Adam Barone is a freelance copywriter from the Boston area. Visit him at http://www.adambarone.com. (c)Adam Barone 2006. All rights reserved. Reprint rights granted as long as the article is published in its entirety, including links.
Website Copywriting: A Recipe For Hard-Hitting Words In Lean Portions
November 21, 2009 by IBI · Leave a Comment
In 10 short years, websites have evolved from business novelty to necessity, perhaps now the most important part of a business’ marketing and branding arsenal. For very small shops to the largest publicly-traded corporations, websites have become both the most preferred and the most interactive way for companies to communicate with their customers and prospective customers. And though many of the same fundamentals of good offline copywriting apply to the online world, there are distinct differences in both content presentation and strategy that are important for anyone involved in website copywriting-whether it be a writer, designer, creative director or client-to be aware of.
1. Website copywriting needs to be shorter
It’s been scientifically proven that readers’ eyes tire quicker reading a computer screen than they do a printed page. But more important than that, website copywriting needs to be short because of the nature of the medium. Computers are all about speed in information gathering, dissemination and understanding. And the amount of verbal content a company presents on its website must take that fact into account. If the concept can be explained in one sentence instead of three, use one. If a simpler word can be used in lieu of a longer, more complex word, go with the simpler. Concentrate on quality without the quantity. It can be done and done very well.
2. Good website copywriting starts with a home page that incites curiosity
On a home page, many organizations wax about how long their company has been in business, how many employees they have and other assorted topics, which do nothing to whet the reader’s appetite. Instead, use the homepage to introduce your company as a solution to a problem your market has. That way, you’re presenting your readers with a valuable reason to continue reading.
3. Customer testimonials are an integral part of great website copy
Often, the best website copywriting doesn’t come from you or your copywriter. It comes from your customers’ personal experiences. Assuming your company has satisfied customers, what they say about you can be much more credible than anything you say about yourself, and they can reinforce the credibility of the claims you do make about yourself.
4. Add a personal touch to complement the facts
A website is nothing more than a computerized, interactive introduction (e-commerce not withstanding) to who you are as a company and what you do. And just like a personal introduction, what often follows the “facts” are topics of a more personal nature. Good website copywriting always includes this type of content in a secondary location of the site-a place not hard to find, but not up front and center either. Why is this important? Because people want to get to know the companies they’re going to work with or do business with. They’re interested in the personalities that run your organization and the culture and philosophy behind it.
So What Is A True Copywriter?
November 19, 2009 by IBI · Leave a Comment
Obviously a copywriter has something to do with writing. Copywriters can work for themselves as individuals or they can have a variety of clients. A copywriter can work with such places as corporations, advertising agencies, magazines, and so much more.
Most of the time a copywriter will work as parting of an advertising group. Usually, the copywriter has the original responsibility for the advertisement as far as what its going to say, how it will read, and the contents that go into the advertisement itself.
It’s always a good idea for the copywriter to come up with the best ideas and the most effective word content even if the copywriter has to do research on the advertisement.
Believe it or not because the copywriters that are working in advertising and different agencies, copywriters because of the similarities in words think that copywriters have something to do with copyrighting and the laws dealing with copyright.
These are two different careers and are not even in the least related. The only similarity of a copywriter would come with that of a technical writer and their careers may overlap to a certain extent. However technical writing and the technical writer’s job is to inform readers rather than to persuade them.
For instance, a copywriter will write an ad so sell a house, and all its benefits, accessories and potential. While, a technical writer would do writing about the building of the house, the blueprints, the materials and those areas. So, initially there are differences in the copywriter as to the technical writer.
When a copywriter is asked to do a job, they concentrate on “selling” the product through the importance of words. The way they are arranged and the best things concerning the product. Such as why you would benefit from the product.
Internet copywriters are often called on as a team for a website, to of course do the advertising on the web site. While the others in the teams do their assigned parts making it into a great and productive web site. One that will generate traffic, show the people the benefits of the web site products and other aspects of the web site.
Internet copywriters can be expensive, however they take on the ultimate responsibility of literally turning a web site or an advertisement for a web site into a glamorous, why you need to visit web site, or buy the product on the advertisement, by the use of only the words they are writing. Sometimes this can be very difficult for various items or products and sometimes they also have to do research on certain products in order to do the very best job at which they have been assigned.
If products on a web site don’t sell, it is not going to be anyone’s doings but the one who has written up the description of the product or the information on the web site, which of course is in fact the copywriter.
This is why some copywriters get paid as well as they do, their jobs are important; however most copywriters are very good at what they do.
Mario Churchill is a freelance author and has written over 200 articles on various subjects. For more information on copywriter checkout his recommended websites.
The Dos and Donts of Business Blogging
November 19, 2009 by IBI · Leave a Comment
When a few years back the term blog came into public attention, the more serious and sober people, like bigwig corporations, termed it as nothing more than a place where a few loud-mouthed weirdoes express their angst online about almost anything.
Coming back to the present age, corporate honchos no longer regard blogs as a silly and frivolous online page, but have realized their great potential. And now, when one logs on to the Internet, one can witness innumerable business blogs from companies of all sizes.
However, despite all its benefits, corporate blogging has attracted a lot of legal concerns. The main one being that in a rush to create content, corporate blog writers often forget that it is a form of public business communication, and hence subject to various legal regulations and guidelines. Therefore, there are some dos and donts that must be keep in mind while writing corporate blogs to make them legally compliant.
DOs:
Always have a clear idea as to why the company needs a blog and how many blogs are to be hosted. Plus, what the objectives are behind running these blogs.
Be very clear about implementing a strict policy about employee blogs, especially those in which the senior executives also contribute their thoughts. Implementing such stringent policies will help you to prevent litigation and other such problems down the road.
Make it a point that you monitor all the blog postings without fail, so that you know whether the employees are complying with all the rules.
Assign authors to do all the blog postings so that the content posted is written responsibly.
Always make sure that the blog is fresh and updated regularly.
Have a simple and easy to remember blog address, along with equally easy to understand blog terms and conditions posted on the blog.
Before posting the blog, always consider how it will affect the company. Plus, create a provision for archiving all the postings.
Do remember consumer protection laws and ensure that the blog postings are not misleading or that they are not banned under any law.
Also take care of privacy and information security laws.
Do also take care of all the intellectual property laws, and train all your employees on such requirements. Also, as often blogs are copy/pasted off web content, make sure that they comply with fair use principles.
Train you employees on how to create a blog posting that will not invite negative reaction from a third party such as defamation suits, negligent misrepresentation or vicarious liability.
And lastly, be mindful of security laws and train your employees not to post content that can be considered as making material misstatements that can manipulate stock prices, and increase exposure to security fraud charges being made.
DONTs:
Make sure that you dont employ consumer bloggers to post anything without them showing their affiliation with the company. Excessive positive blogging that crosses the line attract the attention of law regulators.
Do not host a blog unless all the employees are trained in posting content responsibly.
Never forget to supervise and monitor the blog periodically for breach of any law or company policy.
Never allow your corporate blog to be a sounding board for your employees where they can say absolutely anything about the company and its products without any accuracy and proof.
Do not permit anyone to publish the secrets of your company, product secrets etc.
And finally, do not terminate employees for posting inappropriate content without giving the matter proper thought, as your reputation can be at stake if the employee files a wrongful termination claim.
Corporate blogging has many benefits and offers a lot of potential to help you generate good vibes with your customers, but only if you dont forsake your common sense and honesty to keep it on the right side of the law.
Business Consultant helps entrepreneurs squeeze mega-profits in record time by working less? We have proof of this Business Consulting achievement. Discover how by visiting: http://www.businesscoach.com/go/bc/business-consulting/index.cfm.
Business Blogs – A Solution For Marketing Small Businesses
November 18, 2009 by IBI · Leave a Comment
Small businesses often have trouble promoting themselves, since they lack the big budgets corporations have for advertising. For these companies, the answer is to establish an online presence through a blog. A business blog is an ideal way for marketing small businesses, since blogs don’t cost that much and are easy to learn how to use.
Blog software is user-friendly; you simply write out your posts, link to resources and publish it on the blog, all with a few mouse clicks. You can update the weblog yourself without having to go through a web designer or doing the coding yourself, which saves you time and money.
A business blog also allows a small business to target its niche audience. For example, a business may sell only memorabilia or antiques or other products that appeal only to a limited clientele. A blog allows this business to build a community of people with these interests which might eventually become customers. This blog could also provide updates of new developments in their particular field of interest.
In addition, a blog can also help a small business build a network with other businesses in the same line, but in different states. This network could even set up a new business blog where each of them has a post that introduces them and where they are located, with a link to their individual blogs.
It is also easier for a potential customer to find a small business selling products or services he might be interested if it has a blog. A blogger can easily use techniques such as search engine optimization to boost his search engine rankings.
Tim Yu is a Internet Marketer who owns http://www.InternetBloggingProfits.com – He has helped hundreds of people on Starting Up an Internet Business.
He has recently developed a Free 7-Days Profitable e-course showing you a step by step process for starting your Internet Business . To learn how to start Making Money Fast without wasting your time and losing more money, visit http://www.InternetBloggingProfits.com/BlogSecrets
Twitter: A Customer Service Breakthrough?
November 7, 2009 by IBI · Leave a Comment
When you actively connect with your customers, they remember you longer and are more likely to reward you with increased sales. When it comes to connecting with customers, many companies are turning to Twitter. But why?
Increasingly, companies are finding that they can tune in to consumer buzz about their brands through Twitter. Twitter’s ever-convenient Twitter Search allows anyone to monitor keywords and key phrases, including company name, to read what people are tweeting about, much like what Google Blog Search does in the blogosphere.
Companies like Comcast and Zappos have already delegated customer service representatives, or digital detectives, to hunt for and resolve customer complaints via Twitter. Ultimately, Twitter as a customer service platform has proven to be a success!
Of course, you can take advantage of this unique customer service angle as well…it’s not just for corporations! Follow these simple steps to bring your customer service into web 2.0!
Get on Twitter!
Of course, you’ll want to open your free Twitter account! (It will probably be the quickest account creation you’ve ever experienced!)
After that, your first stop in Twitterland is the very useful Twitter Search page. All day long, Twitter users tweet their experiences, interactions, and thoughts. Plenty of those users may be your customers!
Go to Twitter Search, run a search for your company’s name, products or services, and see what your customers are saying!
http://search.twitter.com
If you come across any complaints, or even positive comments, now is the time to make a connection with your consumers!
Create A Connection!
Twitter avails you a proactive opportunity to thank happy customers, and to help unhappy customers-it’s viral! Take your customers seriously, especially if they’re enraged and dissatisfied with your company…those are the customers you really want to listen to!
Take a lesson from Comcast, one of the major communications companies. A team of Comcast employees joined Twitter, and has 10,000+ followers that they keep up with! They listen to what customers have to say and respond with tweets to their solutions.
Their Director of Digital Care makes sure that each customer is satisfied. That’s the kind of customer care you want to make synonymous with your brand!
Establish a Twitter Strategy!
Once you’re on Twitter and are following customers, you’ll want to come up with a strategy for customer service. For instance, look at Zappos’ Twitter for inspiration…
Zappos displays a great example of Twitter conduct, with over 450 Zappos employees involved, and they retain plenty of repeat customers because of their stellar consumer relations.
Many people also follow Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh because he pays attention to his followers’ tweets and acknowledges their tweets through his own, which makes them feel more personally connected. Do you see the pattern?
Your strategy should not only include addressing concerns about your products or services, or resolving the issue at hand, but also should entail paying attention to your customers. Reply to an unrelated tweet once in awhile, or tweet a little something (nice) about them on your Twitter!
Is Twitter a Customer Service Breakthrough?
In short, Twitter is one of the biggest names in social networking, and can be used quite successfully as a customer service platform. Is it a customer service breakthrough? Not really, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t advantageous. In fact, it’s a great way to keep your finger on the pulse of your customers. Also, it’s not just for corporations…your online business can benefit from it too!
About The Author: Nicki Flouton is the Customer Service Manager for Multiple Stream Media, an online advertising network helping small businesses gain visitors to their websites, and acquire new clients the inexpensive way. For your free and non-obligatory consultation please visit – http://www.rent-a-list.com
How to Use Twitter – 4 Steps on How To Use Twitter To Drive Traffic To Your Site
November 2, 2009 by IBI · Leave a Comment
Today, Twitter is continuing to grow and getting increased service in the wide media. Everyone you can think of is tweeting or have least heard of it once or twice. Huge corporations are turning to twitter experts to position their company along the broad media. And yes people are making money through twitter and getting a large amount of their traffic from twitter.
Use the right approach on Twitter and you can bring that traffic to your site.
Here’s are my 4 steps on how to use twitter to bring traffic to your site and increase your online exposure
Pick A Controversial Article Idea
When Twitter first launched, it attracted a heavy tech-oriented population similar to Digg. These folks are usually the first adopters in any new technology, so it’s hardly surprising they gravitated toward Twitter. If you wanted to get their attention, you needed to create content that was both controversial and technical.
Times change quickly. Twitter has hit the mainstream with coverage on CNN, Time, and other popular media properties. That means anything you write that is controversial can potentially hit a sweet spot and attract traffic. Think about content that will polarize your market.
Use the Tweet This Wordpress – Plugin
I recommend that you use a Wordpress blog. Not only does the architecture perfectly complement effective search engine optimization strategies, but some of the plugins will make your Twitter marketing much easier.
Download and install the “Tweet This” Wordpress plugin on your blog. It automatically loads a link at the end of each of your posts that allows your readers “re-tweet” them with a single click. If you’re using Twitter to drive traffic..
Channel the Viral Effect
Suppose you’ve written a controversial article that is relevant to your market. For example, if you’re marketing the health reform bill, you might write a post about the problems with reform and how it will be of no use to the united states, but will only promote socialism.
Once you create the content, post it on your blog. Then, “tweet” about it within your Twitter account. The more Twitter followers you have, the quicker bump in traffic you’ll Similarly, the larger your blog readership, the faster your article will spread virally.
Encourage your blog readers to jump-start your post by clicking the “Tweet This” link at the end of it. Assuming many of them have a Twitter account, their re-tweets will get the ball rolling and increase your exposure. Some of their Twitter followers will visit your blog post and re-tweet it as well, creating a snowball effect. A few of them will also subscribe to your RSS feed, which paves the way for re-tweets on your future posts.
At this point, you’re already enjoying a traffic jump
Twitter is just Getting Started
Unless Twitter fades away under its own momentum, the service is going to be around for a long time. There’s plenty more to reveal, such as branding your Twitter account, adding gear, optimizing for Twitter search, and more. I recommend you read my How do you twitter Marketing Tips Guide for More Information.
Now I would like to invite you learn more about twitter by getting my Free Guide On How To Market with Twitter for increased Traffic! http://www.howdoyoutwittertips.com/squeeze.html
Twitter Traffic Review — It Really Works
November 1, 2009 by IBI · Leave a Comment
There’s no denying that Twitter has hit the World Wide Web hard. Everyone from celebrities to the big corporations are tweeting on Twitter. It’s fun, but it’s also time consuming, so I decided to try a new product for myself to see if it cut down on time spent without compromising the business leads generated. Here’s my Twitter Traffic review — it really works.
Like most, I was skeptical at first. Here’s another new product. How much does is cost, how much time do I have to spend learning it, and will it really benefit my online business? If you’re not one of those that has to have everything new gadget, product, or tool that hits the market, then you might want to pay close attention to this. The Twitter Traffic Machine is a bit different.
First, let me start off by saying this cost was minimal at $27. This is a far cry from the typical $197-$297 and up things that have made their way to my inbox.
Instead of receiving instructions via email or poorly written one paragraph instructions that you can barely understand, you get videos.
Six of them to be exact — and not just people talking about the product, but actual demonstrations of how it works, how to set it up, and how to use it. You also get the benefit of free tools that can help maximize earnings on the web. There are not the typical tools that you normally see. You know the ones that barely work or don’t work at all, these are tools that actually produce results.
When I set up my Twitter account, I got the usual people who make it a daily ritual to follow all the newbies on Twitter. After spending an hour accepting all of these people as followers, there was no more contact. I realized that they wanted nothing more than for me to follow them back so they could build their list.
Since implementing the Twitter Traffic Machine, I’m not just getting more followers, but people who are actually interested in my products. This is my Twitter Traffic Machine review — my personal experience. But don’t take my word for it, try it for yourself and see how quick your list of followers will grow.
To find out more about twitter traffic machine review, take a moment and visit us at http://jveruption.com/twitter-traffic-machine-reviews-bonuses/
SEO Tips For Your Small Business Website
November 1, 2009 by IBI · Leave a Comment
If you run a small business and are in the process of establishing your online presence, you will want to keep several SEO related factors in mind. Search engine optimisation is an important part in the creation of any web content because it determines the ranking of the various pages on or related to your website. For you, the small business owner, this is especially important because you are not as large as the big corporations and probably don’t have the advertising budget that some of them do to throw in to promoting yourself both on and offline.
The best part of Internet advertising is the many free opportunities that are available to raise awareness and drive traffic to your site. Below are a few SEO tips that will help get you started.
Your website design is just as important as the business itself. If you have a physical location where products are sold or services are offered and are building a website to supplement your already existing business, your site should reflect the business you currently operate. If the business will be operated solely online, your site should represent who you are and what you offer in a way that keeps it all fresh and unique. Don’t be afraid to spend money on developing your site. If you aren’t able to build it yourself, consider finding someone who can. It will be an investment that was well worth the thought and time put into it, not to mention the money.
Site usability is another important consideration. While the site should look great, it is no good to you or anyone else if it is difficult to navigate. Placement is an important part of SEO and should not be ignored. The various elements of your site should be placed in such a way that makes them both aesthetically appealing and easy to use. If people have trouble completing a purchase they will not return to look at additional products. This is why site design and usability go hand in hand.
Site hosting is another important aspect of SEO. If you can’t afford to host your site it will not go up. The good news is the prices of hosting has come down quite a bit over the last few years so it shouldn’t be difficult to find a company to do this for you. When choosing a host, you want to select a company who will keep your site up and running as well as provide you with technical support when a problem occurs. The support you receive should be immediate. You don’t want to encounter a problem with the site on Monday and not have it resolved until Friday. This would mean active and potential customers could not access it for five days which could prove to be a monumental disaster where your business is concerned. Regarding SEO, you also would not want people to find your site through search engines only to find it unavailable when they click on the link to go there. If this happens, many users would deem it out of action and would not be likely to try again.
Creating a unique site that will sell your business is important, but SEO should not be ignored. The content is just as important as the appearance because it is the main aspect that the search engines pay attention to when ranking each page. The more smoothly the site is running, the more time you will have to pay attention to optimising the content and achieving higher rankings.
Paul Son is a consultant in Vertical Leap who has immense knowledge on ppc search engine promotion, ppc, pay per click advertising.
Wordpress and It’s Benefits to using as a CMS (Content Management System)
October 28, 2009 by IBI · Leave a Comment
WordPress is a Content Management System and is a free open source for blog publishing application. It is an extremely useful tool, and is highly recommended when taking you or your business online. Many people, from the small business owner, to the entrepreneur, to even big corporations use Wordpress to express their online presence. To make use of it, you have to first download and install a script called WordPress from the site WordPress.org. Now you will be needing a webhost that at least meets the minimum requirements. You can use it for almost any website that you want and is completely customizable. WordPress has a new WordPress-based blog service that you can create in seconds and its totally for free. There are components to using the free service though. One great thing with WordPress is you can rearrange the widgets you have on your site without even editing HTML or the PHP codes. You can also adjust the themes that you install, and they can be changed easily to a new theme because WordPress mostly uses a templating system. The PHP and HTML codes may be edited allowing more advanced customizations for your site. WordPress also features integrated link management and automatic filters for style and formatting of texts in the articles used on your site. Not to mention that it also nice with trackback and pingback standards, you can display links to another sites that are linked to an article or post. WordPress only supports one web blog per every installation. To fix that, blogs can exist simultaneously by using the Worsdpress Multi-User that was created by WordPress. It’s now possible to control the blogging community and moderate the blogs from a single dashboard for anyone who has a website from WordPress. This is definitely another perk of using WordPress with your online presence. Since WordPress is a free service, you will also be able to find some free templates to use for the look of your site. Even still, in the case you find a look that you must have that does have an investment to use it, you’ll find that the investments are minute compared to having a web developer design a custom site for you.
In order to build your own site with WordPress, you will want to educate yourself on the basics so that you don’t spend hours attempting to build your site and have it only look mediocre. You’ll also want to educate yourself on WordPress so you don’t tinker with the coding incorrectly and mess up your whole site. So familiarize yourself before making pretend you’re a web developer. It will be much more cost efficient ’cause you wont need to worry about hiring a web developer in the end just to fix just a tiny error you made from lack of experience with WordPress. Please keep in mind to back up of your site on a secure server often so that you have your most recent updates updated in case of an error.
Just visit my site @ www.myonlinegeeks.com
Increase website traffic
October 27, 2009 by IBI · Leave a Comment
How do you increase website traffic, besides search engines? There are hungry consumers out there, but you are not going to get any of them instantly. One way to get traffic fast is via bulk email marketing. Bulk email marketing is king and will always be king. I don’t think that I can emphasize that enough.. Listen to me, pay per click is absurd. Its too expensive and there is a lot of click fraud. Search engines take way too long. It seems that you need so sort of science degree just to place your website with all the search engines. Have you tried submitting your site to search engines? Has it worked? Probably not.
I’ll tell you a secret, but its not really a secret. Many website owners, search engines and corporations advertently “debunk” bulk email marketing. THEY tell you this, to get rid of the competition. They don’t want you to know that you can get rich by using bulk email marketing. Of course there is laws about emailing people, just like there is laws sending mail to your mailbox! But guess what, the law states that you should not send emails to people that don’t like to receive emails. Hell, yea! Well, you know there is a ton of people that sign up to receive offers daily. Thousands upon thousands love to receive offers, and they actually give out their email addresses. Why do they do this? Because people are naturally curious. We want the new stuff. We all want the new “secret”. We all want the new product. You sell via bulk email marketing because we are all consumers. Hey, I don’t like some of the stuff they send me via email, but once in a while I do find some cool stuff. There is a secret on how and where to get tons of traffic. Do you want to know what it is? Here it goes:
1. You need a bulk emailing software that uses its own isp server. Research yahoo.com. I suggest Fxstyle’s bulk email software.
2. Get a good email marketing list. There is a good one that brings in me tons of money; see below for the link if you’re interested. Its call www.emailmadness.com
3. Mail only to an opt-in list. Don’t mail daily to the same people. Keep your emails apart a few days. Never spam. Follow the rules. Never spam.
Increase website traffic with bulk email marketing. I tell you there is nothing like it. Stay away from pay per click and all the “money sucking” garbage out there.
Jesse Castaneda, Jr is fiction/nonfiction writer. He is the author of the supernatural thriller “Cringe”. He owns and manages a bail bond company and Mivisio Online Concepts. He is an expert in online marketing and promotion. For hungry buyers that make your website skyrocket go to http://www.emailmadness.com
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