Create headline that sells

What is it with the headlines? Why is the whole word going gung-ho about finding the headline that sells the most. Who thought they would be on sale one day? You can buy a list of successful headlines and adjust to suit your product. Can’t say whether it’s a viable business or not, but it sure is selling.

Remember headline is not a grocery item on your weekly buy list. It’s a value proposition of your product especially when it comes to the Landing Pages. A landing page is a page that is created to be seen by visitors who arrive via specific marketing channels. And a headline is a first impression or probably the last. The only chance you have to grab your visitor’s attention.

1. Know your audience’s expectation: Whatever is the marketing channel, you need to match your Landing Page headline to the visitor’s expectations. For instance if your PPC campaign ad says, “Cheapest Juicer”, than you need to write a headline for the landing page that matches the ad headline. In other words, you need to match your headline to the visitor’s expectations. Likewise, if you write an email and send it to your house list, the same rule applies.

2. Express your unique value proposition: The first question every visitor faces is “Why should I buy from you and not from somewhere else?” Your product might not be unique but you may have created a different business model altogether. Whatever your situation, you need to find your value proposition. Remember, “Best service in the industry,” “Lowest price online,” “Friendliest staff in the business,” are not value propositions.

3. Be specific: Real numbers or names add credibility to your Landing Page. Your landing page suddenly transforms from the blah blah of “ad-speak” to a real story, about real people and how your product or service helped them. Sometimes when landing page copy sounds like tired, predictable and ineffective ad-speak, headlines can add value by using real lives, real events and tangible benefits.

4. Find the link: Many a times there is disconnect between the headline on a landing page and the body text and links that follow. It’s common in cases where the writers use some kind of template or system for writing the page. A good landing page should have a head, body and a tail. And they should all be connected. Just saying ‘buy now’ or ‘add to the cart’ are very generic and often do not tie back to the central promise of the headline.

The most common mistake writers’ make is spending all the time worrying how to write. To figure out what to say, you need to have absolute clarity about your audience and you have to know exactly what the purpose of the page is. Do your homework and follow the above tips to create a landing page with the headline that works.

 

The six stimuli that generate action

Best products don’t guarantee buyers; not even the latest technology. It is how you communicate your product information that raises the chance. Unfortunately most marketers create marketing messages for the product and not for the users. But people don’t buy products and services; they buy benefits.

For all we know, buyers are impulsive; they make decisions based on their emotions and instincts. And simple words do not trigger conversion; only words that prompt emotional reaction persuade people to take action.

Studies have also demonstrated that our brain processes six stimuli while making decisions. Marketing messages designed to trigger these stimuli influence buyers. These stimuli are universal and powerful. Incorporating them can highly improve your ability to sell, market, and communicate.

1. Self Centered: Your marketing message should focus on your audience and not your product. The first thing your customer looks for is benefit. They have no interest in your brochures, history, your values and your mission statement-what they want to hear is what you can do for them.
   
2. Contrast: Contrast allows the brain to make quick, risk free decisions. Words like before/after, risky/safe, with/without, or fast/slow create contrast and help your audience to quickly, sort out information triggering a decision.
3. Tangible Input: Written language especially the complicated one slows down the decoding of your message. It automatically shifts your audience to thinking mode, postponing the action. Concepts like “a flexible solution,” “an integrated approach” or “scalable architecture require a great deal of effort and skepticism. Whereas simple, easy and concrete ideas like “more money”, “unbreakable”, “24 hour turnaround time” generates action quickly.
4. Beginning and End: Most people remember only the beginning and end of the movie. Placing the most important content at the beginning is a must, as is repeating it at the end. Anything in the middle of your message will be mostly overlooked.
5. Visual Stimuli: The visual processing capability of the brain is much faster than it takes to process the information. Its impact is so quick that the higher functions of the brain are simply not informed. We are naturally hardwired to make decisions that are mostly based on visual input.
6. Emotion: Experiences like sadness, anger, joy or surprise, floods brain with hormones that generate response much faster and stronger than before. So brain remembers events which are connected with stronger emotions. If your message does not evoke strong emotions in your customers, then how can you expect them to choose your product! Ignoring their emotions is not an option.
   

Optimizing Press Releases for SEO: Add to the power of media

For the past few years, Press Release has steadily evolved as an effective tool for distributing content to the media and consumers. Not only does Press Release prove to be a “direct–to-consumer” communication tool, it can also be easily syndicated creating an excellent opportunity to attract incoming links. Press release not only promotes your company/brand but raises your online profile as well. It increases targeted traffic by helping with your SEO - gaining visibility in the web search results and the news search results and boosting your own site's rankings by building quality back links. When preparing press releases for online distribution, there are a number of factors that should be addressed with regards to search engine optimization.

• Write a sententious (80 character or less,) descriptive headline that includes important keywords. Utilizing important keywords in the headline and throughout the message reinforces the relevance of your message for those important terms.

• Furnish detailed contact information including your website’s URL. If you are hosting the Press Release on your site try to optimize the URLs to be search engine friendly and consider incorporating keywords within the URL

• Use the jargon or the language your audience use when searching for or discussing topics related to your product or industry.

• Link your strategically important keywords to relevant pages on your site, preferably to deep pages rather than the homepage. If they don’t exist, create appropriate landing pages and place content on them that is specifically relevant to the keywords

• Consider using blended search wherein you can include an optimized image with your press release

• Add a link and RSS feed to a del.icio.us page containing relevant historical, trend, market, product and competitive content sources. Keep it up-to-date so that it continues to be a resource to the people who subscribe to this content source.

• Insert a syndication call-to-action (e.g. "News Releases" RSS feed)

• Include a multimedia call-to-action (e.g. "download white paper", webinars)

• Add an audio link such as a podcast or a product announcement into your press release. There are several audio aggregators on the web which spider audio-links and make them keyword searchable.

• Choose a newswire which will allow external multimedia content hosting. For example, YouTube for video or Flickr for photos. These sites are spidered by the major search engines.

Remember that SEO is really the art and science of being found by your audience. Optimize your Press Release and measure how successful your release has been; not only by how much was written about it, but also how well it ranked in the search engines and how well it drove traffic, sales, or other actions from online visitors to your website.

Mastering the Art of Proofreading

Why proofread?

After putting in effort, you would expect maximum readership for your written document. Does that always happen? Well, the answer is sadly NO! And many times well-crafted content and elevated ideas experience oblivion and neglect. The reason is that we often load our documents with sublime ideas to make it grand but forget the basic elements of comprehension - grammar and vocabulary.

A technique that can be really helpful in overcoming this readership challenge is proofreading. Unfortunately, most people find proofreading to be either a job of low order or one too difficult, to leverage its full potential.

Discussed here are best practices which can be instrumental in helping you master the art of proofreading.

Best Proofreading Practices:

• Step- by- Step approach: Don’t try to cover the entire distance with one giant leap. Break the paragraph into independent sentences and analyze them separately for small but critical errors. Modular approach towards proofreading can be effective in comparison to reading the entire paragraph at one go.
• A focused approach: A focused approach of looking at one kind of error at a single point of time is helpful in proofreading. Scan the document first for spelling errors, then punctuation errors, and so on rather than indulging in a simultaneous review of things.
• Backward Reading: Backward reading might sound claptrap but it helps in removing the focus from content flow to surface elements of grammar and vocabulary. Read the last sentence of the page first and then move upwards to discover small but significant errors like inappropriate usage of punctuation, inconsistency of plurals or tense, and rest of the ilk.
• Avoid Spell-Checkers: You may have been wowed by the automation of manual tasks but remember that spell checkers are software programs with limited dictionary, capability, and intelligence. For example, both words “effect” and “affect” would be right according to spell-checker but choosing the relevant word for a sentence is something which the automated software cannot make. Thus, intervention of human mind is required for better proofreading results.
• Overcoming personal loopholes: We all know that to ‘err is human’. You too may have your own restrictions in terms of punctuation or spelling. Instead of glossing over your drawbacks, take out extra time exclusively for your shortcomings; scan the document particularly for your often committed errors so that the final document is error-free.

Writing involves passion; proofreading demands precision. It is only when writing is followed by proofreading that a piece of document becomes publishable. Mastering the art of proofreading is not a herculean task; it’s all about a structured and disciplined approach.

Best Practices of Landing Page

A landing page is a website page that is created for one purpose - to persuade the site visitor to convert into a customer by making a sale, completing a form (thereby becoming a qualified lead), signing up for a newsletter, etc. Also known as a lead capture page, it is the page that appears when a potential customer clicks on an advertisement or a search-engine result link.

There are two types of landing pages reference and transactional. A reference landing page presents information that is relevant to the visitor. A transactional landing page seeks to persuade a visitor to complete a transaction such as filling out a form or interacting with advertisements or other objects on the landing page, with the goal being the immediate or eventual sale of a product or service. Its main purpose is to “capture the lead” and the prospect to a mailing list.

• A landing page has to convince people to
• Fill out a form (but people hate filling out forms)
• Provide personal details (but people hate getting spammed)
• Buy something (but people hate being scammed)
• Read a lot of information (but people really hate reading)

These are all the things users hate to do. But being a marketer you have to persuade visitors to take an action. A user ideally looks for the following things in a website….

• Is this the right place?
• Is this how I imagined it would be?
• Should I click the back button?
• Does this look trustworthy?
• How much time is this going to take?

A good landing page should ideally address all these things. The layout of the landing page, design, content, and call to action are all the things that lead to a successful conversion. On average, only about 3% of paid clicks convert. Indeed that’s a lot of conversions for any marketer.

Landing page starts converting only after it has built a cycle of trust with its customers, only after the marketers start thinking out of the box and create a conversion-focused experience rather than “pages” that capture leads. This paradigm shift can be the first step towards creating landing pages that convert.

Landing pages are often related to the ads especially in PPC campaigns. In order to get the user to click, ads mostly imply a promise: CLICK HERE. GET THIS. A good landing page needs to immediately directly and simply pay off that promise. Whatever the ad says your landing experience must fulfill that message and promise. The simple rule is: Make a promise, pay it off on the next page. Continue doing this until you ask for, and receive, conversion.

The click is mostly a split second impulse. Either the user saw something that caught her eye, or she was searching for something and your ad seemed relevant. The key is to create an experience that keeps them in the “split second” flow that they are in when they click on the ad. Presenting them a simple, relevant choices and letting them flow through a conversion path without any distractions lead them to the point of actually converting. When you simplify your experience, your conversions automatically increase.

Too many choices are equal to too much distraction for the users. Creating a simple page with a couple of choices lets them have a more relevant experience. Once the user makes a choice, the next page pays off that choice with relevancy. More relevant experience means more conversions.

Finally testing brings the momentum all marketers hope to achieve. Testing the landing page to optimize it (headline color, image, call to action), mostly increases conversions. Yet rather than focusing on optimizing elements on a page to increase conversions, one must think about testing widely differing experiences in order to see what really moves more people through your leads funnel.

Landing pages are not wandering generalities. They are specific, measurable offers. You can tell if they're working or not. Try, test and review your landing pages to make them work better. Take a heretical approach to your testing and see changes in your conversion rate.

WEAVE YOUR SEO MAGIC AROUND KEYWORDS

If you think maneuvering keywords in web writing is a hard battle to win, you are not alone. Many web writers feel that their writing becomes redundant with keywords’ density. It not only disrupts the flow of their writing, but also makes their content less creative. Yet there is no denying in the fact that keywords are a critical ingredient of a successful SEO writing recipe. You might have a well drafted content on your web site, but without rich and effective keywords it is next to non-existence. Keywords are one of the most important tools in ranking high on search engines. Ignore them!! Abuse them!! And you will suffer the consequences.

There are no hard-and-fast rules to integrate keywords effectively. There is always a "puzzle" aspect of SEO writing: no matter how cumbersome your keywords are you need to find a way to make it sound natural. You have to maintain the delicate balance of keyword density, by not overstuffing keywords in text yet spacing them adequately throughout the text. With imagination, you can get your content to read naturally while still being SEO-worthy. Following are some of the important things you need to remember:

• Go for relevant keywords. Remember that keywords can give your website a boost in rankings. It all comes down to how well you use them, and how relevant they are to your content. Therefore, use keywords that are relevant to your article.
• Use longer keyword phrases. Although most good keyword phrases are between 2-5 words, it’s better to have longer keyword phrases than shorter ones. A combination of two keywords is all the more effective. For instance, we have two keywords ‘Web 2.0’ and ‘Marketing Techniques’; we can club the two keywords to have a more effective keyword like ‘Web 2.0 Marketing Technique’.
• Ensure right ‘Keyword Density’ in the right places. It’s a good idea to have your keyword or keyword phrases appear about five to six times within the first 100 words of your content. Feature your keyword(s) in the first, as well as the last paragraph.
• Insert keyword in your title. Search engines generally rank your content higher for keywords appearing in the title of your article, as well as in the link texts and close to the start of the body text.
• Place your keywords in Meta Description and permalinks as well. Try to keep it short and simple.
• Choose keyword variations or synonyms to make the article flow better. Avoid keyword stuffing. Although you don’t want the keyword density of your text to be too low, you also don’t want it to be too high as you may be accused of “keyword stuffing.” A good keyword density is anywhere between 3%-5%.
• Get inbound links from other sites with the right keyword in the anchor text.

Arthur C. Clark coined the expression “any sufficiently advanced technology seems like magic”. SEO magic begins with keywords. Web writers whip out viable and effective keywords just as a magician pulls rabbit out of his hat. Like a skillful magician, they know what people are actually searching for; understand which keywords should be targeted for SEO optimization; and weave their SEO magic around them. This ensures that when their optimized copy is indexed, it magically moves up through the search results.

Beginner’s Guide- How to Write an SEO Friendly Article?

If you think SEO article writing is beyond you, or that you need to be an SEO expert to get high rankings with your next article, think again. SEO writing isn’t weird science; and it is no more complicated than writing a standard article for a magazine. The only difference is that there are a couple of factors to consider.

An SEO article is made up of two distinct, yet important components: it has to contain relevant and value added content; and has to be supported by good website infrastructure. Here are few quick tips you need to remember for your next SEO article:

• Write for your audience. Though the idea of writing an SEO article is to get high ranking in the search engines, remember that real people are going to be reading your article. Write your article for the readers first, and try and keep it focused on one central topic. After all, content is king. Get that right, and you are already half way there!!

• Identify main keywords and key phrases to use within the content of your article, so that they show up in search engine results. There are a number of tools like Digital Point, WordTracker, and Keyword Discovery you can use to compile this information.

• Put your main keywords at the very start of your articles headline. This is useful for search engines to know what the article is about and also to your reader. People have become very selective in what they read online. If they are looking for an article on “Creative Writing” and they see it easily in the article title, they are probably going to read it.

• Use the primary keyword in the first or second sentence in the first paragraph. These keywords and key phrases must appear seamlessly in the article; they should enhance it and be inconspicuous at the same time. You can also use keyword combinations or synonyms to make the article flow better.

• Make a list of other keywords related to your main one and sprinkle these through out your article. Having keyword-rich articles does not benefit only the search engines rankings but also human visitors. If used correctly, readers can actually relate the content in the page with what their situation is. Some people recommend a keyword density of about 3-5%. This equates to, about your main keyword being used about 3 to5 times for every 100 words that you use.

• Remember Meta-tags, the most important of which is the Title tag, and the Meta description tag. A Meta tag contains a description of what your site offers and if it is well written, can entice visitors to click on your link.

• Create hypertext links that are embedded within the content of an article. Linking to other interesting articles or websites is a great way of increasing general interest, as well as increasing your link popularity. This also increases visitors’ traffic to your site.

• Finally, get inbound links from other sites with the right keyword in the anchor text. It will rank your article higher in search engines for more competitive keywords. Variations in anchor text make the links natural. But don’t force it if you can't.

SEO is vital for any business. Good content based on keyword research, built-in links on those keywords in the text and syndicated articles should be an important arm in the armory of a good SEO copywriter. With few key points above, you are ready to write search engine friendly articles. Try out your SEO writing skills now!!!