Why Generic Website Copywriting is Bad for Business

A few months ago I launched a quest to find a new dentist, and it was not an easy task. My last dentist, while trying to poke around inside my mouth, informed his assistant that I was a hypersensitive patient (and sent her off to fetch the nitrous oxide). I’m sure that had something to do with the fact that I was maniacally clutching the armrest while burrowing my head into the dental chair. Oh yeah, and my mouth kept closing all by itself every time he lunged at me with a sharp instrument.

A few dental procedures gone wrong had made me wary, if not downright fearful, of dentists. So I need a professional who is compassionate toward patients with dental phobias and anxieties. I’m looking for a dentist with an extra-special skill set.

Since I’m one of those technology-savvy generation Xers and because I am also an internet professional, I launched my search online. Google gave me plenty of options, and I got busy perusing the many dentists within a fifteen-mile radius. Within minutes I had about a dozen potential dentistry websites opened, and I got busy reading through them to see which one would tell me what I wanted to hear: We are sympathetic to your fear of dentists. We won’t hurt you.

I happened across one such dentist early in my search. The text on his site was friendly and comforting. There was even a photo of him. He looked like a nice guy and not at all like the demented dentist from Little Shop of Horrors. But I wanted a list of dentists to choose from. So I kept his site open and continued my search.

A short time later I found another one that looked pretty good. As I started reading through this other guy’s site, I got this weird feeling. Haven’t I read something like this before? Haven’t I just recently (in the past few minutes) read these exact same words in this exact same order?

Two dentists. Same city. Same exact copy. Bad for business.

Good Marketing vs. Bad Marketing

I realize that small businesses have budget guidelines they must follow and sometimes they have to take shortcuts. But using generic copy on a website is never a good idea.

First of all, it was a little creepy. I mean, why would two different dentists have the same exact message? I’m not talking about similarities where one dentist says “Scared of dentists? We understand.” and another says “We understand that you’re scared of dentists.” I’m talking about the exact same copy, down to the periods, commas, and conjunctions.

At one point I had both of these sites open and was clicking back and forth between them, trying to sort it all out. My first concern was that these two dentists had been duped by the same copywriter. I quickly deduced that they had indeed used the same copywriter, but it wasn’t an actual copywriter; it was a copywriting service. Except the copywriting wasn’t a service; it was a product.

The clues let me to an outfit that was selling generic website copy to professionals. Even worse, the professionals were buying it.

Let’s Get Personal

In some situations, discovering duplicate copywriting on two different websites might not rattle me one bit. I probably wouldn’t have thought much of it if I had been searching for a mechanic or a home inspector, professionals who offer relatively generic services. But I am searching for a dentist. I’m going to let this person medicate me, drill holes in my teeth, and then fill them up with strange substances. He might even pull a tooth, and he’s certainly going to do whatever it is that dentists do to give you a sparkling smile. And if the same text on his site is on several other sites, well, then I know the words do not convey his unique message and don’t represent him specifically. It’s just out-of-the-box text. And for all I know, he might not mean a single word of it.

Now, maybe the cost of losing one perspective customer was worth the savings that these two dentists enjoyed by buying canned copy rather than hiring a copywriter. But I doubt I’m the only individual who noticed the duplicate copy and I also doubt that I’m the only person who was completely turned off by it.

I realize that because I’m professional website copywriter, I have a special way of looking at this situation. And because I don’t sell generic text, one would expect me find such practices… well, distasteful. But I’m also a customer, a client, and a patient. Especially as a patient with some measure of dental phobia, I am anything but comforted by this plastic messaging.

When is Generic Acceptable?

Businesses are always trying to find a way to make a buck. I guess someone, somewhere thought it would be a good idea to write some web content for professionals and then resell that same content over and over. The idea is probably profitable for the person who thought up that scheme. It probably also seemed like a good idea to all of those professionals to whom they sold generic copy.

Some products and services can definitely get away with being generic. Website templates and stock photos are a good example of marketing materials that could be considered generic but are often employed, even by big businesses with large budgets.

But website copywriting just can’t get away with being generic. There’s a difference between a generic photo used for business and generic words used to speak to your customers. My own reaction was something like, “You don’t care enough about your patients (or your work) to send a more personalized message, and now you expect me to let you inside my mouth with pointy tools?”

Entrepreneurs and professionals need to be cognizant that marketing copy is a direct form of communication. While imagery and design can be powerful, language allows you to speak to your customers clearly and personally. There’s nothing clear or personal about canned text.

Last Words: Generic Website Copywriting and the SEO Effect

There’s one more consideration that I want to quickly address and will discuss at greater length in a future article: SEO (search engine optimization) and duplicate content. Because not only did these two dentists engage in online marketing tactics that have a distinct capacity to discourage (rather than encourage) new patients, this generic copywriting strategy could also have a detrimental effect on their search engine traffic.

Most SEO specialists agree that duplicate content across different websites is frowned upon by search engines. In other words, if a search engine sees that two sites are using the exact same copy, they both lose points and fall back on the search engine results page. This means that in addition to scaring off perspective clients, the copy that these two dentists were using could also be hindering the amount of traffic they attract to their websites. That means less visitors and less customers.

Like I said, generic website copywriting is just bad for business.

I’m sure that the two dentists have successfully brought in new patients from their websites. But they’ll never know how many potential patients they have lost.

Custom, Personalized Website Copywriting

Scribizzy provides website copywriting services to entrepreneurs and professionals who want to establish an effective online presence. Our copy is organic. It contains no preservatives and is hand-crafted, not canned. Get a quote online.

Doing Business Online with Multiple Income Streams

Most small business have established an online presence. They have a website and are running ad campaigns and using marketing strategies to draw targeted traffic to their sites. But some small businesses are missing online opportunities for diversifying their income streams because their efforts to draw traffic are too targeted or their offerings are too limited.

Think Outside the Box and Beyond the Zip Code

Take, for example, a small nursery with a simple website that provides their location, hours of operation, and listings of plants and flowers that are in season. The only customers they’re targeting are people who live within a reasonable driving distance and who are interested in gardening or landscaping. They have an online presence but are not doing business online — yet.

Then, the owner of the nursery adds a blog to the website and begins writing regular entries about the growing process, including tips for taking care of plants and ideas for creating beautiful gardens. Several of the nursery’s customers start reading the blog but many more readers come from regions beyond. Within a year or two, there is a large following, which is not constrained by geographical limitations.

The nursery’s owner puts together a collection of her best, most popular, and most informative articles and self publishes a book, which generates some much needed extra revenue during a year that’s otherwise slow for business.

Grow Your Offerings by Doing Business Online

Now, instead of selling plants, flowers, and gardening supplies, the nursery owner is also selling information — information that was obtained through years of experience and that people are willing to pay for.

Selling information products is just one of the many models that business owners can adopt to expand their offerings, increase revenue, and diversify their income streams by doing business online.

There are several ways to harness an online presence that can breathe new life into the bottom line. Here is a small sampling of other possibilities the nursery owner might have explored:

• Online consultations – share expert, personalized advice for a small fee via phone or chat
• Affiliate marketing – sell gardening-related products on the website through the Amazon Associates program or some other affiliate marketing provider
• Online store – develop a unique line of products and sell them online – it could be something as simple as a mug that says “I love to garden” or something as complex as a specialty fertilizer mix
• Basic advertising – contextual ads throughout a website, especially one with a blog, can do well if there is a significant amount of traffic passing through on a daily basis
• Paid membership site – create a section on the site that is for paying members only – a forum, workshop, or online course related to gardening

Re-evaluate Your Demographics for Multiple Income Streams

Once a business decides to branch out in new ways and create multiple income streams, there will likely be a shift in the target customer demographic. Our friend the nursery owner used to advertise strictly to local gardeners and landscapers. Once she realized that people were actually interested in her blog, she had to change her marketing strategy.

She should still advertise locally, but online, she can launch a broader marketing campaign, one that appeals to hobby gardeners and professional landscapers all around the world. Her perspective audience has grown from a few thousand to several million.

As more and more of those perspective readers subscribe or visit her blog, more and more of her books are selling and not just to folks who live in her hometown. People who live on the other side of the country are buying. People who live on the other side of the world are buying. Meanwhile, she’s enjoying an increase in profits.

Generate More Revenue

Because gardening is her passion, the nursery owner enjoys writing about it and with relatively little effort or work, she is earning larger sums each year as her blog audience grows. During a time when most folks are strapped for cash and the economy is in dire straits, the nursery owner has demonstrated true enterprise through a willingness to think creatively and try new things.

Millions of small business owners have websites but have not seized the opportunities that an online presence provides. Launching a new income strategy involves planning and research, some elbow grease, and may even require an initial investment of either time or money, but the payoff can be great.

If you already have a website for your business, there’s no better time than right now to start looking for new ways to generate revenue online. You may even decide to launch a second website devoted entirely to your new pursuit. In difficult economic times, like those we face today, it will be the entrepreneurs and creative risk-takers who ride out the storm and rise to the top.

BONUS TIP: Make a commitment to setting aside a few minutes each day and start exploring the nuts and bolts of expanding your offerings and creating multiple income streams.

Planning Your Web Content Development

We’ve already talked about how to lay the groundwork for your web content development by brainstorming. You jotted down all your ideas, did some research, and expanded on those ideas. You looked at the competition and learned more about what your industry is doing in the online marketplace. You took notes and made lists. You asked questions and came up with answers. You went in empty handed and came out with a better understanding of what your online presence should look like.

Once you’ve done your brainstorming, you should have plenty of possibilities for your web content development plan. Maybe you’ve got it scrawled all over a bunch of pieces of scratch paper. Perhaps you used an orderly mind mapping technique. Or PowerPoint.

Take a look at your notes. Those are the seeds that you’ve gathered. Now you need to plant those seeds and make them grow, you have to water and fertilize them, and make sure those seedlings get plenty of sunshine. To do this, you’re going to need a plan. A web content development plan.

The Benefits of Having a Plan

I’m a big fan of planning. If you spend a little time on a plan right now, you can save loads of time later. A good plan will also help you avoid mistakes and bumps in the road because as you build your plan, you’ll naturally contemplate various possibilities and scenarios. You’ll be able to work contingencies into the plan, as well as emergency exits and the notorious plan B.

Running a business is not easy. It takes up a lot of time and energy, especially when you’re just starting out or going through a renovation or expansion. If you don’t write a plan, then you might get caught up in your day-to-day business activities and forget all about the evolution of your online presence. This is especially true if you have a long-term business plan (please tell me you do).

A plan also provides you with a blueprint. There are infinite possibilities on the web and it’s easy to get lost among all the opportunities. If you have a plan, you’ll be able to navigate through your many choices with ease and confidence.

Tips for Web Content Development Planning

Prioritize

I believe that all good plans start with a sense of priority. Let’s say your first web project will be to redesign your website. You decide to scrap all three or four pages of written content because they are outdated, and you want to get rid of the layout, which is just dated. But you’d like to keep your logo. You decide you need about twenty pages of content, including one page for each separate product that you sell. You also want to get set up on popular social media sites. You’d like to use video as well. You’ve got a big list of big ideas and you can’t wait to see them come alive.

But first you need to step back and decide what matters most. This is how you organize and put things in order: Your website is more important that your social media. Your email marketing campaign is more important than your hopes for creating a viral video. Later, we’ll talk about contingencies, timelines, and budgets. But for now, keep in mind that no matter how hard we work or how carefully we plan, things change. You might get a golden opportunity in a few months and have to postpone some of your content development plans for lack of time (being busy is good, right!). You might have a difficult quarter and have to tighten the budget. You just never know what the future holds. So dream big, but then put your dreams in order.

When you’re dealing with a website, for example, you should definitely give your core pages greater priority. These include your home page, about page, products or services page, and contact page. Four simple pages that every business website should have. Viral videos are all the rage but millions of people post videos every day and there’s no guarantee that yours is going to be a phenomenon. A more reliable marketing strategy should come first. Put things in their proper order. Prioritize, and everything else will follow.

Flexibility

Nothing stresses me out more than a plan that has no flexibility built in. Let’s say you’re a middle manager. You have to get a project to your boss by Friday. Please don’t tell your subordinates that it’s due Friday. You tell them it’s due Thursday. Or better, Wednesday. That gives you some leeway in case anything goes wrong. And things do go wrong. Next year, your budget might be twice what it is this year (or it could be half). Even the very best plans, the ones that are perfectly executed, are subject to reality. And in reality, stuff happens. Unpredictable stuff. So create your plan, but don’t create it out of iron or chisel it into stone. And remember, technology is changing all the time. Be prepared because this year’s blog is next year’s Twitter, and who knows what we’ll be dealing with the year after that?

Timeline

A website doesn’t happen overnight. If you’re starting a brand new business, you’ll want the completion of your website to coincide with the launch of the business itself. If you’re doing a redesign and want to time it for a product or service launch, you’ll need to coordinate your timelines.

The biggest mistake I see small business owners making in the online world is not having any plan at all. The second biggest mistake is no timeline. They’re going to start publishing a newsletter, but when? They’ll update their online profiles, eventually. They’d like to add fresh content to the site. Someday.

Lots of people don’t like committing to a timeline. Well, that’s what flexibility is for. At least with a timeline, you can make some sound guesses about the future of your web content. At the very least, you can create a series of events and ascertain how long each will take and how much time you need between each one. For example, you can allot six weeks to creating a website. You might need two weeks to create an email marketing campaign. You don’t have to glue these projects to the calendar, but you can use a timeline to better understand how long everything will take. This will enable you align various facets of your entire business.

Budgeting

Smart businesspeople know how to budget. But we just talked about flexibility and the unforeseeable future. The fact that you cannot know for sure what the future holds also means you can’t know for sure what your budget will be in later months or years. The economy is unpredictable, the market is unpredictable, and consumers are getting more fickle by the day. Hopefully, you’ll have a bigger budget than you hoped for or at least be on track. But we all know how many businesses fail every year (if you don’t know, the answer is this: the vast majority!). And when disappointment comes knocking, the first thing that shrinks is your budget. Some businesses can avoid failure by having a flexible budget, or rather, by having a plan that’s flexible enough to adapt to changing budgets.

You should, however, budget for online marketing on a long-term basis. A lot of small businesses throw a few hundred dollars at a website and then forget about it. Three years later, they remember they have a website and they pay a few hundred more dollars to update it. This is not a healthy cycle. It could be costing the business customers, who are apt to think that if the website is half-baked, the company probably is too. Make sure you have a regular, ongoing budget for online marketing and website maintenance.

Contingencies

A contingency is something that might happen, but there’s no guarantee. It’s a what-if. As a writer, I’m thrilled by what-ifs. Questioning possibility is what drives fiction. It’s also what keeps me up at night. What if the video really does go viral? What if nobody responds to my Facebook page? What if the site become an overnight internet sensation; do I have the resources to handle the new business that the site could attract?

When you’re writing a plan, you have to include contingencies. You probably don’t need a lot of them, but contingencies work alongside flexibility. In your plan, you believe that if you build a site and launch a proper marketing campaign, you should be able to increase your current sales by 20%. So you build the site, but it’s drawing more customers than you anticipated. Will you be ready to handle the new business that’s coming in?

If things happen the way you plan, then your entire business will start to see benefits from your web content development efforts. And if things don’t go as planned, well, you should have a backup plan.

Plan B

If your plan doesn’t pan out the way you intended, what are you going to do? Nobody likes thinking about worst-case scenarios, but this is business and the reality is that success is not guaranteed. However, you can minimize your losses by having a solid backup plan in place. And you never know, a good backup plan might lead to another (and more successful opportunity). Let’s say you’re just out of college and want to be a freelance graphic designer. You set up a website and start hustling online. You do okay, but not great. Your designs are awesome, but sales isn’t your thing. A year in, you’ve invested a lot of time and money building your little business. But now, you’re not sure you’re in it for the long haul.

Secondary plans abound in situations like this. You can rework your website, turn it into an online resume and portfolio, and then use it find a regular job (you can always continue freelancing on the side). You can find a partner who specializes in sales and work together to grow the business. You can sell your site (aged websites have value, and aged sites with decent content have even more value — high traffic sites are worth a lot) and get out of the business altogether.

Yes, it sucks when things don’t work out the way we’d hoped. But it’s not the end of the world. If you have a plan B, you’ll be prepared and you’ll get through any major disappointments just fine.

Get Ready to Execute

Planning takes time and effort, but it can prevent unnecessary hassles later. Take some time to brainstorm your vision for your online presence. Then, turn that raw material into an organized plan, one that’s prioritized and that has a clear budget, a tentative timeline, and a lot of flexibility. Include contingencies and a backup plan. Once you get through that planning phase, you’ll be ready to execute. It’s time to start building!

Scribizzy Web Content Services

Need help putting together a plan for the future of your online presence? Scribizzy provides web content development services. You can even get a quote online.

SEO Starts with Keyword Research

Whenever I’m working on a website copywriting project, I ask my client to fill out a questionnaire that helps me understand their business. This enables me to write copy that truly represents the client’s company, mission, and goals.

One of the items on the questionnaire used to be “Please list any keywords related to your website or business.”

I quickly found out that very few small business owners understood what I meant by “keywords.”  Sometimes, they would jot down something like “use your best judgment.” Usually, they’d list a few keywords, but it was clear that they weren’t researched keywords for SEO. They were simply words and phrases that represented the products and services that the client offered, and they had been selected at random.

Since most small business owners don’t specialize in web content and design, how could they be expected to know that when a web content specialist inquires about keywords, she means keywords that have been researched for SEO purposes?

Entrepreneurs understand business. They are concerned with their industry, profit margins, customers, sales, and ROIs. They know that establishing an online presence is essential to business, but they do not usually realize the complexities involved in developing an effective web presence. For many small businesses, getting online merely involves building a website. So it’s up to web content specialists to educate small business owners. That doesn’t mean selling them products or services they don’t need (and many small businesses do not need keywords or SEO), but it does mean helping them be more informed about their options.

It wasn’t long before I changed my questionnaire to read “Have you conducted any SEO keyword research?” Rewording the question had some interesting results. Some clients simply put “no.” Others became curious: What do you mean by keyword research?

Search Engine Marketing

Search engine marketing is an online marketing strategy that grows traffic to a website by increasing its visibility on search engines. This is primarily done through search engine optimization (SEO).

This is easier said than done. Search engine marketing is extremely competitive. Most small business owners think that by simply launching a website, they’ll automatically start getting traffic through search engines. But these days, to get traffic through search engines, you have to carefully optimize your website. That means researching and choosing keywords, implementing those keywords, establishing incoming links, and monitoring keyword and traffic performance.

Search engine marketing isn’t for everyone. If you’re on a tight budget in a field with highly congested keywords, you would be better off with an alternative online marketing strategy. There are lots of ways to draw traffic, and before you start an SEO campaign, you should do your research and make sure it’s a good match for your business.

Keyword Research

You can’t just pluck keywords out of nowhere. Well you can, but your results will be less than ideal. Keyword research can be a tedious process. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of possible keywords for just about any search term you can think of. When you conduct keyword research in preparation of optimizing your site, your goal is to find the keywords that will draw the most traffic. You also want the traffic to be targeted to your business offerings.

Let’s say you run a small, independent bookstore. You might think that a good keyword to pursue would be “books.” But that would be wrong. To gain traffic through a keyword like that would cost tens of thousands of dollars in research, content development, and other SEO efforts. You’d be much better off finding narrower and more localized search terms. Another option would be to forgo search engine marketing altogether and use another strategy to increase traffic to your site.

To discern which search terms would most benefit your website efficiently and effectively, you conduct (or hire someone to conduct) keyword research. This is a process in which you start with some general and obvious search terms and use various online SEO tools to expand the list of terms, so that there are plenty of choices. Then, you review each of the terms to determine how competitive each one will be, how much content you’d have to add to your site to compete effectively, and decide which keywords your target customers are most likely to enter into a search engine. For example, people searching for the term “books” are not necessarily looking for an independent bookstore (here’s a hint — “bookstore” is a more targeted keyword than “books”) and even if they are looking for such a store, they may be in a different geographic location.

Here are some of the questions you want to keep in mind when conducting keyword research:

• What are the primary products or services that the website offers?
• What alternative or synonymous keywords can be used?
• How much search volume do these keywords generate each month?
• Which keywords are potential customers likely to use in searching for these products or services?
• What does the competition for these keywords look like?

It’s important to note that when we talk about keyword competition, it’s not necessarily the same businesses with which we’re competing. In other words, there will be other sites that are using the same keywords as you, but their product or service offerings may not be directly competing with yours. You’re competing with them to get search engine traffic via keywords rather than competing with them in business.

SEO

For many small businesses, a little SEO can really boost traffic. The decision of whether or not to pursue SEO is one that must be made by each individual business, and the decision will likely rest on how competitive keywords are within your industry, the amount of resources you can dedicate to optimization, and the findings that come from keyword research. One thing, however, is basic: SEO starts with keyword research, and keywords should never be chosen on a whim. A little research can go a long way in helping you make smart decisions about whether search engine marketing and SEO is the right online marketing strategy for your business.

Scribizzy offers a full suite of SEO services. To learn more visit our SEO Services page, or if you’re ready to launch an SEO project, start now by getting a quote online.

A Rough Guide to Business Blogging for Absolute Beginners

So, you have a small business and you’re thinking about adding a blog to your website. You’ve heard that a blog can help your business attract new customers while building loyalty among existing customers. And you’re right; business blogging is a great way to grow your business online.

But blogging is a world unto itself. Think of your blog as a house on the web. Other blogs dealing with topics that are similar or relevant to yours make up your neighborhood. Like all houses, your blog needs to be carefully planned and maintained. And if you want to be a successful member of your community, you’ll have to connect with your neighbors.

Like a home, a blog is an investment. You can invest dollars by hiring a professional blogger to manage and maintain your blog or you can invest your own time and to learn how to do it yourself.

The Rough Guide to Business Blogging

This guide is for small business owners who want to explore business blogging as a way to grow their online presence. The list below includes basic elements to help you get started blogging. It’s by no means an exhaustive list. There is an endless array of blogging activities that you can do to build and grow your blog. But this list does include the bare essentials.

Check Out the Neighborhood

Start by subscribing to blogs in your niche. Find businesses like yours (some of these will be your competitors) and find businesses that complement yours. If you’re an architect, find blogs about construction. If you’re a hairstylist, find blogs about makeup application. Use an RSS reader or subscribe by email. Then, incorporate blog reading into your daily schedule. This is the single best way to get familiar with business blogging. Watch and learn. And make sure you visit the blogs you read directly so you can check out the features on site and view the comments.

Draw a Blueprint for Your House

Once you’ve familiarized yourself with blogs in your niche, start putting together a plan for your blog. What topics or issues will you address? Make a list of possible post titles. Write down the categories that you’ll use to organize your posts. Be sure to think about features you want for your blog, such as plugins that make your blog more attractive to readers (CommentLuv) or that make your blog easier to find on the web (All in One SEO). Learn how to use these features to your advantage.

Put Your House on the Map

Once you launch your blog, focus on creating excellent content. Every article you post should be useful to your readers. And make sure you know exactly who your target readers are. What questions do they have? What kind of help or tips do they need? Answer their questions and fulfill their needs. Will you use your blog to reach out to customers? Other professionals in your industry? Are you establishing your expertise and credibility or are you sharing news and information about your service offerings? With business blogging, a healthy mixture of all these approaches will work best.

Hit the Road

Now that you know your way around your neighborhood and have your house fitted with great content, start connecting with other bloggers. Visit those blogs you’ve been reading and make it a point to leave comments. When folks comment on your blog, be sure to reply and then head over to their place to reciprocate. Set up a Facebook page and mention your posts on your Twitter stream. Add a link to your email signature. Tell your friends and colleagues about your blog and be clear about how they can benefit from reading it.

Build Your Community

You’ll start building your community when you’re out on the road promoting your blog. Return to home base every once in a while (be sure to keep those posts coming regularly!) to make sure your visitors are comfortable. Use questions to encourage readers to comment and participate in discussion. Throw a little contest, host a giveaway, and make your home the hottest spot on the block.

Bring it Home

Throughout the business blogging process, you’ll pick up a lot of blogging techniques and strategies simply by observing other bloggers. Notice how they format their posts. Do they use images or video? How does the layout affect you as a reader? What do they blog about? Ask yourself what other bloggers in your neighborhood are doing to be successful and then bring it home so you can succeed too.

Scribizzy offers a range of blog services to help small business communicate with customers and market their products and services on the web. Want to learn more? Get a quote online.

Small Business Website Design Tips: 9 Things to Avoid

When you’re shopping around for a small business website design, do you know what to look for and what to avoid? Do you know which design elements will make your site more appealing and which elements will turn visitors away?

If you’ve spent much time surfing around the web, then you’ve probably noticed that some websites have design elements that are distracting, annoying, or just plain ugly. We’ve all bumped into a few websites that make us want to scream. Luckily, escape is just a click away.

But if you’re a small business owner, you definitely don’t want visitors clicking away from your website, especially if they’re seeking escape because the design is unappealing or irritating.

10 Design Elements to Avoid

Here’s a list of design elements that people frequently complain about. Most of these recommendations have been on web designers’ things-to-avoid lists for years, but these frustrating features just keep showing up all over the internet.

1. Automatic-loading Music: This is number one on the list for good reason. Nothing startles a website visitor more than loud audio suddenly protruding from the speakers. Maybe the visitor is already listening to background music. Maybe they’re trying to focus on your content (and if your content is not centered around music, the sound is just a distraction). Maybe there’s a baby sleeping nearby. Be considerate and make audio optional.
2. Flashing, Blinking, or Scrolling Text: If it’s subtle, you might be able to get away with it. But like audio, moving text is nothing more than a distraction. Sure, you might be using it to get the visitor’s attention, but once you do and they start seriously perusing your site, it’s just going to become an annoyance.
3. Animations: Some animations work well with a design. If you’re an illustrator or an animated cartoonist, go for it. But if you’ve got a website that’s centered around some product or service that doesn’t include art or animation, then keep your content static.
4. Pop-up Windows: No. Just no. I don’t care if your windows pop up in front, in back, or right on the page. Don’t do it. Some websites are still using pop-ups or have returned to pop-ups. They will never be sustainable because they’ll ultimately annoy people.
5. Image Backgrounds: This one almost didn’t make the list because there are a lot of image backgrounds that work well, especially textures. So this is not so much a design element you need to avoid as one that you need to use judiciously. As long as the images are small and fast-loading, you should be okay. But if a solid color will work just as well, then get rid of your image backgrounds. And do note that most major (and hugely successful) websites don’t use them (Google, Amazon, etc.).
6. Frames: These days, with CSS and other design technologies so readily available, frames are just an unnecessary and outdated technique for organizing the content on a site. The problem with frames is that they are not compatible with all browsers and may render differently on different computers. So opt for a content management system (like WordPress) instead.
7. Excessively Wide or Long Pages: This should go without saying, but I still run into these types of websites on occasion. I always wonder if the designer is using an enormous monitor and has forgotten that most people use 12 to 15 inch screens. And try to remember that visitors don’t like to scroll endlessly down (or across) the page. Except on archived sections of your site, keep scrolling to the length of two or three pages.
8. Indistinguishable Links: Have you ever hovered your mouse over a web page and it caused a window to open or carried you off to some other page? That’s just plain weird. Links are meant to be clicked so make sure they’re clickable and make sure that visitors can distinguish a link from regular text.
9. Opening a Link in a New Window: There are some instances in which I don’t mind links opening in a new window, but usually I prefer to make the decision myself. All I have to do is command-click (Windows users can right-click and choose “open link in new window”). When web designers use this functionality, website visitors end up with dozens of open windows, and there’s a good chance the window with your site on it will get lost in the fray. Let people use the back button. That’s what it’s there for.

Exceptions to These Website Design Tips

These design elements should be avoided, but not always. Whenever you’re reading a list of tips, it’s important to remember that there are usually plenty of exceptions. In the list above, I’ve pointed out some obvious exceptions, but you should always remember to use your best judgment and keep in mind that sometimes breaking the rules or defying convention is a good thing. If you’re not sure about whether a particular website design idea would have a negative impact on your site, ask your website designer or consult with a web content specialist. Also, ask friends, family, customers, and professionals in your network. Nothing beats user feedback!

An Inside Look at the Website Copywriting Process

I’ve already touched on the basics of website copywriting. Now, I’d like to present a more elaborate explanation of exactly what website copywriting entails.

Why should I do such a thing?

For starters, I think it’s only fair that my clients understand what I do for them, what they’re paying me for, and how I treat their project.

Also, I’m discomforted by the idea that some small businesses are paying for website copy that’s thrown together in a matter of minutes. That gives me the shudders. If you hire someone to write your copy and pay a fair rate, you deserve quality service. You deserve someone who will put time, effort, and energy into your project.

I’m a methodical person, and I use methodology to my advantage in the services that I provide. Over time, I’ve developed a process that allows me to tackle website copywriting projects in a way that is both efficient and effective. Basically, I follow a series of steps, but they are flexible and allow room for creative thinking and word play. I find that using this process makes the work flow more smoothly while simultaneously making it more fun. Yep, I love what I do.

Because I know which steps I need to take and the order in which I need to take them, I can focus on creating quality content instead of worrying about how I’m going to get it done.

Here’s how I do it:

Step One: Understand the Project

The first step in any website copywriting project is simple: understand the clients’ needs. I need to know where the copy will be published, whether there are any space limitations, and if I should be using any keywords for SEO. I also need to establish the desired call to action. In other words, when website visitors read the copy, what should it encourage them to do next?

Step Two: Get to Know the Client’s Business

I can’t write a single word until I have a good, thorough understanding of my client’s business. It’s not enough to know that they sell carburetors. I need to know what kind of carburetors they sell, whom they are sold to, how much they are sold for, and whether or not they offer carburetor installation or just the actual carburetors. I also like to know how the business got started, who runs it, and their mission and philosophy.

Step Three: Collect and Review Materials

Before I start writing, I usually collect all my information into a single file. Sometimes it’s just a Word document filled with notes, links, and other tidbits that I’ve copied and pasted from email communications with my client. Just before I start composing, I like to go over everything so it’s fresh in my mind, and so I’m ready to write the outline.

Step Four: Outline

I love outlines. Some writers refuse to outline, and that’s okay too. But an outline usually only takes a few minutes and provides a road map for the rest of the project, which means I can travel through it quickly without losing my way or getting off track. Basically, it allows me to complete the work much faster, and this is a saving that I can pass to my customers.

Step Five: Draft Copy

The outline is like a skeleton. When I start drafting, it’s much like filling in the skeleton — putting meat and muscle on the bones. This is where I get creative and have fun choosing the perfect language, images, and style to properly convey my clients’ message. This where I get to tell their story. It’s also the most challenging and time consuming step, but so very rewarding.

Step Six: Revise, Edit, Repeat

In order to let the light of creativity shine while I’m composing the rough draft, I cannot get hung up on technical details. If I’m worrying about commas and apostrophes or spelling and grammar, I cannot keep my attention focused on crafting sentences that compel website visitors. So, once the draft is done, I go through it several times to clean it up and make sure it’s technically correct.

Step Seven: Polish

Here’s a little writer’s trick: After you have revised your copy, let it sit for a few hours, preferably overnight. Then, come back with fresh eyes and give it a final polish. Inevitably, you will find some unnecessary word that can be cut, some gap that needs to be filled with a catchy adjective, or even an empty space where a comma should be. Polishing leads to website copywriting that sparkles and shines!

Step Eight: The Send-Off

Once the copy is buffed to perfection, it’s ready to get sent off to the client. This is always a good feeling, the delivery.

Step Nine: Revisions

Everybody has personal preferences, and I’m no mind reader. Sometimes, in the initial project plan, a small but important detail gets left out. Like including a phone number in the website copy. Or using a special phrase (a tagline or slogan, perhaps) in the text. Maybe I used a word that rubs the client the wrong way. We all have our language peeves, and small business owners are no exception. I always invite clients to request a round of revisions to the final copy. This is usually a quick process and involves going through and changing a few words or adding a line or two. Most of the time, revisions aren’t necessary at all, but I still like to give everyone the option.

That’s it. My entire process. It might sound long and tedious with all those predetermined steps, but it’s a clean and proven way to provide the very best copy possible.

Website Copywriting

Are you doing business online? Want to hire a professional for your website copywriting? Please visit Scribizzy’s Website Copywriting page or get a quote online.

An Introduction to Doing Business Online

Many of my clients do business offline. And by offline, I mean they do all of their business in the three-dimensional world that exists far from the computer and way beyond the internet.

Some of them are new business owners who are just starting out and want to make sure they establish an effective online presence. Others have been in business for years and are finally ready to harness the Internet to expand their customer reach and product or service offerings. Many want nothing more than to update their website with current information, a fresh design, and compelling copy. A few would prefer to keep it entirely offline, but they know better.

Since Scribizzy’s primary service has been website copywriting, these spirited entrepreneurs usually hire me to write a few pages of copy, and as we work through the project, various comments and questions arise about doing business online.

• Do you think this logo looks outdated? What do you think of this tagline I came up with?
• I just had my site redesigned. Any feedback is welcome!
• Is the site missing anything? Are there pages I should add, remove, or change?
• Should I have a products or services page even if I don’t sell my services online?
• What? You mean there’s a way I can sell my wares on the web to thousands more customers?

Funny thing about the web. It’s relatively new. Folks who’ve been in business for twenty years got started before the business website was commonplace. People who are becoming entrepreneurs in their retirement or starting up a small business because they lost their jobs in the down economy may not have any knowledge about the web, website design, or online marketing. They may not even know how to use the internet beyond checking their email, connecting with old friends on Facebook, and shopping on eBay or Amazon.

So, some of these entrepreneurs know very little about online marketing. Most know just enough to be dangerous. But just about every single one of them knows that in this day and age, doing business online is imperative. Even if your website is nothing more than a few pages with basic details about your shop or office.

Getting Started

No matter what you sell or where you sell it, establishing an online presence starts with a website. Your website should clearly communicate your offerings and explain how your products or services will benefit customers. It should include a way for visitors to visit, contact, or order from you, so they can become paying customers.

You also want them to become loyal customers, so your site should espouse outstanding customer service, competitive pricing, and a friendly, positive atmosphere. Loyalty can also come from establishing brand recognition. Make sure your business has a clear, identifiable logo. A tagline or slogan will help make your brand recognizable as will your business’s tone, color scheme, and the general impression it makes.

When visitors come to your website, how does it make them feel? Safe or scared? Confident or confused? Weak or strong? Welcome? Comfortable? Does the information on your site speak to your target audience in language that they understand? Does it include all the details they’re looking for about your industry of field of expertise, products, services, pricing, location, or hours of operation?

Doing Business Online vs. Offline

If your business operates entirely offline, you still need an online presence. People will conduct localized searches for your products and services, and you want them to be able to find you! If you have existing customers, they’ll expect to be able to check your website to grab your phone number, find out your hours of operation, or obtain directions to your location.

You might be planning or already running a business that operates entirely online. Maybe you sell information products and communicate exclusively through email. Perhaps you run a consulting business and your rates depend on the project or the client’s needs. You might even have a blog or some type of website that doesn’t sell anything at all (yet). You need to determine what information is relevant to your visitors — people who you will be dealing with entirely online.

Want the best of both worlds? Lots of businesses are combining online and offline offerings, keeping their local and loyal customers happy while reaching out to millions more potential buyers. If you own a cafe, you can sell recipes online. If you are a handyman, you can make recommendations for do-it-yourself repairs and earn income from affiliate sales by promoting your favorite tools and supplies on your site. If you run a consignment shop, you can take photos of your wares and sell them with e-commerce technology.

For just about every business in the world, there is a way to expand beyond merely having an online presence and start actively, profitably doing business online.

Get Serious About Doing Business Online

Scribizzy offers services for entrepreneurs and small businesses that want to establish a successful online presence, grow their offerings, and expand their customer reach.

Learn more about our web content services and get a quote online.

Web Content Development Step One: Brainstorming

Have you ever heard of the five Ps?

Proper planning prevents poor performance.

This saying is simple and easy to remember, and it conveys an important message: The best results come from a well-laid plan. That’s what smart web content development is all about — proper planning.

If done right, a good content development plan will ensure a stellar performance, one in which your website plays the starring role. This all starts with a blueprint, a map that you can follow to take your website from concept to completion.

Every good plan kicks off with a brainstorming session.

We’ve already explored the basics of web content development. The very first step in developing web content is to establish the concept for your website. In this step, you brainstorm all of your options. Later, you’ll develop a streamlined list of content that you will build and launch over time. This becomes your plan.

In the picture above, you can see a man working at a board laden with sticky notes. This is a great way to brainstorm. However, a few large sheets of paper will serve just as well. In any case, you need to set up a workspace where you can jot down all your ideas and notes.

Make sure you have your computer handy too. As you build your list of possibilities for web content development, you’ll need to conduct research at almost every step. Keep this in mind as you go through the rest of this list — for example, if you’re not sure what all your social media options are, you’ll want to conduct a search.

Web Content Development Brainstorming Tips

1. List your core web content — this includes your website and its most essential pages (Home, About, Products or Services, and a Contact page). This content should contain information that is absolutely necessary to communicate your offer and message to the online community. Don’t forget that images, video, and links are content too!
2. Create a list of additional pages that could benefit your website. These could be articles, sales pages, or individual products and services pages. Remember that you’re in the conceptual phase, so write down anything and everything that comes to mind.
3. Remember that web content is any content you own on the web. This goes beyond your website and expands into countless opportunities for online exposure, such as social media. While your content may exist in various places on the web, its core purpose is to drive traffic to your site. Brainstorm beyond your website.
4. List social media sites. What kind of content will you need to set up a presence on those sites? For example, if you set up a Twitter account, you’ll probably want a custom background and maybe even a few pages of potential tweets to kick-start your Twitter campaign.
5. In a sense, your website advertises your products and services. To drive traffic and potential customers to your site, you’ll have to advertise the site itself. That means listing your website in directories, posting ads, or buying advertising space on other websites. You might want to try a Google AdWords campaign as a way to drive traffic and customers to your site. Compile a list of online advertising channels that you’d like to explore.
6. Check out the competition. Visit sites that offer goods and services similar to your own and check out their web content. This is an excellent way to get ideas. You can also conduct reverse searches to find out how your competitors are getting inbound links.
7. Conduct searches. Use Google to see what’s buzzing in your industry. Try a wide range of search terms, including terms related to your industry, products, and services. You could spend hours doing this, possibly all of eternity. Keep track of the search terms you enter in search engines and make notes about anything interesting that comes up. Read the articles, check out the images, and visit sites that are related to your own. They don’t have to be competitors; be sure to look for sites that offer products and services that complement rather than compete with your offerings.
8. Take your search to social media. Here’s where you’ll really see what’s buzzing. Want to get your finger on the pulse of the universal water cooler? Just take a look at Twitter’s trending topics. Enter your most condensed search terms in social media sites like Facebook and Twitter to see how folks are treating your subject matter and what they’re saying about it. Tip: Don’t forget to search YouTube (you’ll find some really interesting stuff there).

More Brainstorming Tips

Here are a few bonus tips that deal with any type of brainstorming session:

• Start with your primary objective. Whether you’re selling widgets or trying to build a readership for your newsletter, know what your main goals are. Let every aspect of your content development contribute toward achieving those goals. I recommend writing this objective in big, bold letters and keep it visible during your brainstorming sessions. If you have more than one goal, then identify your core goal and note lesser goals as well.
• You can always add to your list. Keep your brainstorming materials accessible (or transfer them into a computer file) so you can add to them whenever that light bulb goes off in your head (and trust me, this will happen). You also may want to revisit your ideas later, which is another good reason to keep your brainstorm on file.
• Remember that brainstorming and research can take time. You might need to spend several hours or days on this phase. If you put a lot of sweat into brainstorming, conceptualizing, and planning, then all the other phases of your web content development will go smoothly.

Next Steps

Once you’ve got a massive list of ideas for web content, your next step is to prioritize, eliminate, and explore further. If you’ve done your legwork, then you should have a good idea which content should be developed first. You will also have some ideas that don’t look like a good fit for your specific business offerings. Finally, there will be some ideas that are unclear or require further research.

Keep working at your list, refining it until a concrete plan starts to emerge. You can always get started building your web content before your plan is completely finalized. For example, you may be trying to figure out just how much you can squeeze into your budget in a single year and aren’t sure if you can do social media sites and an ad campaign. But you know you need to get those core pages on your website underway. Multi-task, and if you’re too busy, then try delegating or hiring out some of the work.

Web Content Development

Web content development can be a lot of fun for creative types who like to plan and brainstorm. If you’re internet savvy, brainstorming will come a lot easier. If you’re not very familiar with the many marketing outlets available on the web, you might need to spend a lot of time researching — to get a list of possible sites where you’ll feature your content and then to hone that list down targeting only those that are a good match for your business offerings.

If web content development doesn’t sound like fun to you, then you can always hire a professional. Scribizzy offers web content development services and can help you put together a comprehensive plan for the future of your website. We can also help you execute that plan! Find out more by getting a quote online.

SEO School

The Introduction to SEO explained how search engine optimization (SEO) can increase traffic to your website. But how does one implement SEO? How do you know which keywords to use, and what do you need to do with those keywords to increase your rank on search engine results pages (SERPs) and draw more traffic to your site?

And if you’re thinking about hiring an SEO consultant, how do you begin to understand what you’re paying them to do?

In short, how do you learn SEO?

If you want to learn about search engine optimization, you can spend weeks or even months perusing the Internet, gathering free information. Eventually, you’ll pick up enough knowledge to launch your own SEO campaign.

Or, you could just buy a copy of SEO School, spend a couple of hours reading, and then launch your SEO campaign. With the information in this ebook, you can optimize your website and see real results – in both your keyword ranking and your overall traffic.

In less than a month, I was able to apply the information I learned in SEO School and test it on one of my websites. And what I found out was that it works. Plus, I was able to learn SEO quickly and easily!

Learn SEO

Over the last few years, I studied SEO at a distance. I paid attention to articles and blog posts that covered SEO, and I had a basic understanding of how SEO worked. From everything I gathered, it was a complex, convoluted field – one in which there were no guarantees and in which the rules were constantly changing.

Last summer when Naomi Dunford of Itty Biz launched her ebook SEO School, I was intrigued enough to buy it right away. The price was right (about half the cost of most other SEO books), and I knew Naomi’s writing style was witty and obscenely engaging, so it was sure to be an informative and entertaining read.

After breezing through the entire ebook in just a couple of hours, I knew one thing for certain: I was going to learn SEO and then optimize my websites.

The thing about SEO is that it’s not that difficult. It’s just extremely time consuming – though even the amount of time you spend depends on the number of keywords you’re optimizing for and how competitive the keyword field is.

SEO School: Enroll Today

SEO School is a perfect introduction for people who want to learn SEO basics and who want the nitty gritty details on how to actually optimize a site. It’s ideal for website managers who want to start optimizing, and it’s a fantastic resource for small business owners who are thinking about hiring an SEO professional but want to understand what’s involved in the process of search engine optimization before they shell out the cash.

The book kicks off with a basic introduction to SEO, and explains how search engines work and what their motives and goals are (remember, search engines are businesses too!). Next, there is a discussion about selecting keywords based on a variety of factors, such as search frequency, competition, and how well a given keyword relates to your site.

About halfway into the book, you’ll start learning exactly how to tweak your site’s code and content to gain higher search engine rankings. You’ll also learn about off-site optimization. There’s even a section just for bloggers.

Naomi’s style matches her blog, so if you’re an Itty Biz reader, this book will delight you. And if you’re not an Itty Biz reader, then head over there and subscribe right now to get some of the best online marketing tips around. However, if you are a puritan, beware – Naomi is liberal with language and her blog posts as well as her ebook are peppered with words that could get a child’s mouth washed out with soap, which is part of what makes it such a blast to read.

Case Study

I launched my own SEO campaign after reading SEO School, and the results were impressive. For the purpose of this case study, I will share my results for two keywords. Keep in mind that I was in the early, testing phase. My approach was to optimize a few pages and see what would happen. Once I could assess the test results, then I would be prepared to launch a full-scale campaign.

The main thing I wanted to know was: does SEO work? If I learn SEO and then optimize, will I actually see an increase in my rankings and my traffic? The answer was yes, and my full-scale campaign is now underway.

The case study below outlines the steps I took to determine whether SEO School would pay off.

Case Study

The site I was working with was over a year old and had almost 200 pages of content when I started. I decided to optimize the archives rather than create fresh content.

Keyword #1

I found that a keyword that generated almost 30,000 searches per month had sent 23 visitors to my site in 2008. I couldn’t even find my site in the first 200 search results on Google, so it was no wonder that I was getting such a small fraction of the search engine traffic.

After optimizing one page in December, my site leaped to position #130, and almost immediately, I noticed a spike in traffic. Over the next few weeks, I optimized four more pages on the site for the same keyword. Each time I optimized, I noted the current rank and followed up a few days later.

In less than a month, I had optimized five short pages and increased my rank from practically off the chart to page four. At the time this case study was written, my site was at position 32, so it’s still climbing – and I’m not done optimizing. I probably spent 15-20 minutes proofreading, editing, and optimizing each page.

Keyword #2

As it turns out, the second keyword occurred organically. In SEO, there is something called a long-tail keyword. There are plenty of different definitions of long tail keywords. For the purpose of this study, the keyword that started generating traffic wasn’t one I optimized for at all. In fact, it was a combination of two other keywords I had optimized for.

For example, let’s say you optimized for the keywords “red” and “shirt,” and then found you were gaining traffic for the keyword phrase “red shirt.” Well, that’s what happened with my site.

The long-tail keyword that started drawing traffic gets between 3000 and 5000 searches per month. That’s not a lot, but if you ranked for several such keywords, you would see a nice spike in traffic. Also, keywords with lower search frequency are good for cutting your SEO teeth and learning the ropes.

In 2008, I received a grand total of 23 hits for this keyword phrase – that’s over the course of a whole year. After optimizing about five pages for portions of the keyword phrase, I received 182 hits from the keyword phrase in January alone. In a single month, I had increased my traffic for just one keyword phrase over 700% of what it had been during the course of an entire year.

I can’t wait to see what my stats show in February.

Summary

If you want to learn SEO on your own, Scribizzy recommends SEO School by Naomi Dunford of IttyBiz. This SEO book is a quick and easy read, and it will give you all the basics of SEO plus the actual steps you need to take to optimize your site.

Buyer beware: SEO School may contain language that is not suitable for children. But it’s really fun to read.

Want to optimize your website? Check out Scribizzy’s SEO services, including SEO copywriting, or just go ahead and get a quote online.