Tag Archives: online copywriting

Does your content address the pain points?

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I just now received a flyer from a prospective client. The client is wondering why neither there is a response from the fliers he is sending nor from his website. I have gone through the flyer again and again and I have also gone through the website and still I have no idea what he is trying to sell. All he does is mention the name of the products and the companies he represents. Of course I have got nothing to do with the field he might be working in (sensors, industrial compressors, etc.) but nowhere does he mention what sort of problems he can solve.

When we’re hiring a service or buying a product we do it for the solution it provides, unless of course we are not spending money on a fad like the iPhone or the iPad. Even if it is a niche market we need to be specifically told what exactly is the benefit of going for that particular product or service.

Every organization has some pain points that it needs addressed. If your content does not address those pain points it is not going to sell no matter how narrow your market is. Tell your reader how he or she is going to benefit from choosing you rather than somebody else. Even if you’re providing sensors and industrial compressors do not forget to mention in what way they can help the reader (and consequently the prospect).

Why cheap content mostly harms your business

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Cheap content harms your business

Just stumbled upon this blog post titled “pay peanuts, get monkeys” that basically means if you publish cheap content on your business website your conversion rate falls down drastically.

I would like to state at the outset that I have been offering low-cost content writing services from my website (although, I’m gradually toning down) and I was mostly outsourcing this work to writers who can produce lots of “passable” content at extremely low rates. I would also like to tell you that I started providing low-cost content after having provided content writing services at normal international rates for more than 4 years (I still do) primarily because of 2 reasons:

  • There is high demand for cheap content
  • Writers are actually willing to provide such content

So I thought if there is a demand and if there is a supply and if I can earn money out of it then why not? I started offering a “package” and I also got some clients and some steady work for my writers. I mostly provide this content for SEO boost — it helps my clients increase their keyword density. But it stops there.

Cheap content is a vicious loop of failure

The image describes the vicious loop of cheap content

Vicious loop of cheap content

The problem comes when some of the clients want very cheap content and then want to use this content as their primary content and when the quality doesn’t meet their expectations they complain.

It’s like, desiring to drive a car while paying for a cheap bicycle.

This is exactly where the expression “pay peanuts, get monkeys” applies.

Cheap content isn’t always bad and surprisingly there are a few writers who really write well without charging much.

How do they do that?

When I asked around for most of them writing is just a side activity carried out either during office hours or after office hours.

They have the skill but they don’t have the expertise and providing professional content writing and online copywriting service is not their primary activity.

This means they neither invest in resources nor in improving their skills.

They are simply comfortable with the language, they can quickly search on the Internet and find the relevant information and then rewrite it very fast.

Nothing is unique and individual voice is always lacking.

This is where the clients pay the casualty.

Whereas cheap content written around your keywords can certainly give you an SEO boost it doesn’t help you when it actually comes to selling.

You may increase your search engine traffic but it will just remain traffic; you’re going to generate very little revenue.

This is because your inferior content is never going to convince them into doing business with you.

Your content needs to inculcate a sense of trust and authority.

If you sound like a teenager it isn’t going to do you much good if your target market mostly consists of grown-ups who are very conscious about making purchase-decisions.

Content writing is like any other service: it takes effort and experience to give you content that gets you business.

There is a reason why bigger businesses eagerly pay hundreds and even thousands of dollars to experienced copywriters and content writers; they perfectly know what harm cheap content can cause.

But I hear some of you saying, “What makes you think that people who charge less cannot provide quality content?”

I have a Chinese Blackberry phone that almost looks like the real thing.

So if you can purchase really cheap versions of a Blackberry or an iPhone, why do you spend so much money on the real devices?

Well, this may seem rhetorical so let us see the practical aspect.

Let us say a content writer agrees to charge you just $5 for a business webpage — a professional content writer may charge you anywhere between $40-$100 for the same webpage, and I’m not talking about a well-known and reputed content writer or copywriter.

How much time do you want your content writer to spend on your particular webpage?

One hour? Two hours?

Keep in mind that your business depends on this page and that is why you are getting it written.

When people read it they will make their purchase decision.

So you would like your content writer to spend ample amount of time while preparing your page.

You would want him or her to properly understand your business and your market and you would also want him or her to visit your competitors’ websites to check out how they express themselves.

To sound convincing you would want your content writer to properly understand your concept and its impact on the target audience.

After all this, you would want him or her to come up with convincing copy.

Do you actually want someone working on your business page who is desperate enough to provide a skill for just $5 per hour or worse $2.5 per hour?

How much time can that person actually devote to your content?

He or she will certainly devise ways to make up for the meager payment.

On the other hand if you pay standard rates (rates that enable your content writer to make contemporary income per hour) then you make sure that your content writer eagerly spends sufficient time on your project without having to worry about how to make up.

He or she doesn’t have to come up with “n” number of words in the given time.

He or she can actually focus on the quality of your content.

So what is the solution if you don’t have a big budget?

Quality always works better than quantity.

Well-written 10 articles are far better than poorly-written 100 articles.

The same goes for your web pages. If you don’t have budget for 20 pages just stick to 10 pages but get some writer who can really write them well.

And what if you also need SEO content?

Then you need to strike up a balance.

You can publish low-quality content in as much quantity as possible but also make provisions for well-written content that actually does business for you.

You need to balance between content that generates you search engine traffic and content that converts that traffic into paying customers and clients.

Incorporating content marketing in the earlier stage helps

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One of my clients recently asked, “Would it have been better if I had incorporated my content marketing strategy while I was planning my business website?”

Of course, was my reply. And this is not just about content marketing or content writing; every good strategy has an advantage if it is implemented or incorporated from the beginning. There can be some pitfalls if a particular methodology or strategy hasn’t been tested well and in such a case it is better to wait rather than take a big risk.

But everybody knows what an important role your content plays towards promoting your website and generating targeted search engine traffic. This has been known for more than 15 years (at the time of writing this it is 2010). When you implement content marketing strategy earlier you get an edge; you save lots of time and effort when you decide to aggressively promote your website through your content.

Although most of my clients come to me when they have already had their websites for a long time there are some clients who come while they are launching their new websites. They are lucky as they already comprehend the overwhelming importance of targeted content and related marketing from search engines and social media and networking websites. Publishing content regularly on your new website immediately gets attention from the search engines. This is one of the greatest advantages of publishing clearly defined content either on the main website or on the blog. If you create a blog under your main website and start publishing at least two posts everyday your links can start appearing on search engine result pages within two weeks and this has been proven with multiple websites and blogs.

Early adoption to content marketing is more beneficial these days when you can attract lots of traffic from social media and networking websites since people love to post interesting links they come across while browsing the Web. Your targeted content can get you much needed attention at a very low cost.

But it doesn’t mean it is a hopeless case for older websites. You just need to be more aggressive. One pain points can be the quantity of your content. If you already have hundreds of pages indexed for wrongly targeted content you might have a problem refocusing the search engine results. This can be achieved, though, by streamlining the existing content and at the same time adding fresh content.

Is the Internet changing the way we write?

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Writing is constantly in the process of evolution, as everything else is in this world. Almost 100 new words — taken from new worldly developments and the inter-mixing of various cultures — have been added to the English dictionary in 2009. How much impact has the Internet had on the way we write? This GigaOm blog post cites many instances, for instance the way people write online articles, blog posts, comments, Facebook updates, Tweets, and even text messages. But is that writing? Some of it, yes, most, no. One thing is clear, more and more people are writing, especially with the advent of Facebook and Twitter, but that’s not writing: they simply communicate.

Writing has certainly changed over the years. You read Charles Dickens, Dostoyevsky, and then you read Martin Amis or any other contemporary writers — you notice a big difference. There is less word-play and more communicating of ideas. Readers have less patience of intricate expressions and this is more true on the Internet. But let me not digress into literary writing.

As a content writer and a professional copywriter my primary concern is writing in such a manner that the central idea is conveyed sans obscurity and the reader is prompted to perform an action whether that action is buying something, contacting the business owner, forwarding a link or subscribing to a newsletter. My only concern is that the readers (prospective clients and customers) don’t leave the website just because the copy is too verbose, too long, or too brief.

Considering this, the Internet has definitely made us into better communicators and that’s what writing means: communicating the right ideas to cause the desired effect.

Make an offer your customer or client cannot refuse

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The blog post I just read calls it The Godfather Guide to Direct Marketing: Make Me an Offer I can’t Refuse. Although I’ve neither read the book nor seen the movie (I know, I know) but I can totally relate to the expression and this should be consistently kept in mind while preparing promotional literature. Offer something great and highlight it. It should be bigger than your company name. It should be the first thing your customer or client see as soon as he or she comes to your website or unfolds your brochure.

Not everybody is dying to do business with you or awed at the marvelous things you’ve done with your products or services, but how do you solve my problem? For instance, I’ve been thinking of buying a slightly higher-end digital camera for a couple of months, I don’t want to buy a cheap brand and I don’t at the moment have the needed cash to buy a reputed brand like Canon, Sony, Nikon or Panasonic. This is my problem and I’ll immediately buy the camera if a vendor offers me a good solution. There must be thousands of customers like me and if the vendors are not addressing this problem I think they are losing a big chunk of sales. The answer to my problem would be being able to pay in easy, multiple installments and that would be an irresistible offer for me.

But what if you don’t have an immediate offer?

An offer doesn’t always mean giving something tangible. If it is not a direct consumable then it can be some emotional benefit. The point is, your message should answer the question “What is in it for me?” immediately. We’re all besieged with problems and consciously or unconsciously we’re looking for solutions. I’ll revisit my problem again with a new angle. Diwali, one of the greatest Indian festivals, is approaching fast and such festivals bring lots of moments that you would like to capture with your camera and you won’t miss them for the world. It’s a time when families get together and since we live in different cities and even countries, such gatherings are all the more special. Personally, I’d like to click my daughter enjoying a phooljhadi (a tiny firecracker you can hold in hand). An ability to click such moments can also be an irresistible offer for me. Make it so genuine and enticing that I buy the camera at the cost of another expense.

Of course this means you cannot target every customer or client under the sun with that single offer. There might be many who can spend the money but are not crazy about buying a camera although once they have it they can make good use of it. Then there might be some who despite having the ability, and a flicker of desire to buy the camera, are going to spend the festival alone or are not particularly attached to their families and friends. This is where targeting comes. Narrow down your target and you’ll sell more. Don’t worry about losing sales by not offering everybody something; you’ll compensate that by narrow targeting.

A good thing about online copywriting is that you can always perform split-tests. Prepare different pages for different targets and observe how they perform. With pay-per-click advertising it is even easier to see the results quickly.