With so many web pages and only so many hours in the day; potential customers will spend only seconds looking at your site before moving on – so how can you make those seconds count?

Your readers will be looking for web copy which is easy to scan, signposting key messages quickly and clearly. We’ve frequently discussed the importance of using clear and concise language on this blog and it comes into play again here. Potential customers need to be able to understand what you are saying or selling instantly; hence jargon-free, simple, effective prose is required.

For each page of web copy, you should be looking to front-load your content by putting your key message at the top of the copy, rather than reserving it for the conclusion; as is more common across traditional media.  This enables readers to decide instantly if they are on the right page or not and captures their attention. Sub-headings can have a similar effect by clearly signposting the site’s content and allowing users to find their target quicker and easier.

Once you have your content, there are several formatting steps you can take to achieve maximum impact, such as emboldening key messages. This instantly draws the eye of the reader to what you want to say. This will naturally happen on links, so make sure that your linking text says something you want to be read, not just ‘click here’.

By applying these simple steps you can be sure you’re web copy is more likely to turn a roving eye into a ready customer.

Talk to Write My Site if you would like to explore business blogging, article PR or SEO copywriting. All work is covered by our Quality Guarantee to ensure you’re 100% satisfied with your content.

I usually write about online marketing on this blog, but for a change I thought I’d address some of the wider issues of marketing as a whole.

In this two-part blog series, I’m going to discuss 10 classic marketing mistakes often made by small businesses.

1.     An untargeted approach

One of the biggest marketing mistakes is not really knowing who you’re trying to sell to. Too many businesses get wrapped up in the details of their product or service and do not spend enough time defining which group of prospective customers is likely to want to buy them.

Unless you have a marketing budget the size of Coca Cola’s, you will not be able to sell your products and services to everyone. Much better to choose a niche market that has the desire and the budget for what you’re offering.

2.     Relying on advertising

Advertising is expensive and usually ineffective unless you’re sustaining a high profile campaign where your brand will receive repeated exposure. There are other ways of gaining the exposure without spending money on expensive TV or print ads. PR, for example, is a way of generating free editorial about your business: in order to generate it, you need to become the first source of information about your industry. Run workshops, seminars and webinars in your area of expertise, and provide the press with free advice articles for them to publish in your name. And, of course, update your blog with quality content to demonstrate your industry knowledge.

3.     Relentlessly pursuing the hard sell

Nothing will alienate prospects faster than the hard sell. Building relationships is what will generate clients for your business. Nobody likes being sold to and your prospects will simply switch off when you start broadcasting to them. Instead, offer them the benefit of your expertise, and sell to them by helping them rather than by advertising to them.

4.     Poor communication

If a prospect has taken the trouble to contact you with an enquiry about your service, respond promptly and professionally. Don’t be hard to get hold of – this will come across as arrogant. If you can’t be in the office to answer every phone call, hire a VA or an answering service – it’s worth every penny.

When you send emails to prospects, make sure they’re personalised and addressed directly to the recipient – and again, make sure you contact them promptly. Sounds obvious, I know, but I’ve been addressed as “Hi there” in emails that have arrived two weeks after I’ve made an enquiry with a potential supplier, and trust me, it’s less than impressive.

5.     Not gaining the prospect’s trust

People like to ‘try before they buy’ – especially if they don’t know you and don’t have any reason to trust you. This is easy when you sell products in a shop, but can be more difficult when you sell a service. Think about what you can offer in lieu of a physical demonstration, such as a free consultation, a free e-book, or a free ticket to an event you’re running. Note the word ‘free’: it’s very important! For example, we offer free blog writing and SEO copywriting samples so that prospects can see the quality of our work for themselves.

If you’re looking to get your site picked up by the major search engines, then your copy needs to help attract their attention. The process of creating your content with the search engines in mind is called SEO copywriting.

The easiest place to start is with the title of your page or article. Search engines will initially look here, as this is the quickest and easiest way to judge content. Therefore, you need to know your target keywords and ensure these are incorporated.

As with most elements of web copy, conciseness is a virtue. The perfect title is 72 characters or less as this length enables search engines to display its entirety in their results, encouraging potential clients to click through.

Search engines are also very friendly towards unique content which is frequently updated. This means you shouldn’t duplicate your SEO copywriting across pages and create a regular update scheme for your site, such as a blog. Size also matters. Search engines are more likely to find individual pages if the copy is a substantial length – try to ensure all your pages have at least 200 words of text.

Throughout your content, it helps to have your keyword repeated a limited number of times. However, search engines also look at the number of times you’ve used your keywords in your SEO copywriting. While keyword density is a hotly debated topic, you should steer clear of excessive repetition. The search engines are wise to it, and it’s off-putting for readers too.

Talk to Write My Site if you would like to explore business blogging, article marketing or web content. All work is covered by our Quality Guarantee to ensure you’re 100% satisfied with your content.

We have today published the results of our blogging survey and we were not surprised to discover that 70% of the small businesses we interviewed struggle to find the time to keep their blogs up-to-date.

We asked 125 small business owners about their blogging habits and found that, while 62% of respondents set up a blog in the hope that it would increase traffic to their websites, only 29% are managing to populate them between one and three times each month. The remaining 71% have admitted they just weren’t able to find the time to maintain their blogs.

The survey focused almost exclusively on very small businesses, as these organisations tend not to be able to afford the ‘people power’ that larger businesses can leverage. 42% of our interviewees were one-man-bands; and a further 43% worked within organisations with 1-5 employees with the remaining 15% working for larger organisations.

The full release is available in our Press section. Please feel free to reproduce as long as Write My Site receives a credit and a link back to www.writemysite.co.uk.

Online publishers are starting to think Rupert Murdoch was right: the “free” web is dead. The global recession has caused advertising revenues to dry up and publishers of SEO content are having to stretch their brains to think how they could make a charging model work.

Writing web content has never easily translated into earning money. Some kinds of online content (mainly porn and music) has always been chargeable, but punters are used to getting their online news for free. Until now, publishers have made do with advertising revenue, but that’s not looking sustainable in the current economic climate.

So how does the online publishing industry convince the general public to start paying for their online news? The answer could lie in micropayments, the basic principle of which is to charge a price that is so small it won’t put off customers, but will accumulate sufficient revenues, via mass sales, to keep the publisher in profit.

Frank Fisher, a website writer for The Guardian suggests that the Google Adsense technology could be reversed in order to establish an industry standard for taking SEO content micropayments. Google Adsense was designed for publishers to earn money from small ads which they would include on their website. Every time a customer clicks on a Google Ad, the publisher earns a tiny amount of money. Once a month, the publisher receives a payment for all the clicks their ads received.

Fisher suggests that, in order to apply the technology to a charging model for SEO content, “individuals would sign up with Google, deposit funds. They’d have a unique ID attached to them at that point – an encrypted cookie stored on whichever PC they happen to log in with. When they visit a site with GoogleDosh embedded they’re allowed in, a fraction of a penny is switched to the content provider’s account for every item they read.”