Tag Archives: website content

Are Your Competitors Already Building Relationships With Your Customers?

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There might have been a time in the early days of online marketing, when having a website as an online brochure, one that said a bit about what you do and how to contact you, had some value. For most businesses those days are over.

For one thing, there are now so many websites that just getting found in the first place is becoming more challenging. It’s also the simplest thing in the world for your customers (potential ones and existing ones) to do their research on competitors to see whether you really are offering the best value. If your website doesn’t make a clear case for why you deserve somebody’s business, they can easily find one that does.

online marketing - building relationships

I’m going to be blunt here: if your online marketing is based around a website with content you pulled together yourself, is all about you rather than your customers, and is not part of a coordinated on-line marketing plan, you might as well save yourself the maintenance and hosting charges. Here’s why.

Online Marketing – Customers Do Their Research

Increasingly, customers use the internet to research the things they want to buy. This is true in the business to consumer and business to business arenas. If a potential customer compares your site to one with content that is written from the customer’s perspective, focuses on their issues, and explains clearly the added value of their solution, where do you think they will spend their money?

Google Loves Good Content

Read any report or Google press release on the development of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and they will tell you that good quality content is the way forward. Google owns 90% of the UK internet search market and wants to ensure its users have a good experience. That’s why it is getting ever more sophisticated in its ability to distinguish between good content and poor content. The stuff it deems to be poor quality, out of date and not helpful to its users is downgraded.

Are Your Competitors Building On-Line Relationships with Your Customers?

Publishing online content such as blog articles, infographics, videos and so on is a great way to reach new customers. Publish things that people are interested in and, no surprise, they read it. Every bit of content they consume is building awareness and trust and developing the relationship. Eventually they become a new customer. ‘New’ customers, however, are rarely new in the sense that they have just started to exist. They are just new to you, which means they used to be somebody else’s.

You might think that you have a large and loyal customer base and don’t need to keep them engaged by publishing content; but do your competitors see it the same way? Are your loyal customers gradually being made aware of competitors’ offers, not through overt marketing, but by somebody continually providing them with useful, relevant and well produced information? Are your existing customers gradually turning into their ‘new’ ones.

Content Strategies Help SEO

Even if you have a great website, you still need to be thinking about a content strategy. That’s because Google rankings are increasingly influenced by the things that happen outside of your website. Not only does a content strategy help you reach a new audience, it also increases search traffic. Here’s a few reasons why:

  • A wider range of content means you can optimise for a wider range of more specific search terms.
  • Google rewards sites with regularly refreshed content – blogs are a great way to generate a flow of new content.
  • Good new content generates social media activity. Google measures these ‘social signals’ and uses them to rank your site.
  • Good new content generates good quality links back to your site. Again, Google measures these.

All the indicators point to the fact that online content is an increasingly critical factor in deciding tomorrow’s winners and losers. If you’re not already investing in content, don’t assume that your competitors are being as slow off the mark.

Image: Adam Foster via Compfight

Richard Hussey

I’m the founder of RSH Copywriting, a content development business in South West England. I help businesses develop coherent content plans and improve their on-line marketing with engaging content. Call me on 01823 674167 to see how I can help you. See More: Content Marketing South West

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Website Content – 5 Questions You Should Ask About Your Home Page

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Your website home page is likely to be the first thing somebody sees when they reach your site – your shop window, if you like. You need to create a good first impression, give people a reason to ‘come in’ and help them get to where they need to go. That’s a lot to ask for one page. That’s why as a website content writer I often find that home pages take the longest to produce.

website content south west

 

Poorly executed home pages are really setting your site up to fail at the first challenge so, if you’ve never given that much thought to yours, try these questions:

1. Does your home page make it clear what you do?

Sorry if this sounds a bit obvious but it’s amazing how often you have to wade through loads of website content about awards, history and other things that don’t matter that much to get to a simple, straightforward statement of what a company actually does. Take an honest look at yours – if you were an outsider reading the page for the first time, would you be able to grasp what you do immediately you land on the page?

2. Is it welcoming?

Department stores spend a lot of time and money on window displays – because they know this makes a difference to the number of people who decide to enter the shop. I’m the world’s worst ‘head down get it over with’ shopper, but even I get distracted by a creatively dressed shop window. If your home page is your shop window, would I stop or would I keep charging past? If your page is no more than a header image, some navigation buttons and a slab of text, is that really going to engage anyone? But don’t be tempted to be too clever or gimmicky. Rotating header images and Flash animations popping off all over the place may look clever, but are fundamentally just a distraction and, in my view, have no place in good website content.

3. Does it ‘explain the difference’?

Unless you’re very lucky there are other people who do what you do. But they won’t do it exactly the same way and there will be unique and compelling features of how you do business. Again, is the difference immediately apparent in your home page content – or do you just sound like all of your competitors?

4. Do people know where to find what they want?

Are you expecting people to work out for themselves which of the navigation buttons they need to click? Or do you make it blindingly obvious where people need to go to find the information that interests them? This is also an issue for the overall structure of your site and for planning your website content. If you have a diverse offering and work in different sectors, people need to be directed to their specific content without having to think too much about where it is. Plan your industry or service-specific pages carefully and provide easy to find links from the home page. Industry-specific images with the link can help people find their way around and give an instant visual clue that they are on a site that is relevant to them.

5. When they’ve finished reading the page, what next?

In planning your website content you should be clear about the actions you want people to take. Just make it clear what you expect. Keep your calls to action simple and super-easy to find. Bold buttons that say: ‘Click here for your on-line demo’; ‘Get a quote’; etc are hard to miss and impossible to misunderstand.

A lot of website content still seems to see the home page as ‘something that has to be there’ rather than a critical stage in the process of engaging customers. All the effort seems to go into the pages describing products and services. Not much point if nobody ever gets that far.

Richard Hussey, Owner, RSH Copywriting

Based in the South West I help smaller businesses achieve more from on-line marketing through engaging content and intelligent use of on-line publishing. See more: copywriter South West

image: Creative Commons LicensePanoramas via Compfight

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What do you think you are selling?

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Are people finding your website but not doing anything as a result?   

If people are finding you, then your SEO is probably working. I’ll assume too, that your website copy is concise and easy to understand (if it isn’t you might want to think about giving me a call).  I’ll also assume that you have something that people would want to buy. So with all this in place, you still have a website that is generating minimal sales. Perhaps the issue is with what you appear to be selling.

Website copywriting

Is your message confusing?

Karl Hab via Compfight

Let me explain.

Say you run a removals company.  Your website probably says that you offer a professional packing service, that you load everything carefully into specialist vehicles, and then move it to whatever location your customers wish in the UK or abroad.  All well and good, except there’s nothing there to distinguish you from the 10 other removal firms in your town.

Compare this to web content which is focused on showing how everything you do, from recruitment, training, investment and service is geared to making your customers’ moving day as trouble-free and enjoyable as you can possibly make it. What you’re selling is peace of mind, ‘choose us and we’ll do whatever it takes to make sure you have no stress or worry.’

Although be careful with the desire to be different. I remember seeing a removal firm which based an Adwords campaign around the slogan ‘We don’t do breakages’, which I found strange. I’d love to know if that worked.

Fancy a tooth extraction?

How about a dental surgery? I wouldn’t advise focusing too heavily on marketing the dental treatments you provide. Who really wants to buy a filling or an extraction? Perhaps stressing the benefits of a great looking smile and your customer care would be more attractive?

And copywriting? I’d love to think that people would hire me just for the satisfaction of having easy to read content on their website and blogs. In reality, of course, they want to know how what I do will increase sales and give a return on their investment.

Think of it as stripping away the functional layers of what you do, to get to the essence of why you do it and how your customers’ lives or businesses will be better as a result.

Copywriting Tone

The way you say things also matters. The tone of your content matters just as much as the way you speak to potential customers in person. Stiff and formal language would be off-putting if you want to promote yourself as a warm and caring business.

I often see website copy where I’m pretty sure the impersonal tone would do little to encourage me to take the next step on my purchasing journey. On the other hand, I recently read about a Marriott franchisee in the US who had his website copy re-written, specifically to make it warmer and more engaging. His 120 hotels consequently outperformed the rest of the brand by 35%.

The point here is that the language you use should reflect the type of business you are and the benefits you provide. And sometimes this is harder to see from the inside. If you’re worried that your website copy might be the reason you don’t convert hits into business, why not ask  friends, business associates, or even a copywriter, to give you an honest opinion.

The difference between a website that sells and one that doesn’t is often the difference between copy that engages and convinces, rather than copy that just describes.

Two questions about your website content

If your website isn’t delivering the results you expected, despite getting plenty of hits, ask yourself two questions: is the copy telling people what I am really offering them? And, do I talk to customers in the same way that the copy is written?  A ‘no’ to either of these could be bad news for your business.

If you’re concerned that your website copy might be costing you business please get in touch using the contact tab on the left. I’ll happily give you my opinion free of charge.

You might also find these helpful:

Websites are for customers, not for you.

Four steps to more effective writing.

 

 

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Fred has a Bash at Content Marketing

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Fred has a business. It’s not huge but it makes him a reasonable living. He has big plans
to grow from his current £400k turnover. He knows marketing is the key to improving market share and targets a new website and content marketing as the way forward. Let’s see how he gets on.

CMS not designing with real data

Latin - great for Ancient Romans - not great for websites

Photo Credit: Juhan Sonin via Compfight

January – commissioning a website

Fred realises that he needs to hire a web designer: ‘I can do most things but I know my limitations.’ A few whiz-bang presentations later he chooses Barney, who he knows will give him a great looking site, content management system and bundles of functionality.

February – website development starts

Barney puts together a detailed project plan and a few design ideas to get things moving. He also asks the question he has been dreading: ‘What about the content – who’s doing that?’

‘Don’t worry’ says Fred. I can take care of that. ‘I can describe what we do and get a few testimonials, no problem. Anyway, by the time I’ve briefed somebody else I might as well do it myself.’

‘Hmm’ says Barney.

March – now, about that content marketing idea

Fred has told Betty, one of the sales staff, that she’s going to write blog posts (she usually has an odd half-hour free every week), and needs to learn about Twitter. ‘Oh and get yourself some more LinkedIN connections, pronto – we’re going to need those.’

Barney reports that most of the site is built and asks how the content is coming on.

April – the website is built

Fred is very happy with how the new site looks. ‘I’m a bit busy this week, but I can knock the words out for you by the end of next week.’

‘Hmm’ says Barney.

May – Betty does her first blog post

Betty is a great salesperson and loves meeting customers face-to-face. Great at building relationships and closing deals. She hates writing. Eventually she forces herself to put aside a couple of hours to write the first post for the blog. It’s all about the company and the great things they do. It’s tweeted and posted on LinkedIN. Nobody reads it.

June – still no website content

Fred: ‘By the end of the month – I promise.’ ‘OK’ says Barney. ‘And don’t forget to include those keywords we discussed.’

Betty has a major proposal to write for Wilma, a regular and valued customer. So no time to write a blog post this month, ‘phew!’

July – the web content arrives!

Fred made sure he got this done before he went on holiday – the night before in fact. ‘I put plenty of those keywords in – hope I didn’t overdo it.’

August – the website goes live

Barney had to edit the content a bit as the keyword density was about 10% and he knows that Google won’t like that. He doesn’t think the rest of the content is very strong and is concerned that this will make the site less effective.

‘Don’t worry’ says Fred. ‘Just get the site up – we can tweak the words later using that content management system.’

‘Hmm’ says Barney.

September – back to the content marketing

Not having enough time to write blog posts, Betty is concentrating on tweeting to raise the company profile and build relationships, tweeting about all sorts of things. The weather, where she’s going for the weekend, the pedestrianisation of Exeter Fore Street – fascinating stuff.

December – time to review progress

There have been a few more hits on the website – mainly out of curiosity following emails and letters to existing contacts. There are 200 Twitter followers – mostly people who feel strongly about pedestrianisation in Exeter.

Increased sales £0

Staff time cost: £4000

Web design cost: £1500

Net effect -£5500

‘What a failure’  says Fred. ‘Thank heavens we didn’t waste even more money on a copywriter or somebody to look after the content marketing’.

‘Hmm’ says Barney.

And Finally…  there is another way

If you prefer an approach to content writing and content marketing that will bring results look at my cost-effective solutions HERE, spread the set-up costs over the first year. Complete the contact form by clicking the tab on the left or call me on 01823 674167

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The More Your Website Content Pleases You – the Less Effective it Could Be

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Who decides what goes in your website content? You? A select group of senior managers? Delegating the content to a small, focused group of decision makers is great for consistency and efficiency. And possibly the worst decision you could make.

Let me explain.

The purpose of your website is to communicate with the outside world. Write it to please yourself and you’re missing the point. Worse still, you’re probably missing countless sales opportunities too. The people who really understand what needs to be in your website content are your customers – and the staff who are dealing directly with them.

I was recently looking at the website of a company selling telephone and communications systems. The content was clear and gave all the information you could ever want on the capabilities and specifications of the systems they were selling. But I’m willing to bet that such things are not the main reasons why customers choose one service provider over another – particularly when there are dozens of providers who could meet their technical requirements.

Website content is for customers

I’m convinced that a bit of research with existing customers would yield a different story and a different message for the website content. If you understood the critical factors that made your customers choose you over a competitor – wouldn’t you want to emphasize those for anyone else that looks at your site?

And what about your sales team? Every sale - particularly solution sales like IT and  telecoms, will have some critical decision points during the process. Taking the time to analyse and document these before chasing the next sale provides a rich seam of persuasive website and marketing copy. How often does this happen? Yet a relatively simple debriefing process could be all it takes.

One argument for hiring a freelancer to write your web content is that they come to the project with no preconceived ideas about your business. It’s often easier for an external, impartial professional to get to the heart of why people really choose to do business with you.

Good marketing is specific

Say you were looking for an accountant to look after your tax returns. Most of them say ‘we save our clients money by ensuring they claim all their available allowances.’ Another says: ‘On average we save our clients £457 on their tax bill by identifying allowances they didn’t realise they could claim.’

The second is clearly more persuasive. The actual figure is irrelevant (but must be true, obviously). The fact that a specific figure can be quoted adds weight to the claim and differentiates you from the mass of companies making similar claims.

If your product or service saves customers money, find out how much they have saved and make sure you tell anyone else who might be considering doing business with you. Perhaps what you sell is more expensive than your competitors – people may still buy from you because you provide better overall value. If so, talk to your customers to understand fully what ‘value’ really means to them and build your website content around that message.

A final thought;  phone a couple of recent customers today (or get me to do it for you) and ask them to give a couple of specific reasons why they did business with you. The difference between what they tell you and the message that you are giving on your website is a measure of the opportunity you are missing.

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Think Before You Flash

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How often do you find corporate websites that make it harder than necessary for you to concentrate on the written content? There you are making a genuine attempt to work out what this company does and how it might enrich your life or business, but your eye keeps being drawn away. The source of this distraction? A completely unnecessary Flash animation either in the mast-head or somewhere on the page.

Think for a moment about portal sites and message boards. These virtually always have little adverts popping up all around the screen. These are dynamic because that movement is designed to distract your eye from what you want to read on to what somebody else wants you to read. Fair enough; but why would you want to distract your own customers in this way?

There are still companies and web designers who seem to be married to using animations seemingly ‘to show that we can’, or because they like the technology. But if you think about the people visiting your site and how you want them to interact with it, animations may not always add to their enjoyment or satisfaction.

Animations have a place. Even a copywriter like me would accept that some information is communicated more clearly through video or moving graphics. You may even have a particular special offer that you want to make sure they notice. But if these pop up without users requesting them, it can be a bit like an oncoming car flashing its headlights for no apparent reason.

Your website should be putting across a message. Design and content need to work sympathetically to maximise the impact of this message. If you distract your readers with gimmicks – no matter how clever- don’t be surprised if they give up in frustration.

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A Gallery Without Pictures

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Imagine this: a new art gallery opens in your town and a conversation with the Director goes something like the following:

‘It’s a fantastic facility, totally state of the art, climate controlled, interactive, specially designed lighting to mimic the unique lighting experienced in Newlyn. And built with sustainable technology to have a carbon footprint the size of a sparrow.’

‘Yes, it’s certainly an impressive building – but I can’t help noticing there aren’t many pictures.’

‘Well no. I’ll be honest with you we got a bit carried away with the building and quite forgot about any exhibits.  But it still looks fantastic doesn’t it?  Anyway, the team rallied round and knocked out a few drawings to fill up some of the space. And Mavis kindly donated her picture of Dawlish seafront made from different pasta shapes – good isn’t it?’

OK, obviously I made this up. But, in truth, it’s not much different to how many businesses treat their websites; prepared to spend on impressive looking design, technical wizardry and so on, but not giving enough consideration to what they are going to fill it with.

Content matters. You could argue that content – or your message – is the whole point of the site.  The site itself is just a means of carrying that message and displaying it to maximum effect. Content should be much more than an afterthought – it is the starting point for truly effective websites.

How long would you spend in a gallery without pictures? How long do you think people will spend on your website if what they find there is poorly written and not very interesting?

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What Does A Copywriter Do?

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This is a question I often get asked at business networking events.  Sometimes this is followed by me clarifying that it is nothing to do with intellectual property.  Copywriting and copyright – not the same thing but an understandable confusion, I suppose.

This type of confusion may explain why the difference that a professional Copywriter can make to your business is not always fully appreciated.  People rarely question the value of hiring a Web Designer – they self-evidently have technical and creative skills that smaller businesses often lack.  But writing seems to be different.

Business owners and leaders have a detailed understanding of what their businesses do.  And, because we all learn to write at school, putting that understanding together as the content for the website or corporate brochure isn’t something they feel they need to pay somebody to do.

There are a couple of problems here.  The first is time.  Many Designers I have spoken to express frustration that customers who generate their own copy usually struggle to find time to put content together alongside their other responsibilities.  Deadlines get compressed and quality suffers as a result.

More importantly, however, a professional will do the job better. It is often easy to spot websites where companies have produced their own copy.  Assuming there are no spelling and grammar mistakes (not always the case, sadly), content is often quite a long description of everything that the company does.

Often, the first thing a Copywriter does is decide what doesn’t need to be written at all.  Any publication or website needs a clear purpose and message – anything not directly related to that is just clutter.  A Copywriter will work with you to identify the critical messages about your business.  A Copywriter will also try to look at your products or services through your customers’ eyes: what benefits and selling points are going to address their issues? What language will they find compelling?

Providing information and communicating are not the same thing.  Communication is about organising information and using language in a way that enhances the reader’s understanding and inspires them to do something.  This is the essence of what a Copywriter does.

To paraphrase Eric Morecambe: we use the right words in the right order to help organisations improve their sales and performance.  Put like that, it doesn’t seem quite so dispensable, does it?

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