As a every-day SBUX addict, I was researching their latest loyalty program - the Starbucks Gold Card (which, apparently, is black - not gold. Um…?) For $25, I would get 10% off most purchases, free wi-fi for two hours, access to exclusive sales and what they call “member recognition” (strike one: I have to pay $25 on top of my daily coffee purchases to be “recognized?”).

So, like a good social media chick, I went to the Starbucks Blog where they posted a “sneak peek” of the Gold card. Although the tone and feel is a little too…corporate…for my taste, the original blog post did a good job outlining the benefits.

But then the problems began…

Comments started rolling in.  People were (understandably) confused.  Did they need to combine their new Gold card with their regular Rewards card to get maximum discounts?  Why does someone need to pay to get a discount? What kind of cool insider “member recognition” benefits will they recognize? And why did the official Starbucks blog post specifically say, “so don’t be surprised if your barista isn’t up-to-speed yet!” (Great…so that means I have to pay for a discount AND educate my barista?)

So, let’s examine where Starbucks went wrong.

1. There were 128 comments about the initial post. Starbucks responded twice. That’s it.  Just two times - even while there was a whirl of controversy going on.  If you read through the comments, you’ll notice one customer who was incredibly excited about receiving a Gold Card get more and more discouraged with the Starbucks customer service process.  At no time did anyone step in and address his concerns.  I would venture to say that the process basically turned a would-be evangelist into a cynical detractor.
2. The official Starbucks response made it seem like a very elite group of people received a free card - and the rest of the registered Starbucks card users didn’t count.  Saying “Those that received the Gold card early were among our most dedicated and consistent registered card users,” is a slap in the face to people who (according to comments) spend thousands of dollars every year with Starbucks.  Heck, even I was miffed that I didn’t get a free offer - I’m in a Starbucks every day, sometimes twice a day.  It would have been much easier (and less offensive) to say that people were “randomly chosen.”  People won’t argue with random…but they will feel cheated if they don’t feel “special” enough.
3. They should have had a chart (or some kind of visual) showing the potential savings.  The big objection Starbucks needs to overcome is “I don’t want to shell out $25 for a loyalty card.”  For many people (me included) that is a big enough stop sign to halt the consideration process in its tracks.  If people are in coffee-buying mode, they probably aren’t in number-crunching mode…especially for early-morning Starbucks visitors who need that first cup to wake up. It would have been more effective to show in dollars and cents how the card would pay for itself in less than three months.
4. Saying that I, as a Gold Card member, would have to “educate my barista” is just wrong, wrong, wrong.  From a corporate communications standpoint, you’re basically saying that either (1) Starbucks can’t get their acts together to train their baristas properly or (2) their baristas are too slow to “get it (which is not the case - I heart my Starbucks baristas!) Either way, way to make the corporation look bad.  If I’m paying $25 for a loyalty card, I shouldn’t have to tell my barista how to give me my discount.  I’m typically hitting my store at 6am sharp - that’s not exactly the time that I’m eagle-eyed and in the mood to fight for an additional 10% off.

Unfortunately, this isn’t new behavior for the coffee giant.  Lisa Wehr discussed how Starbucks didn’t update their 2007 holiday podcasts, calling it a clear sign that “Starbucks was falling out of touch with their customers.”

I congratulate Starbucks with trying new forms of marketing to connect with customers.  They have a loyal following (me among them,) great brand recognition and their partners are awesome.  However, just as Starbucks would never let a barista walk away in the middle of a conversation with a customer, they should frequently check their blog posts and keep the conversation (or “connection” in Starbucks-speak) flowing - NOT walk away from a post just ’cause it’s posted.  Additionally, Starbucks should carefully consider their blog post wording - as experienced copywriters know, how you say what you say is exceptionally important. An innocuous phrase like “our most dedicated and consistent..customers” can actually alienate people if used the wrong way

Part of Starbucks new mission statement specifically focuses on “our customers” and “our neighborhoods.”  Now, it’s time to redefine “customers” and “neighborhoods” to encompass online communities and provide the same level of communication you’d find in any retail store. THAT would keep with the customer-service oriented Starbucks corporate culture…and it would help their online customers feel heard.

Copywriters - even good, highly-paid, experienced copywriters - get into their own comfort zone. They stop growing. They stop learning. Instead, they burrow into a complacency bubble and insist that they know it all and there’s nothing more to learn.

Guess what? No matter how good you are - no matter how many years you’ve honed your craft - you can do better. Write better. Describe better. You are not all that and a bag of chips all the time. And you owe it to your clients (and to yourself) to keep learning.

We, as copywriters, are required to stretch ourselves if we want to be great - No more settling for just being good, competent, or - heaven help you - “comfortable.” The only way to true excellence is through initial incompetence. True greatness is fighting that feeling of being totally and completely stupid while we try new things. It’s getting over our fear of “not knowing something” and seeing what we can really do.

As we start gaining mastery, we stretch. We grow - and our writing bursts out of its hibernation and buds with newfound brilliance.

You want to know why “old style” print copywriters complain about what used to be called New Media? It’s because they were comfortable with print. They knew the nuances. They knew how to make it work without having to work hard.

Suddenly, online writers became a dominant force. Us new-fangled writers took old-school writing concepts and made them work for a new medium. We weren’t better writers. Heck, back in the day, we were typically green and inexperienced.

The difference is - we weren’t complacent. We weren’t comfortable. We took what we knew and broke out of our comfort zone. And we launched a new industry.

Challenge yourself this November. Read a book where the author’s writing style is completely different than yours. If you’ve worked primarily with B2B, write a fiction short story (just for yourself) that forces you to create characters and have fun with your writing. Time yourself and see how many woods of good copy you can write in a speedy 15 minutes.

Why not bust out of your copywriting comfort zone at least once this month? You’ll be amazed at how “breaking loose” can actually improve your writing…your opportunities…your life… -

Try it.

Why? Because the introduction was just as creepy, scary and weird as the rest of the book - sometimes, even more so. It warmed me up to the book’s theme and set the stage for what I’d find next.  Sure, Stephen King would go through the normal stuff every author does in an introduction. He talked about the inspiration for the book. He talked about what was going on in his life when he wrote it. He mentioned a few characters, and thanked a few people.  But, where most book authors make the first few pages a dull litany full of “thank yous” and factoids, Stephen King seamlessly folded fact and emotion into the copy.  In essence, King made a book introduction - the most mundane part of every tome - spooky. And expertly set the stage for the rest of the story, placing the reader on the edge of her seat before she reached the first chapter.

Stephen King is a master of eliciting an emotional response through his writing’s tone and feel.

Direct-response SEO copywriting is a type of storytelling. Every Web page - whether it be about industrial blenders, women’s coats or gardening shears - is there to draw the reader into a purchasing frame of mind.  If your prospect is at the consideration phase of the buying cycle, he’s looking for information, comparing features and kicking the virtual tires. If your prospect is ready to buy, she wants to purchase from a company she feels she can trust.

Read the text on your Website, and ask yourself these questions:

• Would I feel comfortable reading this text to a prospect?

• Would these be the words I’d use to showcase our services?

• Does the wording sound way too formal for your “family owned, small business” atmosphere?

• Do the words inspire trust and confidence?

• Do you feel energized after reading the copy? Or does your site sound exactly the same as all your competitors?

 
Isn’t it time to erase mediocrity from your SEO content?

Your Website copy is your front-line, virtual salesperson. Never, ever be afraid to be engaging.

But here’s the problem. In a recent in-store promotion, the Starbucks writers fell into the trap that so many copywriters do - they let a headline get cutesy and take a back seat to substance.

I was waiting for my afternoon coffee when a customer grabbed the latest in-store promotional flyer for breakfast sandwiches. After a quick glance, she looked up and said, “You know, this headline doesn’t even make sense.”

I grabbed my own flyer (as did another customer) and realized she was right.  The headline:  “Wake up to a new toasty warm and savory delicious.”

I wondered if this was a fill-in the-blank statement.  “Hmm, I can ‘wake up to a new toasty warm and savory delicious’…what?”  My imagination started whirling on the possibilities that had absolutely nothing to do with food. Sure, the photo clearly showed a breakfast sandwich. And the subheadline (which clarified the statement but didn’t grammatically flow) did say “Starbucks Piadini, Wrap and Breakfast Sandwiches.” But the freestanding headline statement - the first thing I viewed when I read the flyer - was all fluff and no substance.

What’s worse, the headline stopped three customers in their tracks.  We weren’t discussing the creamy hot goodness of our extra-hot soy lattes. Nor were we soaking up the Starbucks vibe. Instead, we were connecting over bad copy- and wondering why the heck a big brand could make such a strange error.

This is what happens when copywriters substitute good, solid writing with fluffy gimmicks.

Now, let’s talk about what could have worked…

Really, it could have been as simple as making the headline and subheadline flow. Such as:

“Now, you can wake up to a toasty warm and savory delicious Starbucks Piadini, Wrap or Breakfast Sandwich”

This headline makes much more sense.  I deleted “new” from the copy (typically a marketing power word) and replaced it with “now” (also a power word) to encourage the call to action.  I also added the word “you,” to personalize the copy.  This added two words to the original headline.

Starbucks could reinforce that this is a new product - plus hammer home the “healthy options” benefit by improving the subheadline:

Now, you can wake up to a toasty warm and savory delicious Piadini, Wrap or Breakfast Sandwich…

…New healthy breakfast choices from Starbucks

There are scads of ways to improve the copy (and I bet readers can come up with their own improved versions.) However, the bottom line is this: someone at Starbucks corporate should have nixed this headline before it hit the streets.

In general, Starbucks has had historically good copy that’s emotion-rich and gramatically correct. However, a verbiage blunder like this does nothing but reflect negatively upon their brand. Considering the negative press due to their recent store closings and the latest attack ads by Dunkin’ Donuts, it seems that Starbucks should evaluate their future messaging a bit more closely…

]]> http://www.seocopywriting.com/copywriting/starbucks-coffee-and-their-breakfast-sandwich-blunder/feed/ http://api.feedburner.com/awareness/1.0/GetItemData?uri=SeoCopywriting&itemurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.seocopywriting.com%2Fcopywriting%2Fstarbucks-coffee-and-their-breakfast-sandwich-blunder%2Fhttp://www.seocopywriting.com/copywriting/starbucks-coffee-and-their-breakfast-sandwich-blunder/ http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/SeoCopywriting/~3/431055939/ http://www.seocopywriting.com/commentary/what-rodney-dangerfield-and-seo-copywriters-have-in-common/#comments Fri, 24 Oct 2008 19:54:16 +0000 Heather http://www.seocopywriting.com/?p=146 The comedian Rodney Dangerfield coined a brilliant one-liner - “I don’t get no respect.”

The same can be said for some SEO copywriters.

I received this email from a woman we’ll call Joanne (names have been changed to protect the innocent.) Here’s what she had to say:

Hi Heather,

I am a fan of your blog and I am also a copywriter for a major search marketing agency where I write both paid search and SEO copy. I have nine years of copywriting experience, a master’s degree in mass communication, and I was “stolen” away from a major competitor to work at this agency. Since joining this agency about a year and a half ago, however, I’ve struggled to really find my place within the agency as I am the only copywriter and therefore a department of one.

Yesterday, I was quite baffled by a comment made by the senior director of our SEO team as he introduced me to some others from our New York sales team. He started out by talking about the great experience I have and the work I’ve done so far for the agency, but then he made a comment about how I did strictly SEO copy at my last agency and said “So, you know, she just sat around keyword stuffing for 8 hours a day.”

At first I laughed it off as a joke, but the more I’ve thought about it, the more it has bothered me. First of all, I feel that it shows a complete lack of knowledge about SEO copywriting by the most senior SEO person at my agency, which is more than a little disconcerting. Mostly, however, I feel that it completely belittles my position within the agency and grossly misrepresents the job I perform.

My question to you is, how do we overcome this perception that SEO copywriting is merely keyword stuffing? How do we stress the value we bring as great writers first and foremost, while also stressing the fact that carefully working keywords into web copy also requires a special skill and talent? I honestly cannot believe that SEO copywriting is still even perceived this way in 2008.

I’m truly at a loss for how I change the perception of myself and my talents within this agency and hope that you have some advice. I understand that you are very busy and may not have time to respond to all of your emails, but even if this question could be worked into a blog post, I’m sure it may help others facing similar struggles.

Dear Joanne:

I feel your pain.

For years, copywriting has often been dismissed as a “soft” skill set because “anyone can write.” With SEO copywriting, the myth is taken one step further (”anyone can shove keyphrases into copy”) - but is no less dismissive.

The question is: does sticking keyphrases into copy equate into skilled “SEO copywriting?” And that answer is “no.”

What does a copywriter do that’s so special?  Bob Bly, in his book, “The Copywriter’s Handbook,” cites Judith Charles as saying “A copywriter is a salesperson behind a typewriter.”

That helps bring it home a little better, doesn’t it?

If your company had a sales force, you wouldn’t throw just anyone on the sales floor and expect them to perform. You’d want highly-skilled salespeople who would meet your sales goals. There’s a reason top salespeople make a lot of money - it’s because they generate beaucoup bucks for their employers.

And that’s what good copywriters do - they make beaucoup bucks for their clients. SEO copywriters generate profits (and leads, and brand awareness) plus help gain top search engine rankings.

That’s a big deal.

Yes, anyone (with some training) can learn keyphrase editing and where to place keyphrases in their copy. That part has never been rocket science.  But copywriting is much, much more than keyphrase editing. It’s getting inside your target audience’s head and learning what makes them tick. It’s penning words that help build trust and gently lead your prospect to your next conversion step. It’s knowing what psychological buttons to push so the prospect feels - without a shadow of a doubt - that your company understands his pain, and you can help him. Right now.

Every time you see a commercial and think “Hmm, I should look into that more” - it’s because a copywriter wrote the copy that made you want to buy (or at least consider) the product. Every time you read an email that actually makes you click into the site - and every time you head to the mall chasing a hot deal you read about- know that a copywriter wrote the copy that made you take action.

But enough ranting. Let’s talk about how to show ROI.

The best way to show value? Good, old fashioned metrics. Can you show that your copy drove additional traffic (my company, SuccessWorks, has some case studies like this, and they are an amazing way to show expertise.) Can you show that people are buying more product? Downloading more white papers? Staying on the page longer?  In a perfect world you should be tracking this information anyway - after all, how can you improve your content if you can’t tell if it’s working? But in a world where you want to strut your SEO stuff, you’ll need metrics that matter.

At the end of the day, it’s your responsibility to toot your own horn and showcase your success. Don’t expect to be recognized for a job well done. It’s nice when it happens - but sadly, “atta-boys” don’t happen often enough. Once you can attach a ROI to your SEO contribution, you’ll find that people view your skills and talent much differently - and you’ll start gaining the respect a skilled SEO copywriter deserves.

I hope that helps. Readers, what other advice would you give Joanne?

Want to keep your SEO copywriting in-house and save money on outsourcing? Learn more about customized SEO copywriting training today.

I’ve just returned from DMA ’08 in Vegas. In a neon and gambling chip haze, old school marketers (list brokers, print copywriters) merged with SEO firms, search technologists – and yes, even 2.0 social media agencies. I saw 50-something marketers dance to The Village People’s “YMCA” (complete with arm movements) and boogie to Rick James’ “Superfreak” (in a decidedly psychedelic/Dave Chappelle moment.)

And I saw a lot of learned helplessness. And heard a lot of “Yeah, we know that we can (change our Title tags, rewrite our content, do 301 redirects, look for incoming links.) But we’ve already spent so much on SEO with such little effort. Why bother.”

Will. You. Please. Snap. Out. Of. It.

Yes, the economy is scary. Yes, business may be slow, receivables are taking forever to collect and prospects are scared.

Ignore the fear and look at the facts.

Marketers, now is the time to seize an incredible opportunity – building your Website rankings and increasing your conversions. Rather than moan and complain (“nothing has worked before, our rankings may not increase enough to matter, I don’t know where to start,”) focus on what you can control. It doesn’t have to mean a huge budgetary expenditure. You can even do it in-house. Just do it.

Think about it: why sit back and let your competitors gain search engine market share when you can do something about it – especially when much of the work can be conducted in-house? Getting frustrated won’t help you. Complaining about the “SEO that did you wrong” won’t help you. The only thing that will help you is good, old-fashioned momentum. Here’s how to get started now:

If you haven’t conducted keyphrase research, do it now. Last week, I discovered one-third of my audience hadn’t researched their keyphrases. Still other audience members did some initial keyphrase research, but hadn’t double-checked their keyphrases for six months or more. If this sounds like you, it’s time to update your keyphrase list. Run your research by using a free online keyword research tool or consider for-pay solutions like WordTracker or KeywordDiscovery. And if you’re new to keyphrase research, this article by Christine Churchill provides a good foundation.

Review your on-page keyphrase usage. It’s amazing how many companies will say that a page is optimized for X keyphrase – yet that phrase doesn’t appear anywhere on the page. Make sure that your main phrases are represented more than once, but aren’t sabotaging the flow of your copy. If your text sounds like “Our widget site has the cheapest widgets online. View our widget selection now,” it’s time for a rewrite.

Edit your text for keyphrases. If your pages don’t have a strong keyphrase focus, editing for keyphrases (inserting page-specific keyphrases into the copy in a way that doesn’t detract from its tone and feel) is an excellent SEO copywriting alternative. As a side note, if you notice your text suffers from “too many keyphrases,” try slicing a few for improved readability. Whenever you edit your text, don’t forget to…

Jazz up your Titles. Yes, Titles are important to search engine positioning. And yes, your keyphrases should appear in your Titles. However, a snazzy Title helps to encourage conversions from the search engine results page. Part art, part science, learning how to pen Titles is a profitable skill set (and can instantly help positions.) If you’re new to writing Titles, this article provides a primer.

Test your copy. Why complain that your SEO copywriting “isn’t working” when you can do something about it – for free. Google’s Website Optimizer allows you to test different versions of your Web pages and “easily increase revenue and ROI whether you’re new to marketing or an expert.” This level of testing used to cost thousands just a few years ago, so the price is definitely right. Tim Ash also writes about landing page testing in his blog – it’s definitely worth a read.

Look for SEO content opportunities. So many companies focus on what can’t be done, that they completely ignore what they can accomplish. Is it impossible to add additional content to product pages? Build a blog where you can wax poetic about your products and link into individual pages. Is your budget so small that it’s almost laughable? Are site Titles dynamically generated (and not the best?). See if you can hand-create Titles for a special campaign. Need to establish your site as an industry resource? Consider writing articles and white papers. Adding additional content helps gain new positions, new leads – and new conversions.

Get help when appropriate. If your site has 10,000 pages, and Google has indexed 2,000 – don’t just wonder why. Hire a consultant to help you untangle the situation and focus on what’s really important. Yes, this solution could mean spending $5,000 (or more). According to Jessica Bowman’s article about the value of site audits for in-house SEO’s, a full site audit can cost up to $35,000. Sure, the initial sticker shock sounds scary. But do the math – how many new customers could you acquire (or products you could sell) with increased search engine visibility? Site audits gives you the freedom of knowing what to fix (and sometimes, how to fix it) for the fastest results. That more than justifies the cost.

Wondering what SEO content changes would provide your site maximum ROI? SuccessWorks offers customized SEO copywriting training and SEO copywriting reviews. Contact us for details.

Wondering how to improve your SEO campaign? Check out the SuccessWorks Search Marketing Experience Labs. A panel of experts will review your site and give you the SEO lowdown on what’s great, what you can do better and what you need to change right now. I’m extremely honored that some of the best and the brightest industry thought-leaders are joining me on this fast-paced panel. You’ll meet:

Jeannette Kocsis - Harte-Hanks

Graeme McLaughlin - BCAA

Detlev Johnson – Search Return

Join us October 14^th from 2-3pm and October 15^th from 10-11am. If you join us on the 14^th, you can help me celebrate my birthday. There may even be cake (and really, shouldn’t every conference session have cake?).

But seriously, the Search Marketing Experience panels are not to be missed. After all, it’s not every day that you can receive thousands of dollars of SEO advice for the cost of a conference pass. Just one tip could literally pay for the entire trip. Really.

If you want to drill down into SEO copywriting and content development, I’m co-presenting with Graeme McLaughlin on “Profiting through the Search Engine Sales Cycle” on Monday, October 12^th from 3-4:15. I’ll be discussing how to make money, see higher search rankings and streamline your spend with SEO copywriting – and Graeme will present his case study about how BCAA is leveraging content on their site. Graeme’s a great guy with an even better accent – it should be a rockin’ session.

See you in Vegas, baby.

Once upon a time, I went on a date with a boy named Mark. During the course of the date, he proceeded to tell me about his acting career (bitchin’- he was starring in his friend’s independent no-budget film, his job (he was making killer tips), his financial situation (awesome – he’s finally able to move away from home) and his abs (they were in noxious pain, dude, because he was “whalin’ on them” earlier.)

I made it through half my drink before I couldn’t take it anymore. At first, I thought it was his use of “dude” every third word. Or about how someone could spend that much time talking about his abs. Then I realized something, as narcissistic as it sounded – I could have probably overlooked a number of conversational sins if he would have done just one thing: talked less about himself, and focused more on me.

And really, deep down, don’t we want it to be all about us?

Of course we do. So why do companies insist on creating ego-driven content that doesn’t focus on the reader?

I know, I know. You didn’t mean to sound like a bad date. When you approved your corporate copy to read, “Our 50,000 square foot facility is state of the art,” you really did think that your customers would care. But think about it. Your 50,000 square foot facility provides me as much of a benefit statement as hearing about my friend’s abdominal muscles. Why would I care about your factory size when what I really care about is that you carry hard-to-find, full-warrantied parts you can ship overnight for 20 percent less than the manufacturer.

Wondering if your site does nothing but talk about your company’s coolness? Future Now has a great tool called the We We Calculator. Simply submit your URL to learn your “customer focus rate” percentage, and how many times you used “customer focus words.” If your percentage is low, you’re asked if your self-focused copy “might have an impact on your effectiveness.”

Try it. You’ll be surprised. You may be more of a bad date than you ever thought.

]]> http://www.seocopywriting.com/seo-copywriting-tips/does-your-website-copy-sound-like-a-bad-date/feed/ http://api.feedburner.com/awareness/1.0/GetItemData?uri=SeoCopywriting&itemurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.seocopywriting.com%2Fseo-copywriting-tips%2Fdoes-your-website-copy-sound-like-a-bad-date%2Fhttp://www.seocopywriting.com/seo-copywriting-tips/does-your-website-copy-sound-like-a-bad-date/ http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/SeoCopywriting/~3/383556924/ http://www.seocopywriting.com/commentary/don%e2%80%99t-tell-me-what-i%e2%80%99m-thinking-does-your-seo-copywriting-miss-the-mark/#comments Thu, 04 Sep 2008 20:35:51 +0000 Heather http://www.seocopywriting.com/?p=113 It’s funny when television mirrors reality so closely.

I was watching Mad Men, the AMC series about 1960’s-era advertising executives. The setup: A client, Playtex, craved a new advertising campaign. A group of men (who assumedly have never tried to squeeze their man-breasts into a push-up bra) and one woman was assigned to the campaign. The group (without the woman’s help) developed a campaign around the assumption that women wanted to either be like Marilyn Monroe or Jackie Kennedy, and all advertising should be centered on those two female icons.

Problem is, the men didn’t ask any women if they related to either Jackie or Marilyn. They didn’t ask the opinion of the lone woman working on the campaign. In fact, they even dismissed her opinion after she disagreed with their ideas. Just like what happens in hundreds of companies and ad agencies every day, the men of Mad Men ignored the real data in front of them, and chose to make assumptions about their target audience.

And that’s not smart.

Fast-forward to a conversation I had the other day. When I asked the marketing executive why the benefit “fast shipping” was considered their top benefit – even if all their competitors offer the same thing – her answer was, “Well, we think people really like free shipping.” Had they done studies to prove this? No. Does their customer feedback back this up? No. They just “assumed people liked it because shipping was free.”

The problem is, faulty marketing assumptions means that your messaging - and your SEO copywriting campaign -  is always off the mark. Sure, “free shipping” may be a good benefit statement. But what if the customer really cares about personalized assistance and customized solutions? Instead of satisfying your customers needs, you’re telling them what to think (free shipping is the most important benefit). And that’s not good.

Much like a relationship where one faulty assumption can cascade into five years of costly marriage counseling, assuming what your prospects are thinking can have disastrous effects. And just like the advice you’d get during marriage counseling, if you really want to know what your prospects are thinking, the solution is simple. Just ask them. Don’t roll out new SEO copywriting campaigns hoping you’ll “connect” this time. Don’t create something sexy because you’re sure that your idea will work. Just open your mouth and ask them…

…”What are you thinking? What do you care about? What do you need?”

It’s really that simple.

Here are some things you can do, right now:

Follow-up with customers with a survey or phone call after their purchase and find out what they liked – or didn’t like – about your service. Although this personal approach can be extremely time-consuming, the conversations you’ll have will be worth their weight in marketing data gold. You can easily fold this information into upcoming SEO copywriting campaigns and test responses.

Invite a small number of your customers to participate in a focus group, and ask them questions about what they currently like about your company – and what they’d like to see. Getting a group of people talking about your product or service can spark some great feedback.

If you’re too “close” to your own data, hire a content development consultant to comb through your feedback forms, talk to your customer service department and retool your marketing messaging. Outside experts are great to help get you out of your own marketing head, see your services in a different light and rewrite your SEO content to match your new messaging.

Talk to your customer service agents and ask what feedback they’ve heard about your products. Your CSRs are your front-line people, and they hear it all – good and bad. Believe me, these folks know exactly what your customers are thinking.

Finally, don’t be afraid to change. Your customers’ comments may make you feel defensive, edgy – or plain piss you off. You may rail about how “they don’t understand” and “how could they even think that about your product?” But shut up listen. Yes, it IS hard to do. Because no matter how snarky some feedback can get, there are always nuggets of gold buried within. Learn from them. Don’t take them personally (even if they’re dissing on your campaign, dammit!). Make the necessary marketing tweaks and move on. Change in this case is very, very good – and your messaging will be better for it.

Want to bring your SEO copywriting initiatives in-house? SEO copywriting training shows your team how to create top-positioning copy that converts like crazy. Ask about our in-house or Webinar options today.

]]> http://www.seocopywriting.com/commentary/don%e2%80%99t-tell-me-what-i%e2%80%99m-thinking-does-your-seo-copywriting-miss-the-mark/feed/ http://api.feedburner.com/awareness/1.0/GetItemData?uri=SeoCopywriting&itemurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.seocopywriting.com%2Fcommentary%2Fdon%25e2%2580%2599t-tell-me-what-i%25e2%2580%2599m-thinking-does-your-seo-copywriting-miss-the-mark%2Fhttp://www.seocopywriting.com/commentary/don%e2%80%99t-tell-me-what-i%e2%80%99m-thinking-does-your-seo-copywriting-miss-the-mark/ http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/SeoCopywriting/~3/376373156/ http://www.seocopywriting.com/seo-copywriting-tips/why-keyword-density-is-crap/#comments Wed, 27 Aug 2008 17:50:43 +0000 Heather http://www.seocopywriting.com/?p=111 It happened again during SES San Jose 2008. In fact, the situation happens so often (actually, every conference for the last 10 years) that I call it “The question.”

“What kind of keyphrase density should I shoot for in my copy?”

I don’t blame the person who asked the question. Heck, I’m not surprised they’re confused. Ever since the dawn of SEO copywriting time, SEO’ers have been trying to game the content part of the algorithm. It’s even a technique that worked years ago. Back in the early days when Google was but a mere blip on Stanford’s server, SEO experts knew that a 5.5 percent keyphrase density would get a top spot in Alta Vista.

We don’t think that way anymore.

The first reason we don’t is that SEO has gotten harder order the years, and the algorithm has gotten more complex. There’s no magical keyphrase density number that “games” Google or the other engines. So, writing towards a particular metric to position higher on search results is unnecessary and ineffectual. This is supported by Matt Cutts of Google who said in a 2006 blog post, “I’d recommend thinking more about words and variants (the ‘long-tail’) and thinking less about keyword density or repeating phrases.”

The second reason is because writing towards a particular density ignores your main target audience – the people you want to read your articles, contract with you for services and buy your products. Artificially targeting a keyphrase density alters the intent of your writing and sacrifices proven direct response principals. Yes, keyphrases in the copy is important. Yes, include them in headlines, subheadlines and throughout the body text. Yes, it does take time to learn how to weave the “right amount” of keyphrases into your copy so it reads seamlessly – yet leverages every keyphrase opportunity you can leverage. But the main focus should always be “how does what I’m writing engage and persuade my readers?”

Does “ignoring” keyphrase density really work? I was talking to a client last week about a site I had written pages for years ago. After six years, the pages are still positioning in Google’s top three – and that’s without measuring keyphrase density. And more importantly, the copy converted well. That’s a definite win-win - without having to worry about meaningless metrics.

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