Small Business Marketing

I post my copywriting blogs on Facebook too, and it’s funny, I tend to get more comments in that space than in my actual blog. Yesterday I was asked an interesting question via a Facebook comment, one I thought best addressed in a blog. So here goes…

Chris, a small business owner asked: “When I seek out a marketing agent/SEO agent, what do I need to be prepared with for my first meeting with you? What would you like to see from your clients? What are your ideal clients? What can we, as business owners, expect from you and how can we best utilize you and not waste both of our times?”

Even though I’m a copywriter who knows words, truly responding to these questions would take more than one blog post. J But I’ll do the best I can.

For me, as a Web site copywriter and SEO copywriter, my questions in that initial meeting are: Who goes to your Web site? Why? How do they get there, via search engine or your other marketing or word of mouth or some other way? What do they want to do when they get there? What problem are they trying to solve?

Knowing the problem they are trying to solve is critical, because that will determine what keywords they are searching with. For example, I was recently the Web site copywriter for a footwear company. You’d think your keywords would be about footwear, right? But these slippers and shoes help people with foot pain, so really the best keywords are the ones that have to do with the problem the consumer is trying to solve, not the solution (i.e. the shoes).

With SEO as with other copywriting, in my opinion at least, the customer is first. You have to be focused on the customer: what are their pain points, how do they think about the problem, are they even aware they have a problem, what words do they use, etc.

For a really easy to use keyword research tool, go to SEO Tools at http://tools.seobook.com/keyword-tools/seobook/. There you type in the keyword you want to research, and it also gives you variations on that keyword.

To answer Chris’ questions more directly: For the first meeting, know your customer and what they are buying, not what you are selling. The more you know about your customer, the better the job your Web site copywriter will do for you. Ideal clients pay attention to the customer’s world view than their own. As copywriting clients, you can expect, from me at least, input not just on SEO and keywords and Web site copywriting, but also site navigation, types of content to include, a plan for keeping content fresh, and of course a very strong recommendation that you use blogs as marketing tools and for SEO to drive traffic to your Web site.

If your Web site copywriter only writes copy and plugs in a few keywords, but doesn’t have any input into the other aspects of your Web site, I’d be nervous.