Web Site Copywriter

You can market your business on the Internet without being or using an online copywriter. Use press releases  and an online press room. And here’s how, in an article written a couple of years ago by Marina Parr, when she worked for We Know Words as a copywriter. It’s great advice for anyone with a Web site who wants to improve their SEO! So here it is again…

Who needs on online press room? You do. But the reasons go beyond reaching the media and gaining coverage in next day's newspaper. These days a press room is just as much a "customer room" as it is a place aimed at journalists. Build one correctly, and you're able to use online press releases to tell your company's story directly to whoever is searching on the Web, boosting your credibility with both media and your potential customers. And with customers shopping online for everything from flowers to shoes to cars to enterprise management systems, they are just as likely to end up researching you at your press room as the reporter at the local paper.

Fact is, your online press room's real power is in boosting your visibility on the Web, a cluttered place where search engines crawl through content everyday looking for new, updated information. It's the kind of information that you can naturally add to your press room through online press releases, recent articles and awards, and much more without using and online copywriter or SEO copywriter. So not only are you telling your story to Wesiteb visitors and journalists alike, but your press room's fresh, search engine friendly content is helping people find you in the first place by using press releases for SEO.

An online press room, at its heart, is all about you. It's your best chance to use online press releases to tell your story from all angles, whether it's facts and figures, photos and bios, or logos and slogans. Configure it correctly and fresh content will build your web presence, help the media "get it right" when writing about you and help you connect directly with customers who may not have been looking for you in particular, but will be glad they found you! And you'll be glad to find out you can achieve that kind of SEO without using an online copywriter.

Now that you're convinced you'd benefit from online press releases and a press room, here are nine tips to help you build one relatively quickly and painlessly (really).

Nine tips for building an online press room that builds your online presence

Tip 1: Consider your online press room as an extended About Us page. This is your opportunity to present facts and figures-from when you started your business to where you're located to how many people you employ. It's also a place to flesh out your company's philosophy, give kudos to key employees, note awards you've won and post articles that have been written about you-or in some cases, for you.

Tip 2: You can pump up your online presence further by using press releases for SEO, sprinkling keywords that people naturally search on into the online press release copy you post. It's a simple way to boost your search engine rankings-and get found.

Tip 3: And when you suddenly have a story to tell, your press room positions you to communicate directly with the media, giving journalists instant access to critical information about your company. In addition to being used in online press releases, that information can be boiled down into two to three sentences for journalists to copy and paste into their own stories with little editing. It makes it that much easier for you to help the news media define who you are, rather than them defining you.

Tip 4: Even though you're using press releases for SEO, this is still online PR. Make sure your press room includes all the ingredients the media needs to write and report their stories. That means including key contact information--both email addresses and phone numbers--so reporters on a deadline can reach the right people right away. Also be sure to include a corporate bio and include basic data, including when the company was founded, the number of employees, location, gross annual revenue and other objective, background information that can be dropped into a story.

Tip 5: Think in terms of pictures when thinking about online PR. Nothing tells your story better than pictures that add a human element. So be sure to include photos of founders, directors and other key players. It also helps to have a jpg of your logo, as well as a scenic shot of your operations. Again, you help shape your story by providing reporters with the photos you choose.

Tip 6: Both in your online press releases and your press room, offer easy-to-find links to other information customers or reporters might be looking for: information about the company and its principals, information about your product or service such as product sheets or case studies, recent articles written about your company, etc. An online press room has to be straightforward and not overly salesy. Reporters will spot the hard sell and click away, and so will regular customers who happen to wander into the press room, either on purpose or by chance.

Tip 7: To use press releases for SEO, regularly create online press releases and submit them via an online service like PR Newswire. Or simply add them to your site as separate pages, and link to them from your press room. Regularly can be just twice a year, if necessary, just make sure it's regular (keeping in mind that they more frequently you update content on your Web site, the happier the search engines will be with you). And even if you don't spend the money to submit them online, still add them to your Web site. It shows both prospects and search engines that you keep your site current. After all, these days your online press releases about getting covered in the New York Times; as they're about telling your story to a potential customer as much as to a journalist.

Tip 8: Include a descriptive sentence or two with links to your online press releases, so journalists and regular folks know what they're clicking on. Too many press rooms provide long lists of press releases without enough supporting information telling someone why they should click on a link and what they'll find if they do. Without that summary information, visitors won't bother to click-and you miss the chance to enhance how you're viewed and written about.

Tip 9: Don't treat your online press room as a last-minute afterthought. Think of it instead as a portal to the rest of your Web site-and your company's credibility. Your press room can be-and should be-one of your most information rich, keyword loaded, always changing sections of your Web site. Your press room is also your opportunity to provide visitors a more personal look at you, your employees and your company. And because people don't always enter Web sites through the home page, prospects searching online for information might find your online press room first. So make the most of it by giving it plenty of your attention.

In short, your online press room is really a full view of you and your company, as well as a tool for SEO. Think of yourself in front of the dressing room mirror and take advantage of every angle-from the pictures you post to the articles to the press releases you use for SEO to a three-sentence corporate summary that can be quickly copied and pasted. You're in charge of how you present yourself…and how you get found online in the first place. The power is in your hands. Use it!

And if you find that this sounds too hard and you do want to hire an online copywriter or SEO copywriter to help, go for it. That or use blogs as marketing tools instead!

Note: This Seattle copywriter has been cleaning up a very cluttered We Know Words copywriting Web site. I’ve deleted a ton of files and pages and consolidated and made it much more manageable. I see now what Gerry McGovern means by being a “putter upper.” If blogs had been as easy (and if I’d understood them as well) back in 2002, I would have built a blog to market my copywriter services, not a Web site! Anyway, as I streamline the We Know Words Web site, I find stuff I don’t want to get rid of, so I’m moving it here to this copywriting blog instead. Plus I came across this little plug, and realized I might not have ever plugged my marketing tips ebook in this copywriting blog, oops! OK, enough preface…

Most small business owners can't afford professional marketing help. Nor do they know enough about marketing to do it well. That's why I compiled this ebook, "Marketing in a Minute."

Small business owners want to grow their companies. But growth requires sales, and sales require marketing, and many small business owners struggle with marketing... and time. So they don't necessarily have the skills, nor do they have the time to learn how to do the marketing.

That's where these marketing tips come in. They are short, easy to digest and easy to apply. Without investing in any expensive marketing program. "Marketing in a Minute" offers 104 such marketing tips, written for the realities of small business budget and time constraints.

So where does a marketing ebook crammed full of 104 marketing tips come from? Does one just sit down and write it? Not in this case. It took years to create this book...

In 2002, I took my copywriting prowess and started writing weekly tips and dispensing them via email to small business owners who desperately needed marketing help but couldn't afford to hire a marketing agency like We Know Words. The marketing tips were deliberately short and basic, but offered new ideas for those too focused on running a business to be a real marketer. The tips were nothing fancy, just text and just enough to fit in one's Preview screen. They covered print, Web writing, email marketing and more. I dubbed them "Sharon's Marketing Minutes" and made sure each one could be read in a minute or less. (Hence the title, "Marketing in a Minute.")

I wrote the weekly tips for almost 2 1/2 years until I ran out of time, but not out of ideas. The feedback was always so positive, and more than one subscriber confessed to archiving the marketing tips for future reference. When I announced that I was going to stop writing the marketing tips due to lack of time, many subscribers emailed to say, "Put the tips together in a book."

It took years, but most of the marketing tips are now gathered together into one extremely useful resource for small business owners and those in charge of marketing for a small business.

Working on a recent project as the Website copywriter, I submitted a draft of the home page of the Website to the design firm so they could build comps around it. The initial designs came back with my copy, but with a big ol’ “Welcome to our Web site” headline towering over my carefully crafted, attention getting headline.

As a Website copywriter, I obviously write a lot of Websites. As a consumer and marketer, I obviously see a lot of Websites.

And I do not get the whole Welcome thing. That home page is valuable real estate. You have three seconds to convince a site visitor to stick around and click around. (And this is true for every page of your Web site if those Website visitors are finding you via search engines and SEO.)

It is assumed they are welcome. Otherwise you wouldn’t have a Website, right? You’d have an intranet. You wouldn’t be visible to the whole World Wide Web.

Your headline has to work really hard. It has to grab that visitor’s attention. It should, you hope, include a keyword phrase. It should make the Website visitor want to see what else is on this page.

Don’t scream “Welcome,” you’re wasting your three seconds of opportunity. Instead scream “You want to know more!” OK, not that. But those big, bold words should be engaging, enticing, encouraging them to stay and see what your Website has to offer.

I had to fight the designers to get that banner welcome text removed and my own headline, which I had labored over, thank you very much, inserted in its place. And that shouldn’t happen, for a couple of reasons. One, I am the Website copywriter. Let me do my job. Two, even Website designers should understand the importance of that three second opportunity that your home page presents when a visitor lands there.

Listen to your Website copywriter. Or let your marketing team or Website designer use the tiresome welcome. The choice is yours…and it’s your site visitor’s choice to click the Back button when they find no immediate reason to stick around.

Have you ever met someone and liked them but figured they didn’t like you? This happens in the dating world all the time, right? But marketers do this without meaning to, telling prospects “We don’t want you” with their words, even though what they really want is to turn them into customers…

Last summer at a party I did not plan on attending, I met someone who gave every indication of not being interested. I hadn’t even planned on attending this party. Worse, I wasn’t even invited. I was supposed to be somewhere else, as I drove home from the barn where I boarded my horse, dusty and sweaty. But my cell phone rang with the persuading voice of a friend promising this party would cheer me up and there would be single men. For the record, that night single men were the reason for my glum mood, so that wasn’t enticing, but the cheerful note in my friend’s voice assured me this would take my mind off my troubles.

I arrived at the party, not knowing a soul but the one friend, and not getting any help from him as he flirted his way through the female portion of the crowd. That was okay, I kind of wanted to keep to myself anyway. But there was one guy I thought cute, and as the night wore on, I engineered myself to be sitting by the fire pit with him when no one else was around. Well, that didn’t matter. His body language, his obvious unwillingness to engage in conversation, the fact that he never asked me a thing but only curtly answered the questions I tossed out there all told me “not interested.” No problem! I climbed in the hot tub with a bunch of strangers and didn’t’ think anything of it.

The irony is, later this guy asked my one friend about me, and ended up calling me and asking me out on a date. When I asked him about that night, and told him I thought he was cold as ice and didn’t give any indication at all that he liked me, he said, “That was me being interested.” Like I’m supposed to figure that out!

But, people. Marketers do this all the time. We sit across the fire pit, at a party, under the influence of alcohol in a fun, Friday evening environment…and turn people off. We do! Our words do! Our words can be horribly narcissistic and make the prospect think all we’re really saying is “go away.”

That’s why your copywriting and message are so critical! When someone lands at your Web site, or gets your email, or pulls your direct mail out of the mailbox, or even checks out your Facebook page, your message needs to speak to them, tell them you want them, tell them you are interested in them as a customer.

Plenty of businesses make the mistake of the guy at the party. They don’t talk my talk, they don’t give any indication they are interested in ME, they simply fold their arms and lean back. Then they complain about prospects (i.e. women) and never look at what they’re doing to cause the disconnect.

Be engaging, marketers. Make sure your copywriting engages, that it talks to your potential customer, not at her. That it tells her, “I’m interested, I really am interested.”

This morning I realized there are seven bottles of shampoo in my shower. This is odd for two reasons: 1) only two people live in my house right now, and 2) I only just noticed and counted the bottles…which have been there for a while. A long while.

This is noteworthy and relevant because those shampoo bottles are like your marketing: easy to ignore. I don’t know how long I’ve been showering surrounded by seven bottles of shampoo (and two conditioner containers). I’m sure these bottles were collected gradually. But until I knocked one over and became aware of the astounding number, it didn’t register that we had such a buildup. That’s because I was so used to all of those bottles that I stopped seeing them.

This happens in marketing all the time. When your copywriting reads the same as the six other Web sites your prospect just looked at, you become just one more unseen shampoo bottle, taking up space and not getting noticed. Ditto for your direct mail, your email marketing, even your blog.

Don’t be just another shampoo bottle hoping to get noticed. Be different, stand out, and get noticed instead.

Yesterday I read an email marketing blog post on surprising your readers, that that’s a type of “relevance,” anticipating their needs, wants or desires by offering them something unexpected but welcome. This is a classic “marketing is like dating” scenario.

It reminded me of a man I dated who was a single dad with full custody of his kids. He could spot things that needed doing as soon as he walked into my house in a way another man couldn’t, because his experience running a household made him aware. I kid you not, this guy amazed me. He was usually early to pick me up, I was usually late to be ready. One typical day when this happened, I had a pile of laundry on the dining room table waiting to be folded. I came around the corner into the dining room, and there he was folding the laundry and thinking nothing of it. Other times he’d step right in to help with dishes. I certainly appreciated his help but I was also struck by his awareness. I can honestly say that he’s the only guy I’ve dated who folded laundry unsolicited! And it delighted me!

As a marketer and copywriter, you too can delight your customers and prospects. Consider Amazon.com’s recommendations, or ecommerce Web sites that suggest other items you might like based on what you’re looking at. Offline, maybe it’s a birthday card with a special offer, an unexpected coupon for a timely item like lemonade during a hot spell. To get more in-depth, how about a whitepaper or tip sheet that clearly explains an issue that frustrates your customers? Or add some particularly useful articles links to your Web site. Or…

If you want to delight your customer/date, the first step is to be aware, to think about things from the perspective of your target audience. Anticipate the need. Get out of your head and into hers. Once you do that, you’ll spot opportunities for marketing and copywriting that might not be as hands-on as folding laundry, but will be equally appreciated.

Got a dating or marketing story to share, good, bad, or ugly? Post a comment, and let me know if you want it kept private or not. J

This Seattle copywriter is finally updating the We Know Words web site. It's a running joke that I need to hire a website copywriter to keep the web site maintained! But a pleasant lull in the copywriting business is making the update doable.

Part of the update is simplifying the site since I now rely more on blogs as marketing tools. (More on that in my next blog.) But I as a copywriter have a tendency to get a little fond of copy. As a result, I'm posting an article on email newsletters here since it's being deleted off the copywriting web site. It's an oldie but goodie and maybe a bit unusal to spot here since I've become such an evangelist for blogs as marketing tools. Why would I be encouraging the use of email newsletters? Granted they are not necessarily the best choice for small business marketing, but for the right size business, and right business, email newsletters are still great for marketing, even in an age of social media. Enough explaining, here's the article...

Market with email newsletters
Perhaps the hardest part of marketing is to keep doing it. The irony is, this is also one of the most important. One contact with a potential customer is less effective than repeated contacts over time. We also live in a world of skepticism and doubt, a world where trust matters more than price when people make buying decisions.

To market effectively, you need to establish and nurture a relationship with a prospect. Ditto for existing customers: Once someone has bought from you, don't assume she'll be back someday. You must stay in touch with her on a regular basis so she'll think of you next time she's ready to buy, and possibly refer you to others in the meantime.

So how do you stay in touch with your past, present and potential customers on a regular basis? E-newsletters. An e-newsletter is perhaps the most effective and cost-effective way to build and maintain relationships that earn their trust. And trust is crucial to sales.

E-newsletters reinforce your other marketing efforts too by:

·         Driving traffic to your Web site through links and special offers.

·         Establishing credibility and positioning your business as a leader and resource.

·         Improving your search engine rankings: Archiving the newsletters on your Web site adds to your content, and search engines love good content!

So why are we suggesting email rather than print? It's cheaper than printing and mailing a hardcopy version, for one thing. Plus you don't know if a snail-mailed newsletter even gets read or if it goes straight into the recycling bin. With an emailed newsletter, you can know right away how many people opened it and even how many clicked on a URL to go to your Web site. Email marketing also gets a higher response rate than direct mail: 10-15% compared to 1-2%.

Of course, as with all good marketing, your results depend on doing your e-newsletter correctly. Newsletters that are infrequent, boring, purely promotional, or sent to people who didn't ask to hear from you only harm your marketing efforts. But do your email newsletter right, and you will reap the rewards of that ongoing contact as you build relationships, earn trust…and make sales.

I’ve been thinking about communication and how you can keep saying the same thing over and over and not get heard. And the implications when you consider marketing is like dating.

Ever been in a relationship and had trouble communicating? Or understanding your partner? It happens. People have differing communication styles. The meaning of words, tone of voice, body language and even the topics of discussion can vary greatly between people. It’s not for lack of trying. We want to communicate. We are humans, after all, social beings. And that can lead to frustration when we feel like we’re not getting heard, or conversely, not understanding the other person.

Think of a time when you felt like the person you were dating just wasn’t listening. Argh! How frustrating is that?

Now remember a time when you met someone, or went on that first date, and you clicked. You could practically finish each other’s sentences, and delighted in the conversation because you were communicating so clearly.

How fun was that? You probably kept on dating that person, right?

That’s what you want your marketing to do: to click with that prospect, to make that instant connection that makes the prospect feel like she’s being heard.

Your marketing can do that when the message is relevant and timely…and when you recognize when it’s not working. Marketing is like dating.

Back to the analogy of the date with two people not communicating. If one of them could recognize what was happening and change their words or tone or topic to try and match how the other person seemed to be hearing them, they just might have a breakthrough and end up thoroughly enjoying their date (or relationship, if the dating has been going well!).

Same with your marketing. If it ain’t working, it is broken, and you gotta fix it! If your email marketing copywriting got poor results, change it. If your Web site copywriting isn’t converting, change it. If your direct mail copywriting bombed, change it.

You’ll save yourself frustration, and your prospect will appreciate being talked to, not at…and will maybe become someone you can continue to “date” with your marketing and ultimately a customer.

Stories are compelling. Stories are how people passed along knowledge, lore and culture for thousands of years before the written word. If you have children, you know how compelling stories can be: There are some stories kids can’t hear enough. (I used to know “The Little Engine that Could” by heart, I read it so many times to my son when he was little.) Even longer books keep kids engaged: “Wolf Story” is a chapter book I read dozens of times to Evan, then later to his sister.

Or think about a dinner party: Who’s the most entertaining guest? The story teller, the one who spins the yarns while everyone listens and laughs.

Whether you're marketing your small business, freelancing as a Website copywriter or SEO copywritier, or focused on blogs as marketing tools, you should be telling stories every chance you get.

It’s part of what I call Indirect Marketing. The soft sell. The nuance. The influence. You tell a story about, say, a customer, and other potential customers will relate to that customer’s story much more than they’ll relate to you talking about you.

Here’s an example from the University of Washington Foster School of Business Web site, telling a story about how one person is involved at the corporate level to get other C-level executives interested in getting involved with the school too. The story is about Bill Ayer, CEO of Alaska Airlines, and his personal and business involvement with the school. By telling his story, we’re encouraging other execs to picture themselves there too, playing a similar role and getting a similar benefit.

Stories happen all around you all the time. You just have to get your antenna tuned to notice them. Then, guess the best place for your stories? Your Web site definitely, maybe your email newsletter if you do one, but your blog is the best place for your stories. Your stories can start there, in your blog, where it’s easy to post them. Then they can morph into Web content, printed content, an article in your email newsletter, etc. But if you’re blogging and constantly scratching your head, while at the same time using blogs as marketing tools, start telling your stories!

And you’ll be a hit at the next dinner party too.

p.s. Yes, I wrote the  Bill Ayer story after interviewing him. Delightful person and the only person I've ever met who talks faster than I do!

I would like to request a copy of your e-marketing book.  I thoroughly enjoy your Web site...such great information. Each morning I look forward to reading new posts on your Blog, and if not a new post...a previous one.  We are in the process of redesigning our Web site and the information you provide has been very helpful. Yes...you “extremely bright, talented, informed and fun” women may indeed be the best copywriting agency on the West coast J

Lynn Mitchell

Woodland Scenics

How many times has a prospect told this Seattle copywriter their site was optimized for search, and it wasn’t? Enough times that I could get rich off the “if I had a dollar every time…” way of thinking.

If you want a quick and easy way to know if your website—or your competitor's—is optimized for search, go to the website and look in the very upper left-hand corner. That white text in the blue bar along the top is the Title (created in the html using a Title tag). If it says simply Home, or About Us, or the company name, that website is not optimized for search. I don’t care how many keywords might be plugged into the body copy, that Title tag matters for SEO. (It also mattes when people are searching for you as it is THE text that shows up in the search results! But that's another copywriting topic for another day.)

I’m happy to say Old Friend Footwear finally got their long awaited site launched, and it’s a great example of SEO copywriting! Go to www.oldfriendslipper.com and check out the Title tags on that site. Plus they were willing to work with me to have lots of pages of content (oh, guess I should clarify: I was the SEO copywriter for this project! J), and more content means more opportunities for SEO.

They were also great to work with because they let me do my SEO copywriting without any “vanity” keywords, i.e. those keywords the client wants to win but has no chance at without a lot of money and effort. We have a lot of great long tail keywords, meaning keywords made up of three or more words. And we have a plan for adding content over time. The perfect Website copywriter client!

On top of all that, Old Friend Footwear believes in blogs as marketing tools. Now that the site is live, we’ll start blogging for SEO, using relevant keywords, winning searches, and driving traffic to the site. I look forward to reporting on their small business blogging success!  

Every page of your Website is a potential “home” page. That’s because any one of your Website pages could be the one that shows up in the search engine results page (SERP) when someone is searching online.

For example, type Seattle copywriter into Google and it’s not the We Know Words home page that shows up on page one of the SERPs, it’s a page within my site.

When working with your Website copywriter (or me), remember that each page must be able to stand alone. When a visitor lands at any page on your Website, they should still get a sense for where they are, what they’ll find, and what to do next.

With or without your copywriter, review each page of your Website and make sure it stands alone, and it includes at least one call to action to do something or to click to another page on your Website.

And along those lines, regarding a call to action, make sure every page is selling. As a freelance Website copywriter, I like to figure out one key action we’d like visitors to take, and to call that out on every page. See for example www.agrmarketingsolutions.com. Our primary goal is to get people to schedule a discovery call. So every single page of the Website includes that call to action in the sidebar.

Whether you’re focused on small business marketing or a huge ecommerce production, search engine optimization or blogs as marketing tools, you can easily make sure every page is a landing page, and every page is selling.

And if you want an objective eye reviewing your Website, ping this Website copywriter at sharon@weknowwords.com. I'll do a Website assessment to determine how well each of your pages is doing its job. Because in this competitive economy, you can't afford wasted space, even in cyber space. Every Web page has to do its job. And that job is to help you sell.

This Website copywriter's blog topics are often prompted by current copywriting projects. Right now I’m working on a small business Website copywriting project that’s requiring a lot of education…and all we’ve worked on so far is the home page.

People get confused about the real job of a Website’s home page. It’s not going to sell or convert. But it should get visitors deeper into your Website…and that’s the home page’s job. It should be short and concise and direct enough to tell someone at a glance what you’re offering, and compelling enough to get someone to click on a link to dig deeper.

As a Website copywriter, I think of home pages as doorways. A visitor knocks on your door when they land at your home page. You want to invite them in and have them accept the invitation. Then you can start leading them down the path to conversion, whether that conversion is to buy, to register, to subscribe, etc.

That means your home page has to be very targeted, another area where clients have trouble understanding how Website copywriting works.

If you have one main audience, one ideal type of customer, you’re better off speaking to that specific group with your home page rather than watering down your message trying to be all things to all people in just 150 words.

I once read words of wisdom that will stick with me always: Would you rather have one client who pays you what you’re worth or two clients who don’t? (I think it’s from a book called “Your money or your life.”) Every single time I’ve asked a small business client that question—and I do when they want to confuse, clutter and water down their message—they always, always answer “one client who pays me what I’m worth.”

If you try and make your home page work for a bunch of potential clients, you’re speaking to the masses and you’re less likely to get that one client. If you speak directly to that one client, you’re more likely to get him/her/it.

You also lose credibility when you try to be all things to all people on your home page.

So next time you sit down with your Website copywriter (or if you choose to work with me on your Website), remember these things about your home page:

·         It’s a doorway into your Website

·         It should tell your ideal audience what you offer at a glance

·         It should be the right balance between concise and compelling

And now this Website copywriter must stop preaching, er, I mean blogging and get back to copywriting!

 Don’t believe customers are narcissists? Today doing keyword research for a Website copywriter client, I typed “restaurant” into the SEO Book tool http://tools.seobook.com/keyword-tools/seobook/. I had to laugh when I saw an estimated 175 searches per day in Google for the phrase “restaurants near me.” Not restaurants in Seattle, or restaurants near a certain ZIP code, just “near me.”

Keep this in mind when copywriting your Web site, or overseeing your Website copywriter. People are narcissists. It’s not anything bad I’m saying about consumers, it’s true of all of us (although admittedly some more than others!). But we all are the center of our own universes, as my friend Lisa once said. As marketers and copywriters, we gotta get our heads out of our %$#@s and put the customer first, not ourselves.

This is particular true online where marketing tends to be self serve. Whether you’re revamping, evaluating or starting from scratch, make sure you’re building and copywriting your Web site to:

• Meet your customer’s needs first, yours second
• Have your copywriter use words that will resonate with your customers
• Use keywords your customers actually use, not the ones you assume they’ll use
• Delight your customers by being appropriate, relevant and easy…this includes navigation, the words used for buttons and links, the ease of your forms, and more

Still not a customer-centric Web site after all that? Your Web site is your online sales person, or should be. Maybe you could watch your sales people in action to see how they put the customer first. Then apply those principles to your Web site?

One of my favorite services I offer as a copywriter is Web site assessments. That means I review an existing Web site to assess how well it’s meeting the business’ goals and the customer’s goals. In all the years I’ve been doing these Web site assessments, I’ve yet to review a Web site that didn’t have room for improvement to serve the customer better.

Want this freelance Website copywriter and marketing maven to take a look at your Web site? Just say the word: sharon@weknowwords.com.

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.

Why are so many small businesses so slow to start blogging? Why aren’t small business marketing consultants encouraging them to do so? This morning I’m reviewing a prospect’s marketing plan in order to come up with a copywriting estimate for her. I recognize the name of the marketing consultant who created the marketing plan. And I’m disappointed to see she suggested this small business do the same old, same old kind of marketing…especially given that this small business wants to be found in search engines.

Getting found in search engines takes more than an SEO copywriter (i.e. me). It takes more than targeted keywords, keyword rich content and great title tags. I won’t go into SEO 101 here, but using blogs as marketing tools is a fantastic way to win searches and drive traffic to your Web site.

This plan also suggested the small business owner get positioned as an expert in the field, again without any mention of blogging. The plan recommends writing articles, doing an email newsletter, etc. All the usual stuff. OK, I don’t mind repeating myself, using blogs as marketing tools is a fantastic way to position yourself as an expert too!

Maybe small business marketing is slow to catch on to using blogs as marketing tools because marketing consultants are slow to recommend them. In my job as a copywriter, I consider myself not just the one who helps craft the messaging, but the one who also knows how to deliver it, from email newsletters to wikis to Web sites to blogging, etc. For years people have asked me why I don’t call myself a marketing consultant since I know so much about marketing. I say because I stick to what I know: I know copywriting. But I’m a copywriter giving my clients more value because I keep up with what’s going on in the world of marketing.

Marketing consultants must do the same thing. It’s 2009. If I were a small business owner, I’d be extremely wary of any marketing plan that left out blogging. You can’t use 2005 techniques in a 2009 world, especially with a tough economy!

Small business blogging is one of the most cost-effective ways a small business can both be found in search engines and be positioned as experts. If marketing consultants don’t know this and aren’t going to recommend it, they shouldn’t be handing out any advice.

If this small business had invested in a ghost blogger instead of a marketing consultant, they’d be way ahead of the marketing game.

In an earlier blog, I offered a bunch of small business blogging basics. See it here: http://www.weknowblogs.com/blog/sharons-marketing-missive/0/0/small-business-blogging-basics--a-guide

I hate The Ram. When Kent Station opened a couple of years ago, people were so excited to get a chain restaurant in downtown Kent. Meaning they were happy to get The Ram. My first experience there was awful, and after three more tries, I finally gave up on the place. Besides I like the food and the bar at Zephyrs better, it’s more my style, and now I have a martini bar as an option too.

But the other night a friend wanted to go to The Ram, because it would be new to him, and I’d drug him to Zephyrs and Shindig Martini Bar a few times already. Now he knows why I was reluctant to go there. The service was atrocious, the food awful and the prices high.

Hang on, hang on, this isn’t copywriter PMS. This ties into my copywriter theory that marketing is like dating: the customer expecting one thing and getting another.

When you are marketing to potential customers, you are wooing them, trying to get them to date you. You woo them with promises in your copywriting: good beer, good food, friendly service. But if you don’t follow through on your promise, your marketing and copywriting are for naught. Your marketing is a lie and trickery meant to get them in the door to spend their money. And then your marketing goes after the next prospect, just like a serial dater who seems intent only on getting someone to say “yes” to a date so he can start on his next potential date, to win her over.

Great marketing isn’t just great copywriting, killer taglines, awesome email copywriting, fabulous Web sites, kickass direct mail, etc. Great marketing is the whole enchilada. It means a business promises something to me as a customer, then delivers on it. That’s how you win a repeat customer.

If your company is a serial dater, then keep plowing away at marketing that gets them in the door but disappoints. Because you’re only aiming for the next customer anyway, not aiming to keep the one you just got. But if you’re company wants to be in a committed relationship, follow through on the promises your marketing makes. If you can’t, hold off on your marketing until you can, or make your marketing fit what you can really deliver.

And if you go to The Ram and order the calamari? Don’t be hungry or picky. So sayeth one disappointed freelance copywriter!

As part of my commitment to blogs as marketing tools this year, and doing a bit of copywriter self promotion, as well as promoting my clients (three wins!), here’s my first time announcing a recently completed copywriting project.

AGR Marketing hired me as a Web site copywriter. Their site, expertly designed by Strategic Design Group, is now up and running, in record time!  

AGR did lots of things right with this site, including telling a story, being specific, having a core marketing message and sticking with it…as a freelance copywriter, they were great to work with, they took my advice to heart, viewing me as their Web site copywriter expert! Thanks, AGR!

See their new site at http://www.agrmarketingsolutions.com/ 

I’m “just” a copywriter (not!) but part of my job is keeping up with marketing trends beuacse it’s not just what you say (the words) but when and how you say them (the delivery). So I’m happy to pass along that MarketingSherpa has a goodie for you: a special report titled “Marketing Wisdom 2009.” It’s a free pdf of lessons learned, contributed by real-life marketers like me and you.

I have only just started going through it, looking for the marketing wisdom most useful for me as a copywriter, but in my opinion, any insights to be gleaned via the experiences of other marketers and copywriters are worth downloading this document.

Even if you only read the Letter from the Editor, you’ll be a step ahead of other marketers. There Managing Editor Bill Rupp outlines three key trends identified while compiling this marketing report:

One, email is not dead. Great news for someone who specializes in copywriting for email marketing! (meaning me!)

Two, build social networks. More great news, as I’m a firm believer in blogs as marketing tools and figuring out how to market via social networks…and I’m a ghost blogger too!

Three, search engine optimization (SEO). Yet even more great news, as a Web site copywriter whose sweet spot is SEO copywriting!

Hmmmm… maybe I’m enjoying this report because it’s telling me all kinds of things I as a freelance copywriter want to hear? And that’s cheering up my dreary Seattle day a little?

Still, it’s free, it’s useful and it’s written by your colleagues. Take a look: http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.php?ident=31039.

Oh, and if you can use more free marketing advice, ask me for my ebook of 104 marketing tips geared towards small business marketing but useful for marketing any size business.

Why do so many companies shy away from being real? I honestly don’t know. Maybe it’s like my dad used to say, that people are rude drivers because it’s anonymous, they are sheltered by their cars. They’d never cut in front of you in line at the bank, but they’ll do it on the highway. Do companies want the anonymity so they don’t have to behave as well as they otherwise would?

Being real is something I as a freelance copywriter preach and preach and preach. But just the other day working as a Web site copywriter for a new client, I found myself trying to persuade them to include photos of the founders on the Web site…and they flat out refused. As a copywriter, I see the power in words that are real, whether in blogs as marketing tools, small business marketing, email copywriting, wherever. Words are powerful. But only more so when real.

People, you are missing the boat here. Customers want to do business with, well, people. Not nameless corporations. Being real means making a connection to that customer, developing a relationship with her. One that will deepen her loyalty to your customer and brand.

Think about it: Isn’t there a company you stick with mostly because you like it or them? Like the farrier I had who wasn’t very good but was a delight to visit with while he shod my horse, or the drycleaners that’s a little farther from home but you keep going back because you like the owners, or the coffee shop that charges more but you like the welcome feeling you get when you walk through the door…we all have allegiances that don’t make economic sense, but then we shop with our minds and we buy with our hearts.

So how delighted is my little copywriter heart to have two great examples of being real to share with you.

My first example comes from a company I partner with. I do copywriting for their email marketing clients. They hired a new salesperson, no biggie, but the email this guy sent out to introduce himself to clients was a gem. It wasn’t about all this professional experience; it was about him as a person, a real person, who lives in an interesting town, met his wife via online dating, and has an interesting background, born in Europe and raised on the east coast. The tone was conversational and chatty. It made him real. If I were a customer receiving that email, I’d like that guy right off. And we buy from people we like. With our hearts, remember?

My second example comes from Basecamp, aka 37 Signals, a company I love not just because I love their Web-based project management software which I use for our copywriting projects, but because they excel at being real. Yesterday when I logged onto Basecamp, at the top of my screen it announced “Basecamp's birthday! Basecamp turns five!” and then went on to explain they started on Feb. 4, 2004 with a link to their story. This is brilliant because it’s promotion but sincere. When you read the story, you are that much more attached to this company. And what does that mean? Well, I recommend Basecamp to all the freelance copywriters I know, and to clients as well.

Both of these examples gave this copywriter warm fuzzies. And note that they both achieved their goals with words, nothing fancy, just words, real words.