How to Boost Online Sales with Good Copy

Quality copy is the key to a successful online business. Not only does it provide your customers with an insight into your products and services, it also boosts your online presence with major search engines such as Google.

Here are 5 simple ways in which you can boost your online sales with good web copy.

1) Understand your reader
Understanding the needs of your reader is paramount. When you start to write web copy, think about what your audience is looking for. Like you, your reader is likely to simply browse through content looking for key words that match his or her interest. Think carefully about what visitors to your site are actually looking for, and craft your copy to meet their needs.

2) Emphasise key points
Because your reader is probably just skimming the surface of your web content, it’s important to make your key points stand out clearly. This way your reader will be drawn to key concepts and will probably choose to read your site in more detail. Easy ways to achieve this include:
· Use bullet points
· Use bold for keywords
· Put your most important information first

3) Be Concise
Remember, visitors to your site are looking for quick grabs of information. Make sure you web copy is as concise as possible. The more you waffle, the higher your chances of losing your visitor to the competition.

4) Stay Relevant
Before uploading your web content, ask yourself one important question: Is this relevant to the needs of may target audience? Would you be interested in reading the information on your site if you were a visitor?

5) Double check your grammar and syntax
Taking a little extra time to check your grammar and syntax is well worth it. Remember, what you write conveys your professionalism. If you struggle with grammar and syntax, it’s worthwhile engaging the services of a professional copywriter.

Keywords and SEO – A helpful checklist

There’s no doubt about it, getting your keywords right is an important part of establishing a new website. While it’s easy to get carried away with the look and feel of your site, it’s actually the written content, or ‘web copy’ that will be directing traffic to your web pages, and doing much of the selling for you.

If you’re not a proficient writer, or don’t have the time to spend researching keyword trends online, then employing a professional copywriter who specialises in SEO webcopy is a good idea. However, if you’re keen to give it a go yourself, there are a few useful rules to keep in mind:

• Know your audience. Understanding your target market is the first step to success. Think carefully about your intended client base, and think about the words that they are likely to use when searching for your products or services. They’re probably going to be simple terms and phrases, and they may not be the ones you use in your daily business activities.
  
• Avoid excessive jargon. Being an expert in your field can sometimes be detrimental to the way you think about your own webcopy. Websites that use industry-specific terms (or jargon) run the risk of missing potential traffic because they don’t use the everyday search terms that key customers are using. Take a good look at your current webcopy, are you sure that it contains the user-friendly terms that are actually being used in the majority of searches? If not, then you need to do some research.
  
• Think like the end user. If users aren’t searching for your products and services in the way you describe them, it can be useful to take a step back and asses the situation. The easiest way to do this is to think like a customer and begin your SEO research from there.
  
• Ask your sales team or receptionist what words customers use when they describe your products and services. Potential customers will probably use the same keywords when they come to search for your services online.
  
• Understand what keywords are being used in your industry. Take some time to investigate the keywords that are already in use in your industry. Check out industry press, newspaper articles, and competitors’ websites, and compile a short list of common keywords.
  
• Use keyword tools. There are numerous online tools which can be used in developing an SEO keyword search list. If you’re not sure where to start, things such as keyword cost estimators and keyword suggestion tools are an excellent point of departure.

Right. Done all those things and want to know what to do next? -Once you’ve finished compiling your keyword list you’re ready to start thinking about the information architecture of your site, and which web writing style best suits your business.

Go on... jump to it!

Food and Beverage Writing - Please Sir, I want some more.

Food appreciation in Australia reached fever pitch this year as Masterchef hit our screens. It seemed everybody, including a bunch of nobodies, wanted a slice of the action. What is interesting is that even the food writers got a cut of the kudos.

No longer the measured realm of gourmet magazines, online foodie sites and weekly newspaper editorials, the food buzz blurb has bubbled over into the lives and homes of mainstream Australia.

Matt Preston, esteemed food writer and internationally renowned critic, set our screens on fire with his personal largesse and his professional prowess. Looking like a character fresh out of an Oscar Wilde novel, he minced and munched his way from relative obscurity to prevalent personality.

Love him or hate him you gotta give him something for the way he effortlessly engineered his rise from food critic to foodie celebrity with all the aplomb of an Adriano Zumbo croquembouche. And he surely deserves recognition for insinuating old school terminology into the ordained drudgery of water cooler conversation. Cravats may be this years black.

You would not be alone if you wondered whether the obvious marketability of Julie’s cookbook had anything to do with her Masterchef win. Even Donna Hay professed to want a copy, which is a high accolade when bestowed by the Aussie cookbook queen herself.

In fact, this wide scale interest in food writing and cook books has been on the rise like a Jaques Reymond soufflé for a number of years now. It seems people in this country like watching, learning, practicing and reading about the many joys of food production and its myriad counterparts.

In line with this trend, Melbourne copywriting company Affect Media have been hard at work on the Schweppes Australia website which showcases an array of innovative drinking and dining establishments nationwide. So for those who want more reading, more eating and more incentives to do both, visit http://www.schweppes.com.au/

Why use a website copywriter?

You’ve got 5 seconds.

That’s all it takes for a potential client to click and go elsewhere. Now more than ever, you need clear, engaging web content to boost your sales and encourage customer loyalty. What’s your plan?

If you are updating an existing website, or building a new one from scratch, your primary concern should be content. What will your web copy say about your business? What kind of information do you want to give to your visitors? And how will you adequately explain your organisation’s point of difference in less than a paragraph?

Even the most seasoned business owners struggle with these questions, and for good reason; it’s tough to whittle down your professional knowledge into a few pithy paragraphs! That’s where the skills of a professional website copywriter come in.

A skilled website copywriter can help you organise your webcopy in a way that is helpful to your customers. They will help you decide which pieces of information are relevant to your bottom line, and which pieces could be better utilised elsewhere. Most importantly, a good web writer will help you differentiate between the content that your visitors are actually looking for, and the content that you thought they were looking for.

Unlike traditional copywriting, writing for the web requires an advanced understanding of the web as a dynamic, user-driven interface. Put simply, visitors enter and exit your site at different points, and are unlikely to read your content in an orderly, start-to-finish fashion. A professional web writer will take this into account, and produce dynamic copy that speaks to different users at different points.

Web writing is a specialised field requiring a mix of journalistic, marketing, and often technical writing skills. Experienced web writers bring these and many other competencies to your business.