Copywriting: The Easy Way to Increase Traffic to Your Website

The Obvious
Everyone wants more people to view their website, right? But not only to see their website once, they want people to come back again and again, and even to tell their friends about it. The more traffic flow to your website, the more opportunities there are for a new customer to be made. So how do you catch the attention of a possible customer and hold on to it long enough to get your point across?

Well, obviously a flashy, eye-catching website is a must. If your website is dull, with only a few boring colors and no pictures to be seen, no one will stay long to check out your product or service. Or maybe your website is too complicated, with link after link leading you nowhere, and no search box to be found. People will just get fed up, and try another site. So a good web design is necessary. Whether you do it yourself, or hire a professional, you have to be able to appeal aesthetically to the customer. But a pretty website without any important information on it is just as bad as an ugly one. So now you not only have to have an eye-catching website, it has to have important, yet easily understandable information on it as well. That is where copy writing comes in.

What is Copy Writing?
Copy writing has nothing to do with the legal copyright system, though you wouldn't be able to tell that from a quick Google search. Copy writing is the ability to best convey a topic, such as a service or product, to a selected group of individuals, and hopefully potential customers. The copy (or the wording) of a website must be clear and informative enough to hook someone who knows nothing about the topic.

Let's pretend you are trying to sell computers. Someone walks into your store and knows absolutely nothing about computers, but needs to purchase one. What are you going to say to them? Are you going to tell them the size of the hard drive, or the speed of the processor? Well, you could, but you would just be confusing them, because they don't know why the size of a hard drive matters, or what the difference is between a Pentium 4 and a Core 2 Duo processor. So you skip all the numbers and parts of a computer that can be confusing to someone who knows nothing. Instead, you show them a computer that looks nice, and you tell them that it can store a lot of data, that it's very fast, and then you tell them the price and answer any questions.

Unfortunately, things aren't quite as simple on the internet. You can't tailor your website to fit the needs of every single person in the world, but you still need to get your product sold. For better or worse, your website is the first impression of your product. The sleek design of the page catches their eyes while the copy grabs their hearts and minds. A good copy can hook everyone, whether they be an expert, or know nothing at all.

Why is a Good Copy Important?
As an entrepreneur, your job is to sell your product or service. By having a website, you are trying to reach people globally to buy whatever you are trying to sell. Without a good copy, people will be turned away from looking further into your product, and therefore, your customer base will not grow. A good copy draws in anyone who looks at your website, and even if they don't purchase your product right away, they will remember your name. But more than just keeping customers interested, a good copy can bring your name up to the front page of a search. Unless people are directed to your website, they may never know that you exist, and what better way than to be one of the top links on an online search?

How Can You Copy Write Successfully?
You have two options when it comes to writing the pages for your website: either you can do it yourself, or you can hire either a freelance copy writer or a company that writes copy. If you want a more professional website, then maybe it would be better for you to hire someone who is skilled in writing for web pages. But if you think you have what it takes to take and hold the attention of browsers, then here are a few tips for you:

1. Identify Your Intended Audience
   If you're trying to solicit teenagers into buying the new, coolest cell phone, then you may want to think about popular and current culture. Or if you're trying to appeal to the working class, maybe a little more sophisticated language is necessary. Whatever your intended audience is, you are trying to catch their attention within a few words by saying something familiar that they can relate to.


2. Features Vs. Benefits
   This goes back to trying to sell a product to someone who knows nothing. A feature is what you do, or what exactly something is. A benefit on the other hand, is what makes that feature better than any other. It's like asking someone, "What do you do?" The feature in this case would be their actual job, such as a firefighter, or an engineer. The benefit though is why their job as a firefighter is better than any other. Let's go back to the computer scenario. Maybe a feature of the of the computer is that it has a 500GB hard drive. But what is the benefit of this? Maybe it's cheaper than other 500GB hard drives. Or maybe because a 500GB hard drive is all you'll ever need to store all your documents and games. Every product has some form of competition., but your copy shouldn't compare your product to a competitor's, it should say why your product is the best for them.


3. Give the Customer a Reason to Buy Now
   If an offer lasts forever, where's the rush in getting the product now? That is why your copy has to have a sense of urgency to it. Look at how sales work. For one day out of the year, a certain item will be 50% off. People literally fight over the item just to get that special price, because it only lasts for that one day. Otherwise, they may not go to the store for another week, or month, or year to pick up that item, because it's just not necessary right now. That sense of urgency is what gets people to stop procrastinating, and gets products to sell quickly, and it has to be conveyed in your copy.


4. Prove to Your Clients That You Have a Valid Product
   Your copy also has to prove to your clients that it's not a scam, and that you have a good, lawful business. You can do this by providing testimonials, or giving examples of previously completed jobs. With scams floating all over the internet and e-mail, people have become very wary of deals that seem "too good to be true". If you can prove to browsers that your product not only exists, but is truly as good as it sounds, you may just have a new customer.


5. Transfer Your Love of Your Product to Your Customer
   Why do you sell whatever it is that you sell? Hopefully it's because you love what you sell, and believe that it can truly help other people with whatever their goal is. Your copy is your first, and possibly last interaction with your clients, and therefore, has to touch them emotionally. If you can convey to a customer in your copy why you truly believe this product can help them, then they too will believe this product can help them.


6. Keep your Copy Clear
   A common acronym is KISS (either Keep It Simple Stupid or Keep It Simple and Straightforward). Keeping your message clear in your copy is essential to getting your customer hooked. For some products, you do need to go more in depth for the experts, but on that first page your clients see, they need to be able to see what your selling, why you're selling it, and why they need to buy it now. If you're just confusing them with big words, or trying to impress them, they may just go back to that search that pulled up your name and click on the next link. But if your copy is well defined and gets your point across, people may be more inclined to delve a little deeper.

Hiring/Pricing
If you feel like maybe you're not the right person to be marketing customers with your copy, or you're unsure if you wrote the correct things, you can hire someone to help you out. There are companies and freelancers that can edit, or write copy for you. Editing takes your website and everything you've written on it, and optimizes it to grab the attention of clients, and to get more hits from search engines. Writing new website copy takes your ideas and your product and creates copy for you to put on your website. Editing is cheaper, while new copy is obviously more expensive. Price varies from company to company, but is normally priced per page. Of course, the more professional the copy, the more expensive it will be.

Search Engine Optimization
Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is what gets you to be the first link people see when they search for keywords on a search engine. How do search engines such as Google and Yahoo! know exactly what you're looking for? Why does it bring up a link to Sony rather than LG when you search for TV's? If you look up the source of a website, the actual HTML lines that are the threads in this elaborate tapestry you see before you, you may be a little confused at first. But by doing a quick search, you'll find a line that says "keywords". On this line, you can see every combination of important words that were placed there during the website design process. These keywords are what those search engines are looking for when you type something into the search box. So how does the search engine decide who gets first? Well, it's a pretty complicated process, but a big part of it is how many times you use those key words throughout your website. So, if a keyword for your website was Richmond web design, you would try and place that in your website as many times as you possibly can. But wait! Wouldn't that just lead to a page of repeating Richmond web design? Well, you could do that, but you would just be hurting yourself. Search engines look for websites that do this "keyword stuffing", and actually decrease ratings, because it is considered to be an unethical technique. Look at it like a game. Let's say you're playing a sport, and throwing in Richmond web design every so often on a page is like one point. Now if you get it in there a lot, it may be more like two to three points. But, if you throw it in there over and over, it's like trying to score a hundred points at once. The ref, or in this case the search engine, catches this, and takes away points for your over-zealous, under-thought attempt to increase your rating. How do you find balance between too many and too few keywords?

The Zen of SEO
So, you want your website to be one of the top-ranked links on a search engine, but you're trying to keep your copy clean and clear. Here are a few tips to finding the perfect balance between good copy and good ratings:

1. Diversify Your Keywords
   Don't try and be too specific with your keywords, because who is going to know to search for "Blue Mustangs that are in good condition made between 1967 and 1970"? Think about what people are actually looking for. Maybe you decide to use "Blue Mustangs" or "67 Mustang" or something along those lines. If you're trying to sell something like website design, or something that is commonly shortened, try to add the shortened version, so throw in web design too. Face it, people can be lazy, or maybe just have a broad idea of what they want, so keep your keywords clear, simple, and don't try and think of every combination possible.


2. Try and Put Your Keywords Where it is Logical
   You shouldn't just throw your keywords around, but this isn't like putting salt on your food where you want it everywhere. Yes, you want to put them as many places as you can, but do you really want a sentence that looks like this: "Keyword is easy when you have an expert keyword to make a keyword that fits all your keyword needs!"? Just use them wisely, and keep your copy clear for your clients.


3. Links
   Your website hopefully has multiple pages to it, and if not, it will soon. If you create a page that happens to be one of your keywords, that's great! But it's even better if you link back to that page when you talk about it in another page. Search engines take into consideration things we as regular browsers don't see, which includes links. So go ahead and put some links in that use keywords, but once again, use moderation.

Hiring/Prices
Some companies offer SEO as part of copy writing, while other companies edit your copy write to increase your SEO ranking. Like copy writing, prices vary between companies and skill levels, but if you want to be seen, and don't quite feel up to the task, the money may just be well spent investing in one of these companies.

Final Thoughts
Remember, if you're looking to be found by search engines, and want a catchy website design and copy to increase your pool of customers, it's not about complexity, or a flood of keywords. Keep it neat, keep it clear, and keep it simple. If you're not quite ready for this burden, there are plenty of people for hire who are. So go out there, get yourself recognized, and hook those browsers with a deal that is so good, it is true.