After the success of last year’s Age of Conversation, a book penned by over 100 authors whose proceeds were all donated to Variety the Children’s Charity, it is no surprise to see such a huge response this year.

My chapter is in, and at the request of the editors, I’m not going to publish too much of it here. I did however release nearly a paragraph of it via Twitter, so feel free to preview my snippets there. (Twemes tag: #AOC)

Big thanks to Drew and Gavin once again for their hard word in pulling all of this together, and virtual handshakes to my co-authors:

Adam Crowe, Adrian Ho, Aki Spicer, Alex Henault, Amy Jussel, Andrew Odom, Andy Nulman, Andy Sernovitz, Andy Whitlock, Angela Maiers, Ann Handley, Anna Farmery, Armando Alves, Arun Rajagopal, Asi Sharabi, Becky Carroll, Becky McCray, Bernie Scheffler, Bill Gammell, Bob Carlton, Bob LeDrew, Brad Shorr, Bradley Spitzer, Brandon Murphy, Branislav Peric, Brent Dixon, Brett Macfarlane, Brian Reich, C.C. Chapman, Cam Beck, Casper Willer, Cathleen Rittereiser, Cathryn Hrudicka, Cedric Giorgi, Charles Sipe, Chris Kieff, Chris Cree, Chris Wilson, Christina Kerley (CK), C.B. Whittemore, Clay Parker Jones, Chris Brown, Colin McKay, Connie Bensen, Connie Reece, Cord Silverstein, Corentin Monot, Craig Wilson, Daniel Honigman, Dan Goldstein, Dan Schawbel, Dana VanDen Heuvel, Dan Sitter, Daria Radota Rasmussen, Darren Herman, Darryl Patterson, Dave Davison, Dave Origano, David Armano, David Bausola, David Berkowitz, David Brazeal, David Koopmans, David Meerman Scott, David Petherick, David Reich, David Weinfeld, David Zinger, Deanna Gernert, Deborah Brown, Dennis Price, Derrick Kwa, Dino Demopoulos, Doug Haslam, Doug Meacham, Doug Mitchell, Douglas Hanna, Douglas Karr, Drew McLellan, Duane Brown, Dustin Jacobsen, Dylan Viner, Ed Brenegar, Ed Cotton, Efrain Mendicuti, Ellen Weber, Emily Reed, Eric Peterson, Eric Nehrlich, Ernie Mosteller, Faris Yakob, Fernanda Romano, Francis Anderson, G. Kofi Annan, Gareth Kay, Gary Cohen, Gaurav Mishra, Gavin Heaton, Geert Desager, George Jenkins, G.L. Hoffman, Gianandrea Facchini, Gordon Whitehead, Graham Hill, Greg Verdino, Gretel Going & Kathryn Fleming, Hillel Cooperman, Hugh Weber, J. Erik Potter, J.C. Hutchins, James Gordon-Macintosh, Jamey Shiels, Jasmin Tragas, Jason Oke, Jay Ehret, Jeanne Dininni, Jeff De Cagna, Jeff Gwynne, Jeff Noble, Jeff Wallace, Jennifer Warwick, Jenny Meade, Jeremy Fuksa, Jeremy Heilpern, Jeremy Middleton, Jeroen Verkroost, Jessica Hagy, Joanna Young, Joe Pulizzi, Joe Talbott, John Herrington, John Jantsch, John Moore, John Rosen, John Todor, Jon Burg, Jon Swanson, Jonathan Trenn, Jordan Behan, Julie Fleischer, Justin Flowers, Justin Foster, Karl Turley, Kate Trgovac, Katie Chatfield, Katie Konrath, Kenny Lauer, Keri Willenborg, Kevin Jessop, Kris Hoet, Krishna De, Kristin Gorski, Laura Fitton, Laurence Helene Borei, Lewis Green, Lois Kelly, Lori Magno, Louise Barnes-Johnston, Louise Mangan, Louise Manning, Luc Debaisieux, Marcus Brown, Mario Vellandi, Mark Blair, Mark Earls, Mark Goren, Mark Hancock, Mark Lewis, Mark McGuinness, Mark McSpadden, Matt Dickman, Matt J. McDonald, Matt Moore, Michael Hawkins, Michael Karnjanaprakorn, Michelle Lamar, Mike Arauz, Mike McAllen, Mike Sansone, Mitch Joel, Monica Wright, Nathan Gilliatt, Nathan Snell, Neil Perkin, Nettie Hartsock, Nick Rice, Oleksandr Skorokhod, Ozgur Alaz, Paul Chaney, Paul Hebert, Paul Isakson, Paul Marobella, Paul McEnany, Paul Tedesco, Paul Williams, Pet Campbell, Pete Deutschman, Peter Corbett, Phil Gerbyshak, Phil Lewis, Phil Soden, Piet Wulleman, Rachel Steiner, Sreeraj Menon, Reginald Adkins, Richard Huntington, Rishi Desai, Beeker Northam, Rob Mortimer, Robert Hruzek, Roberta Rosenberg, Robyn McMaster, Roger von Oech, Rohit Bhargava, Ron Shevlin, Ryan Barrett, Ryan Karpeles, Ryan Rasmussen, Sam Huleatt, Sandy Renshaw, Scott Goodson, Scott Monty, Scott Townsend, Scott White, Sean Howard, Sean Scott, Seni Thomas, Seth Gaffney, Shama Hyder, Sheila Scarborough, Sheryl Steadman, Simon Payn, Sonia Simone, Spike Jones, Stanley Johnson, Stephen Collins, Stephen Cribbett, Stephen Landau, Stephen Smith, Steve Bannister, Steve Hardy, Steve Portigal, Steve Roesler, Steven Verbruggen, Steve Woodruff, Sue Edworthy, Susan Bird, Susan Gunelius, Susan Heywood, Tammy Lenski, Terrell Meek, Thomas Clifford, Thomas Knoll, Tiffany Kenyon, Tim Brunelle, Tim Buesing, Tim Connor, Tim Jackson, Tim Longhurst, Tim Mannveille, Tim Tyler, Timothy Johnson, Tinu Abayomi-Paul, Toby Bloomberg, Todd Andrlik, Troy Rutter, Troy Worman, Uwe Hook, Valeria Maltoni, Vandana Ahuja, Vanessa DiMauro, Veronique Rabuteau, Wayne Buckhanan, William Azaroff, Yves Van Landeghem

I’ll let you know when it’s out so you can order your copies…!

Via the Ubertor real estate marketing blog by Stephen Jagger, I discovered this “Keyword Density Checker” tool that shows you the frequency of keyword use at any given domain, displayed as a very cool tag cloud.

If you’re not familiar with tag clouds, they display the most frequently used tags or terms for a site, using the size of the displayed term to represent its frequency. If this doesn’t make sense, just check the wikipedia definition, or better yet, enter your url into the box below and see for yourself:

If you’re expecting to come up in a Google search for a term that you can’t seem to find in your tag cloud, then you have some work to do. When you’re done checking your own domain, have a look at your competitors’ domains. All of them.

It pays to know what you are up against.

When I started writing this series, I committed to seven parts. After writing part three or so, I realized that competing all seven parts was going to take some creativity. So I decided then that part seven was going was going to turn things back over to the community, and invite your additions, corrections, cheers, jeers or any other kind of feedback that you feel is fitting.

So call this an incomplete ‘manifesto,’ and add your two cents. After all, it’s no secret that much of the best content on the web is community generated and collaborative. If there is one nugget of advice in this, the last installment of a series about content on the web, it is to always invite the input of your community, listen to their ideas, and implement them as often as you can.

After all friends, your ideas are better than mine, and our ideas are better still.

Read the rest of the series here:

Part One: It’s all About You
Part Two: Call to Action
Part Three: Skip the Jargon
Part Four: More is More
Part Five: Be Relevant
Part Six: Blog!

You knew it was coming, and at last it’s finally here. How could I write a series about quality web content without mentioning the value and effectiveness of blogging?

(image courtesy of flickr user Trois Tetes.)

It’s no secret that I am one of the most outspoken evangelists for blogging, both as a hobby and as a business tool. But rather than have me blab on and on about what I think, I’ll defer to my fellow experts, and have them tell you why you should (or shouldn’t!) add a blog to your business’ marketing portfolio.

First up is “The Blog Squad,” two wise ladies who are huge proponents of blogging as a business tool, with a post entitled “Blogging’s Biggest Business Effect:”

It’s not more paid speeches, not the two book contracts, not more traffic, etc. - although those ARE effects I’ve seen.
It’s the the enormous increase in networking — and of course associated opportunities…Bloggers know a lot of people, and a lot of people know them. In business, that’s a BIG plus.

Well said. I think the reason is obvious, too. Bloggers make themselves more accessible and give value to their site visitors, and relationships develop very naturally as a result.

Next up is Mike Sansone, who’s whole blog “ConverStations” is dedicated to promoting the virtues of blogging for business. A few days back, Mike wrote a post called “Company Blog: Should You or Should You Not?” It includes several links to past posts he’s written on the subject, and to others’ opinions as well. Most notable are the last few sentences:

If a company wants to build valuable relationships, engage with their customers, extend their reach, become more findable and improve their bottom line in the process (and in this order) - they will probably find value in blogging.

Reverse the order above, and its probably best not to blog at this time.

Lastly, since now the fence-sitters are converts, I point to a post by Pronet Advertising that lists “My 50 Favourite Blogging Resources,” that should contain more than enough info to help you get started today.

I’ll try to keep this short and sweet, lest I get off track and make the mistake of not heeding my own advice.

Your visitors want to know “what’s in it for them?” That’s why in Part One of this series, we talked about adressing the reader as “you,” to help them identify with what is being said, and appeal directly to them. But that’s simply not enough, if your information isn’t actually relevant.

Relevance is a word that gets thrown around a lot when it comes to SEO (Search Engine Optimization), and is calculated with a complex algorithm that takes many factors into account. For those of use who are a little less analytical, what that means is that the more you stay on topic and touch upon your chosen keywords and phrases (in addition to hammering home the benefits of what you do) the more likely you are to satisfy searchers, be they of the biological or the robotic variety.

(tag cloud by Flickr user kosmar)

Everything, including the content on the other end of your outgoing links, is taken into account when the search bots measure your “relevance.” More importantly, the (perceived) value of your content- to a human visitor- will determine whether they find what they were looking for, or they flutter away to the next search result.

One very important caveat: As I will touch upon in the next episode of this epic 7-part series, when it comes to blogging, all bets are off. Sure, it helps to re-visit a consistent theme, but healthy doses of miscellany will help you attract what we now call the Long Tail of internet search, where bizarre search terms bring visitors to your site. (hat tip to Chris Anderson)

Rule of thumb: (Ick, I hate rules) If you’re writing copy on static page that is designed to help convert site visitors into customers, then stay on topic. If you’re blogging, don’t let anyone tell you what to do!

Let’s get this part out of the way first, and then you may crucify me in the comments all you want: Less is not more.

If you’re writing a display ad for print, especially a classified ad, then perhaps “less is more” would hold true. But we’re talking about web copy, and I’m here to clear up this massive misconception once and for all. More is indeed more, as long as you follow the guidelines I’ve already laid out for you in previous parts of this series.

Give Your Readers What They Want

This is where I veer off on a tangent about personality types, and how all internet users are different and have different needs. Without delving too deep into the science of it all, there are several different personality types, and each one of us is composed of parts of each. Read the Wikipedia entry on the Myers-Briggs indicator for more detailed info on what I mean by all of this, but for the purpose of this series, I’ll keep this concept incredibly simple.

Some people are more expressive, and want to see fanciful imagery, and just the “broad strokes” or “big picture” of your message. Some are more dominant, and want things boiled down to the hard facts; “What can you do for them?” Others still will prefer to know every last detail about your product or service, and are more than willing to invest the time to learn it all before they’ll make a buying decision. Another cross-section of your visitors will be just as concerned with who else you have worked with, and what kind of credibility you have (in their eyes, of course).

Hopefully that wasn’t too confusing. To break it down even simpler, here’s a list of what your web copy needs:

• images and summaries, and clean design
• detailed information, including statistics and hard facts combined with the benefits of what you do
• Testimonials from past clients and customers
• Tons and tons of benefit statements- “What’s in it for me?”

It goes without saying, a few paragraphs of copy spread throughout your site won’t get the job done. So more is indeed more. When you start to try to map out how to appease your various different types of visitors, you’ll realize that writing the copy for your website is a bigger job than you thought.

A while back I mentioned that I had purchased Waiting for Your Cat to Bark, and here at last is my quick-and-dirty review: It’s an incredibly comprehensive book, that focuses on building your marketing around ‘personas’ that are representative of your target market. For e.g.: ‘Shelley is a single mom who watches morning television and shouts at the tv, and listens to rap music. She’s looking for a software program that will help her tutor her daughter in math, and she wants to make sure that she chooses one that will get just the right results, as math was never her strongest subject.’ Perhaps that’s not exactly how the Eisenbergs would lay out a persona, but you get the picture. Once you can see your potential customers in your mind’s eye, you’re better prepared to speak to their needs, with the language and hot-buttons that will get the best results.

Some Shortcuts for Beginners

you’re managing a multi-million dollar e-commerce site with several consecutive campaigns and hordes of landing pages, you probably want to purchase the aforementioned text and really focus on these concepts in great detail, or even better, hire someone who understands it better than you. If you’re just trying to get the most out of your few pages of copy on your site, especially for a service company, here’s a few tricks to get more out of what you have.

For starters, remember the guidelines that I laid out in the rest of this series: Speak to your visitors directly, using “you” and “your” often, to engage them, and avoid words that mean something to you and nothing to them. And don’t forget to ask them to take the next step; when they’ve reached the bottom of a page of copy, or once you’ve laid out your offer in its entirety.

Here’s where we go one step further. Take a look at your homepage. Does it talk about your company, and what you do? Does it answer key questions about who you are? There’s no need to reveal every detail about your company on your homepage, but knowing what you know now about your different visitor’s needs, invite them in to have their questions answered.

If you or any key member of your company’s team are mentioned in the copy on your home page, highlight their name, and make it a link to their bio or “About” page. Same goes with important details like testimonials, services, history and most importantly your contact page. When a reader reads through the copy, they will instinctively know that on the other end of that link lies more information about that topic. If that topic is important to them or answers the question they are looking to have answered, you’ve brought them into your site further, and as I’ve mentioned before, you are now more likely to keep them around for a while.

Contact information should always be easily accessible, especially if you are a retail outlet. I can’t tell you how often I do a quick Google search for something, only to find that it takes another few minutes to locate the address or phone number of the company I’m searching for. Remember those folks that want the instant gratification? Give it to them.

Another way to expedite the process of absorbing your site’s information for the time-pressed or hurried type that wants results NOW, is to use bold letters in your copy, for the key points. If you choose the right phrases and benefit statements to make bold, a reader should be able to scan through your page and get the gist in around six seconds, and make a judgement call as quickly as they want to.

Now read that paragraph back reading only the bold phrases, and you’ll get an idea of what I mean.

To sum up, you need lots of various different kinds of information to fully inform your visitors about your company. Think about it this way: If a member of your sales force were to try to close a deal with a new customer, what info would they have to share with that customer before the customer could make a confident buying decision? There’s nothing to stop you from publishing it all on the web, so that even if you don’t covert them into a customer online, you create a better, more qualified ‘lead’ when they contact you directly or visit your location.

Statistically (in urban centers), between 70-80% of buying decisions either start or end online. Sorry Yellow Pages, but your reign is over. On that note, have you noticed the listings books getting wise to this? In Canada, yellowpages.ca is now offering more extensive business info in their online listings, a direct result of consumer demand.

If we know that our customer’s crave more relevant info about us online, why not provide every last bit of what they’re looking for on our sites?

This is Part 3 in a seven part series on copy writing for the web. Read also: Parts One and Two.

You Know More Than I Do

A very common mistake on business websites is to use jargon, buzzwords and gratuitous wording to explain things that should be quite simple. As an expert in your field, you surely know a lot more about what you’re talking about than many of your customers or prospects do. Unless you’re an engineer selling to engineers, cut down on the industry-insider speak, and explain things in a language that the “lowest common denominator” of customer can understand. By lowest common denominator, I mean the people who know the least about you, and need to have things explained. I’ll talk more more about how to appease several different types of visitors with different needs later in this series, but for now just recognize that not everyone understands (or gives a rat’s ass) about the industry-specific language you use to describe what you do or what you sell. Speak in words that they’ll understand, and you’ll have way better success.

Eliminating the ‘Gobbledygook’

I was forwarded an item recently by a peer in the realm of web content, David Meerman Scott, who shares most of my beliefs about web content, and the future of public relations. David prepared this insightful (and at times, quite funny) post about the most over-used words and phrases in press releases today, in effort to train people not to use them.

Although he’s speaking about press releases, the same rules apply. Shake it up a bit. Be interesting, and be easy easy to understand, without empty phrases that are used by everyone but mean nothing at all.

He calls these all-too-popular-yet-grossly-overused terms “Gobbledygook.” Excerpted from his post:

Your buyers (and the media that cover your company) want to know what specific problems your product solves, and they want proof that it works—in plain language. Your marketing and PR is meant to be the beginning of a relationship with buyers and to drive action (such as generating sales leads), which requires a focus on buyer problems. Your buyers want to hear this in their own words. Every time you write—yes, even in news releases—you have an opportunity to communicate. At each stage of the sales process, well written materials will help your buyers understand how you, specifically, will help them.

He also created an analysis tool, and his post includes a graph of the most hilariously useless phrases, and their usage in over 388, 000 press releases in 2006 alone:

(Click image to enlarge)

If I had to guess, I’d say that if you included the use of these terms on all websites, the numbers would be so staggering that we’d fall over laughing. Plus, who wants to be “industry standard,” when you can be different?

Tags: marketing, content, copywriting, writing, webcopy

This is Part 2 in a seven part series on great copy writing for the web. When I wrote part one, I arbitrarily decided that there would be seven parts, so seven parts there will be.

Ask for the Business

Ask any great salesperson, and they’ll tell you that you’ll never make a sale if you don’t ask for the business. In fact, if you ask a Sales Trainer like Howard Olsen, he’ll tell you that 62% of salespeople (even the trained ‘professionals’) never ask for the business. Why? Because it’s uncomfortable to so so. But the fact remains, if you don’t ask for it, you might never get it. And in web copy, you don’t have to feel that knot in your stomach when you have to ask a question you don’t feel comfortable with.
Why would I keep related web copy back to sales, you ask? Because as Business Owners, that’s what our sites should be designed to do: Sell. Why else would a business have one? I can appreciate that using that kind of language is maybe a little too direct for some. Plus, not every website out there is built strictly for making sales. So I’ll switch up the language a bit here. Let’s eliminate the words sales, and start using the word conversion.

In this context, my definition of conversion is very simple: It is when a site visitor takes the “next step,” and gets closer to becoming your customer.

So, let’s go back to the start. We’ve already talked about the importance of using “you” to engage the customer, and talk about what is important to them. Now, we’ll engage them one step further, with a few basic “calls to action.”

Let’s say you’ve written a page of copy on your site. Your home page, just for the sake of the example. When the reader gets to the bottom of the page, where do they go next? Where might they like to go? Well, if you tell them, or give them some options, maybe they’ll end up where you want them to go. A great example of this would be:

Now that you know a little more about Tell Ten Friends, keep reading to find out about the services we provide for our clients. Or if you’re ready, contact us to ask about how we can help you with your needs.

And so on and so forth until they’ve had all of their questions answered, and are ready to take the action you want them to take. In the example above, there are two possible conversions. In one, the reader carries on to have more questions answered, or they click through to the contact form. If they end up filling out that form, they become a very qualified lead, which in my business is as good as currency. A conversion like that for me is extremely valuable, as it provides the opportunity to start a new relationship.

Admittedly, this is a rather passive way of engaging people on your site; letting them explore what you’re all about on their own terms. But this is also key; everyone has their own terms. They all have questions, and different things will be important to different people. This will be the focus of yet another chapter in this copy writing saga, but for now, use this basic rule of thumb: If a reader has taken the time to read through your page of copy, don’t leave them hanging with a dead end, and force them to go back to your menu and find where they might like to go next.

People have a short attention span, and statistically, the longer you can keep them on your site, the better chance you have of making them your customer.

Ask and Thou Shalt Receive, Sometimes

For some, a more direct approach is necessary, like the case of Pay-Per-Click Advertising Campaigns. If you’ve spent ad dollars on bringing that traffic to your site for a specific product, then a passive approach won’t do, and a powerful call to action is even more critical, especially “above the fold” which is there area of screen visible before any scrolling is done. Explaining the nuances of a great landing page and convincing visitors to “Buy Now” is also an item for another day, but the important message is this: You must ask people to take the next action if you ever expect them to take it. And “Add to Cart” or “Click here” are just simply not enough. Like any good campaign, you must test and measure to see what works best, but let me save you some time:

• Give them compelling reasons and benefits for why they want what you’ve got
• Ask them to buy it, in no uncertain terms.

Once You’ve Got ‘Em, Keep ‘Em

For statistics junkies like me, adding this one simple element of a call to action on each page will help your site stats a great deal. For starters, page views will go up. And average time on site, too. Fewer people will just bounce away from your homepage if you give them a reason and invite them to keep reading: Statistically, on a “static site” your home page will be both the most and the least popular page. The highest number of visitors will see it, and it will almost always have the highest number of exits from it as well. Asking people nicely to continue on to another page should help eliminate that number of hasty exits, and bring you one step closer to converting a new contact, customer or friend.

Read also: Part One of this Series.

Tags: marketing, content, copywriting, writing, webcopy

(This is Part 1 in a 7 part series on great copywriting for the web and beyond)

What defines great web content? How do you engage the reader, hold their attention and get them to really fall in love with your company, your service or you, with mere words on a website?

The secret, dear friends, lies within you. I know what you might be thinking: “Oh Gaaawd, is he serious?”

Yes. Yes I am. But I don’t mean to insinuate that somewhere in the deep recesses of your grey matter lies some magical formula that will cause your site visitors to salivate, add multiple items to their shopping cart and fork over their billing information with nary a question asked. Actually, the concept that I’m referring is surprisingly simple, and just might produce the results you’ve been hoping for.

(Photo by flickr user zoghal, tagged: iloveyou)

Just use the word “you” a lot. Do you understand what I mean by that? Is this a concept that you can put to good use in your own marketing ? Do you think I used “you” or “your” enough in the last few sentences to drive an otherwise healthy Alberta beef cow completely mad? Maybe you’re right. Ha! Snuck another one in there.

It’s All About Your Customers

One of the most common mistakes that companies make on their sites (There’s a lot, this just happens to be the most common. We’ll cover some more in a later post) is in focussing too much on themselves. It’s as if they believe that the same information that has wasted paper on their brochures for years is suitable for their website. And that’s just simply not the case, I’m afraid. (Notice ‘they’ and ‘their’ in this instance? I wouldn’t dare beat up on you)

I use the comparison of a salesperson, from both then and now. Back then, a sales person could use hard-selling tactics, smoke-and-mirrors and any other number of tricks to sell their snake-oil from town-to-town. Now, any professional salesperson can tell you that to sell anything, anywhere, you first have to establish a relationship with your customer. You’ve got to ask plenty of questions to find out a lot about them, and eventually build a rapport that will make the customer confident they are making a wise buying decision, long before they ever will. After all, in this day and age the customer has an infinite number of choices, and if they smell a rat, your competition will make a sale, and not you.

Well, the same is true for great copywriting on your website. In this case, you don’t have the benefit of asking questions, but you’d better know what questions or needs your customer has, and provide easy access to all of the answers. And although you’ve got to let them know what you’re all about, resist the urge to make it all about you, and instead focus on the benefits to them.

A Tool to Keep You on Track

The guys over at FutureNowInc.com have developed a cool tool called the “We We Monitor.” No, it doesn’t emit alarming beepy noises when your little ones wet their diapers. Sorry. But it is very cool, and could tell you whether you’re copywriting is to much about “We” and not enough about “You” (the customer).

Here’s how to do it. Visit the We We Monitor by clicking here. Enter the address of the page you want to measure. Be sure to add the names of your company, your CEO, and anyone else in your organization that appears on the page, in order to get an accurate reading. The results you receive will look something like this:

These are the Customer Focus Calculator results:

For the url: www.telltenfriends.com

Your Customer Focus Rate: 62.79%
You have 27 instances of customer-focused words.