Copywriter asks, "do you want people to read your website?"

My first job was for a department store, now part of the Dillard's chain; I wrote ads for household items. It was a crazy job with lot of crazy people. And you could smoke. At least 80 per cent of the people in the department lit their new cigarette with the butt of the last one. But I learned how to typeset--copywriters had to set type as well as write powerful and compelling copy about toasters and luggage, etc..

I studied typsetting and learned some basic rules. In print--use serif fonts. Always set body copy with black type on a white background. Now, online, sans serif fonts are more readable.

I can't tell you how often I go to websites where the copy is totally unreadable. Rookie mistakes...

1. White type on a black background.
2. The type is too small to read.
3. Or both.

Here's a classic example of a wesbite that's totally unreadable. Guys, you might as well not have a website. By making your type too small, you're throwing money out the window.

I'm always happy to help clients with typesetting--print or web.

Tell me about some websites you think are perfect when it comes to readability.

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I'm a direct response copywriter based in Charlotte, North Carolina. I specialize in providing copy and content for the direct marketing environment. Enter your info to the right for my free series: Seven Steps to High Converting Copy. Or contact me here.

The Power of Testimonials

I just visited the websites of six prominent public golf courses here in Charlotte, where I live. These courses are desperate for business. Their websites are terrible. One of them got a dismal 39/100 on HubSpot's Website Grader (www.websitegrader.com).

There are ZERO testimonials. Shocking. Testimonials are vital for two reasons.

1. Proof you keep your promises.
2. You find out what's really important to your clients/customers.

Some tips for testimonials.

• The more the merrier. Testimonials are like snow at a ski resort--you can never have enough.
• Get someone to harvest them; a copywriter can help--I've often put them together.
• Make them stand out graphically. Either with a photo or some type of graphical element.
• Ask the testimonial giver if it's OK to tidy up grammar, spelling. A testimonial that reads, "their grate at Charlotte Golf club because its they're service which are ALWAYS awesime" is like Miss World with zits.
• Yes--if you have 100 testimonials, readers will not necessarily read all of them but the sheer volume can be impressive.
• Audio and video testimonials--YES!

I'm rebuilding my website so the testimonials page needs some work but it's there and Squarespace makes it easy to make them stand out. I'll add more and also add some photos.

Case studies are 'advanced testimonials' and these are even more powerful. Yes--they take work to put together but, if you can't put case studies together right away, make a point to get at least three testimonials a week. With photos.

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I'm a direct response copywriter based in Charlotte, North Carolina. I specialize in providing copy and content for the direct marketing environment. Enter your info to the right for my free series: Seven Steps to High Converting Copy. Or contact me here.

An interesting and powerful page on Google's site (part 5)

In this series of five blogs, I'm going through the excellent content advice on this page on Google's site. In this final part of this series I'm looking at the paragraph that begins...

Learn what is interesting to your visitors

One of the keys to content is discovering precisely what's important to your readers. You probably have a hunch but, with analytics, you can discover which content fires up your readers. Once you discover the content that works, keep feeding them similar content. From the article...

Try to improve your content mix using what you learn from these reports. By keeping an eye on what the analytics are telling you, you'll learn more about your visitors and be able to provide just the information they are looking for.

That's one of the true beauties of a blog--it's an easy way to test content. A lot of the people in the analytics game use Google Analytics, there are plenty of other tools available. Pay close attention to email unsubscribes when you send out your emails. If you're keeping people on board then your content is useful.

Controversy for the Sake of Controversy

I'm not a fighter or an argumentative type. Very few of my blogs include fighting words. But my friend, Andrew Wood, loves to get people stirred up and some of his most popular blogs have been controversial ones. Controversy is a powerful weapon in content but use it periodically. I'm going to start using it a bit more--and get controversial. I'll find out if it's interesting to visitors.

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I'm a direct response copywriter based in Charlotte, North Carolina. I specialize in providing copy and content for the direct marketing environment. Enter your info to the right for my free series: Seven Steps to High Converting Copy. Or contact me here.

An interesting and powerful page on Google's site (part 4)

In this series of five blogs, I'm going through the excellent content advice on this page on Google's site. Today I'm looking at the paragraph that begins...

Increase your visibility.

Here's an excerpt.

To a search engine, the best sites consist of many HTML files, each one text rich...Even more important, you'll find that other sites like to link to pages with useful information. Having lots of sites pointing to your articles...can improve your natural (unpaid) search engine rankings.

Q: How do you get people pointing to your site?

A: The content must be really, really compelling. And that's where serious writing comes into play. Technically, anyone with a computer can be a writer. But a big reason to hire a seasoned and experienced writer is to generate compelling content.

A lot of people ask me, "What does a copywriter do?" The short answer is "type a lot." But my two goals are to:

1. Sell
2. Get someone to hand over their information

To achieve these goals, the copy and content has to be compelling, interesting, salient, and persuasive. There's a simple test...response. Ask to see actual conversion rates when you ask to see a portfolio. A web page I wrote is currently converting at over 30%...which is off the charts. The copy and content are compelling.

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I'm a direct response copywriter based in Charlotte, North Carolina. I specialize in providing copy and content for the direct marketing environment. Enter your info to the right for my free series: Seven Steps to High Converting Copy. Or contact me here.

An interesting and powerful page on Google's site (part 3)

In this series of five blogs, I'm going through the excellent content advice on this page on Google's site.

The second paragraph begins with this subhead.

Establish your points of difference.

And then continues with this question...

"Why would a customer choose to buy from you rather than from one of the many other businesses just like yours?"

And then...

"Tell visitors about what makes your approach to the business unique. If you specialize in a certain area or approach, tell them how - and why."

Incredibly, very few websites really work hard to tell me why the company/product/service is unique--and better. Although I don't like the word 'unique' that much.

We're not talking about a glib tagline (It's the Real Thing) but it's your USP--unique selling proposition. On my new website, I'm making a clear statement: I'm a direct response copywriter and I help direct marketing agencies and companies that use a direct marketing model with all their copywriting needs. At some stage in the future, I'm going to drill down and differentiate myself further as I specialize. But for now, I'm your direct response copywriter.

I see a lot of Flash, a lot of big graphics, a lot of this and that, plus a lot of fluffy copy but it's rare when I see a website that really tells me why the company is different and better than others. It's not easy. But here's a piece I wrote about developing a USP.

Tomorrow, I'm going through the paragraph with the subhead: 

Increase your visibility.

Hint: it's not an excuse to load a million photos to your website.

But seriously, take a look at your website right now and ask yourself if you REALLY differentiate yourself from others.

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I'm a direct response copywriter based in Charlotte, North Carolina. I specialize in providing copy and content for the direct marketing environment. Enter your info to the right for my free series: Seven Steps to High Converting Copy. Or contact me here.