sentences you write, answer the questions listed above.
Here is Google’s mission statement: To organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.
Here is Tesla’s: To accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy.
You may say that these mission statements don’t answer all the 3 questions above, but if you read them carefully you will notice that, they do.
Take for example Tesla’s mission statement. Sustainable energy means they want to shift the focus away from the current ways of energy consumption. Pretty much everybody consumes energy in the form of fuel, gas and power. So, pretty much everybody is their customer.
What do they want to do? They want to accelerate the process. They want to go beyond simply researching, and provide viable products.
What is Google doing? It is organizing world’s information and making it universally accessible and useful. By merely reading the statement, you can make out what they do, for whom they do it, and how they do it.
Keep the following points in mind when creating your mission statement:
Keep it as concise as possible.
Provide answers to questions such as what you do, what are your customers and clients, and how you serve them.
How to write a great vision statement
Your vision statement gives your customers and clients the bigger picture. The give them a peek into your future.
What do you stand for? How do you plan to grow? What impact do you want to make?
This tells them about your work culture. It tells them what moves you and what keeps you going.
This was Microsoft’s vision when it was founded: A computer on every desk and in every home.
It is amazing how this vision came to be true. This was written when computers were a rarity.
LinkedIn vision statement: Create economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce.
As is clear from these statements, the vision statement is about your overall goal. This is what you eventually want to achieve. When you are writing your vision statement, talk about the next 5 years.
Something like, if you are writing your vision statement in 2020, tell your visitors what you are going to achieve by 2025.
