If you own a website or infact, responsible for the marketing of one, chances are that you already know the pivotal role SEO Services can play, in helping your business grow. If you or someone you know has used our SEO Services, you may know that clients choose us because we offer a fully-managed service and have a proven track record in delivering effective SEO results at competitive prices.
What you may not know is that if you are a self-employed professional or a small-business owner and wishing to take complete control of your website SEO, we also offer comprehensive SEO Courses designed to teach you how to do exactly that.
Best of all, you can take up one of our SEO Courses either at our Hubworking site in Central London or at the comfort of your own workplace and even home!
Forget printing long web pages on paper if you want to save them or read them at a later time. Now, the more eco-friendly way to do this is with the help of PDFMYURL which can convert to pdf, any web page or online content using its URL.
Simply enter the URL of the page you want to convert to pdf on www.PDFmyURL.com and the software will instantly create a pdf of the entire web page and allow you to save it as well.
If you use a smartphone or a e-book reader, you can use this tool to instantly convert to pdf, online case studies or white papers which you can then read on-the-go.
Although, this service has just been launched, and to convert to pdf a web page or an online case study, you have to visit their website. In the future however, if it could offer a widget to website owners so this functionality can be easily embedded within websites allowing users to create pdfs from web pages without leaving the site, that would be absolutely amazing!
Yahoo has recently revealed that since redesigning it’s homepage, pageviews are up 9 percent, and time spent on the homepage is up 20 percent in the last 3 months.The whole focus of the redesign is to increase what they call PageYield – Yahoo’s measurement of how engaged the user is with the webpage (as opposed to PageRank which Google measures to determine the importance of webpages).
The birth of PageYield is interesting and could affect Yahoo and it’s users in a huge way.
We know that Google’s PageRank gives most importance to the quality and quantity of inbound links to your website. The actual content/design/usability is less important. PageYield measures ‘engagement time’ – how users interact with your webpages. (Bounce Rates, Time on site, Clickthrough rates all come to mind).
This can be a great incentive for website owners to improve the quality of their webpages and increase its relevancy to its users in order to get good rankings within Yahoo searches.
A huge implication this can have for Yahoo which potentially turn its fortune around is if enough of its users see the value in having a high PageYield and are motivated to improve the quality of thier webpages. This could mean that whilst Google is excellent in delivering ‘relevant’ results, Yahoo is better in delivering more ‘useful’ results (using the word ‘useful’ in a relative sense here).
How long before a PageYield measurement bar appears on your Yahoo toolbar?
We’re glad you asked! The timer you see on the top of our webpages indicates the age of the internet: 26 years approximately and counting…
Although the birth of what would later become known as the ‘Internet’ started in 1958 with the Advanced Research Projects Agency by the US, it was in 1983 when the first ‘network’ of interconnected computers was operational using a TCP/IP network, technology which is still in use to this date. In the begining, the internet was mainly used by the US Government for military projects, nature of which was mostly classified and outside of the public domain.
It was in 1989, when ‘web’ started to take a more commercial shape and it was in this year that Tim Berners-Lee, a British scientist introduced the internet publicly.
According to the Institute of Computing Technology, the Internet doubles in size every 5 years approximately and Advanced Micro Devices, a manufacturer of computer chips estimates the population of Internet users to be 1.5 billion as of January 2009.
In Part I we discussed Maslow’s theory of the hierarchy of human needs and showed how you can use this concept to understand your customer and target your sales copy to address those needs. Part II provides more guidance on how to translate your understanding of human behavior into well-tuned sales copy.
Match your words to your audience:
Your target audience will respond to your sales copy message if it is written using language that they can relate to and understand. For example:
If your target audience is the 55+ age group, you probably should not use acronyms or abbreviations such as ‘FAQs’, ‘wifi’, or ‘3G network’. While it is certainly true that there are plenty of very web savvy older people, you should be sure that your 55+ group shares that knowledge base before you start slinging around those terms.
If you are a UK based etailer that provides bespoke products and want to break into the U.S. market, do not use the word ‘bespoke’. This is not a term common in the U.S. and it simply will not be understood. You will need to use words like customized or specially designed instead.
If you are talking to moms with kids, you can be a little bit cheeky as in referring to their children as kids or little tykes or something similar, but you need to understand that mothers are all about protecting and loving their children and if you get too irreverent, you will turn them off.
Your words need to be understood, need to resonate and need to respect your audience.
Establish and maintain a style:
Branding is a huge part of product promotion. Your writing style should be a part of your branding strategy. For example, if you go to the Apple site, you will find that their computer descriptions all seem to swirl around themes of easy, creative and seamless, no matter which computer product is being described.
Think about what style you should use? Do you need to attract 20 somethings with edgy, sharp language? Are you looking for a very affluent market that needs to hear about prestige, one of a kind options, and highest quality available kinds of phrases?
Your sales copy is a great way to demonstrate who you are as a company and how you feel about your products.
Positive, not negative phrasing:
This guideline should be obvious but if you read product descriptions, you can see that it is not. Write in positive terms, not negative terms.
Try not to say, ‘Only available in black or white.’ Instead say, ‘Available in your choice of black or white.’
Try not to say, ‘We only ship domestically.’ Instead say, ‘We are happy to ship within the UK.’
Helpful hints:
One of the best ways to both help your customers and gain their trust is to write helpful hints into your product copy. For example:
After describing your smashing new jeans, you might say, ‘These are made a bit roomy so if you are a size six and wish you were a size four, here is your chance.’
After describing the lustrous colour your hair colouring products will provide, you might give a piece of advice, “Although you will find that our product is completely non irritating, it still makes sense to skip a hair wash before using any hair colouring product, the natural oils in your unwashed hair will help protect your scalp.”
Remember to ask for the sale:
Be sure that your sales copy asks the reader to purchase and gives them the means to do so. Announce your limited offer of free shipping and provide an icon to click or ask, “These are so handy, do you want to buy two right away?’
Bottom Line:
Writing good sales copy gets easier as you understand more and more about your customer and how they think.
Flow20.com has helped many businesses improve their website ROI by making the offering more compelling and complete with the help of our Website Copywriting Service. If you would like to know more about how we can make your offering more appealing to your user, contact us today.
While you may not need a PhD in psychology to write a website sales copy, a lesson or two from the study of human behaviour can make your website content more appealing and help you get maximum conversions.
The folks at esources.co.uk have produced a brilliant piece on how to create ad copies that make your offer more appealing, by using the basic principles of Human Needs as put forward by Dr Maslow .
In the 1950s Dr. Abraham Maslow proposed a hierarchy of human needs:
Physiological needs include the need for food, clothing and shelter.
Security and Safety needs include the need to be free from physical danger and to be secure in the feeling that physiological needs can be met.
Social needs involve the need to be loved, to be accepted and to belong.
Ego needs involve the need to be heard, to be appreciated and to be wanted.
Self Actualization needs involve the need to achieve one’s fullest potential.
In general, most people in developed nations have met their physiological and safety needs. Therefore, they are seeking now to satisfy social needs, ego needs and self actualisation needs. It is probably no coincidence that social media is such a fast growing phenomenon in such societies that seek acceptance and belonging.
You can apply Maslow’s hierarchy to sales writing by understanding where your product/service fits on the hierarchy of need and where your target market sits on the hierarchy of need, then tailoring your writing to respond to that need. For example, retailers who sell clothes may fit on one of several levels:
Physiological: Durable, warm children winter coats.
Security: Children winter coats with no dangling pull strings that could strangle, reflective material that can be seen in the dark and weatherproofing against snow and rain.
Social: Children winter coats in up to date styles and colours.
Ego: Children winter coats with high status brand names such as Tommy Hilfiger or celebrity status such as part of the David Bekcham or Kate Moss collection.
Self Actualisation: Children winter coats that are made by women cooperatives or do not contain any material from animals.
Your children winter coats may actually respond to each level of the hierarchy. You might write about the coats differently, depending on which target market you hope to attract.
Attract the reader with a powerful headline.
A. Describe a benefit that responds to the hierarchy, e.g.:
Physiological: The warmest winter coat you will find this year.
Security: Keep your child safe and warm.
Social: She will be a fashionable in our faux leopard print winter coat.
Ego: Vera Wang gave our children fur lined Sherpa jacket as a gift.
Self Actualisation: Your child will love our ultra warm winter coat and she will love helping a child in Botswana as well.
B. Use an emotion that responds to the hierarchy:
Physiological: Your child will never be cold again.
Security: Safety first with our best winter coats.
Social: Belong to the in crowd with our fashion first winter coat.
Ego: Your child will turn heads in her new winter coat.
Self Actualisation: Build a bridge of caring with our top of the line children winter coat from the Mexican Women Cooperative.
C. Announce something new or special about your product:
If the headline does not grab your customer, they will not read the rest of the copy.
Solve your customer’s problem.
One of the biggest mistakes that sales copy writers make is to focus on the product features, at the expense of making the connection between the customer’s problem and how the product solves the problem. Here are some examples.
Instead of ‘Our portable mobile phone charger has 1800 mAH say ‘You can use your mobile phone for six hours longer when you use our 1800 mAH portable cell phone charger.’
OR
Instead of ‘This shirt comes in five jewel toned colors’ say ‘With this shirt’s choice of five jewel toned colours, you can choose the colour that best expresses your personality.’
Take a step back and think about your product in terms of the needs it meets and/or the problems it solves, then try writing problem solving phrases. The idea is to understand why your customer wants and needs your product, then frame your copy in those terms.
Here’s an interesting piece of information about the history of the internet: the first 25.com domain names every registered. The table lists the date for each registration, the website address and some information about the domain and/or registrant.
STARGATE.COM (redirects to Litisys, Computer Services
What does this list tell us? Not much but here are some observations:
Interesting to note that although the internet started as a government project, 80% of the first 100 registrations were all commercial organizations (full list available at http://www.iwhois.com/oldest/)
More than 70% of initial registrations were made by some of the large world-class companies who were as big then, as they are now – gives some idea to their level of foresight and innovation
If you are considering using a SEO Services company for your website, it is important for you to be sure that the methods and techniques that your SEO Services company utilizes is safe and will produce sustainable results.
SEO can be an extremely cost-effective for your business since the cost-benefit value is way higher than some of the other comparable mediums in attracting potential customers to your website such as Pay Per Click and ads on social networking sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn.
However, the very effectiveness of SEO in helping your business grow has led to it’s global popularity which has also led to the birth of many companies who deploy unsfafe SEO Techniques to deliver short-term results. At best, your site may appear high within the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) for a little while. At worst, Google may ban your website altogether if it feels your site tried to spam the results.
Here are questions that you should ask your SEO company
1. What techniques do you use to carry out SEO?
Most SEO companies use a variety of tools and techniques to carry out the optimization process. However, some in order to produce short-term results, deploy tricks rather than proven techniques such as inserting hidden content, creation of door way pages and reciprocal linking. Reciprocal links are not really unsafe but rarely effective since the value of a reciprocal link is undermined by the reciprocity.
SEO should be viewed as an investment and the best chances of keeping your investment safe and getting a return is with companies who can leverage on their expertise as well as utilize safe and proven techniques such as optimizing your website content, creation of relevant one-way links to your website with quality sources and so on.
2. Can I see a few examples of the sites you have previously been successful in optimizing?
Examine the sites both, in terms of rankings as well as the site itself. Apart from the high rank that it should obviously be enjoying, also pay attention to the site content: Are there any hidden text? Has the design been compromised by heavy use of keyword-rich text for benefit of traffic (which almost negates the purpose of SEO unless carried out extremely effectively)? Does the site load fast enough (if not, large amounts of additional coding has been inserted which makes the site slow to load)?
An effective SEO strategy will include carrying out steps to attract targeted traffic to your website without compromising design and usability for traffic. It should also include the necessary optimization to improve conversion of the traffic into leads or customers.
3. What happens if my site does not appear within the page that you say it will?
This question is extremely important in determining the potential risks with your investment. Although it is simply impossible to predict the exact page or position your SEO company can bring, a company with a proven track-record should have the experience in giving you a good indication of possible results as well as a guarantee that covers you at least partially.
4. Does the scope of your SEO Service include help with conversion of the newly gained traffic into visitors?
As pointed out in Q.2, in order to get the best return on your investment, you should look for companies that have the know-how in delivering traffic as well as converting traffic into leads or customers for your business. In most cases, having a high level of traffic is of little use until the user actually performs the necessary actions such as buying something (customer) or filling out a contact form (lead).
5. Is there a minimum term contract? If yes, for how long?
Most SEO Companies operate on a 6 or 12 month minimum term with an initial payment payable upon start of campaign and a reduced monthly payment, thereafter. This makes sense since producing SEO results take time and requires patience. However, make sure you understand the payment terms and whether the first monthly payment is payable after a certain no. of days once your campaign begins. This is important because you shouldn’t be paying the monthly charges until nearer the time once your rankings are expected to start improving.
It is important to carry out your own due-diligence before making your choice. When carried out effectively, SEO can be extremely beneficial in helping your business grow and reducing your marketing costs.
As promised, here are the next 5 ways on how you can improve your to make it more user-centric and deliver a positive browsing experience to your user (read Website Improvement Tips Part 1 in case you missed it).
6. Avoid Pop-up windows – Before you think about using a pop-up window to ‘enhance’ your website content, think about this: What do you do when a popup appears on a website you are viewing. Most users instinctively close a pop-up window without even even checking out the content within the new window. Pop-up windows should be especially avoided for displaying important information. And, if you absolutely insist on making use of this universally-hated feature, make sure you make the user aware of the imminent window by placing a notification such as ‘opens in new window’. Laura Wheeler of Badwebsiteideas.com has a useful post on pop-up windows. (Yes, these links open in new windows since it’s a different site). 7. Phone number – This is one of the most essential elements of your contact information and should be displayed across your entire website and not just the Contact Us page. Like any other form of marketing, you need to repeat your message many times before a prospect will take action. For most effective results, consider placing your phone number on your website header (most of the websites we design include this practice, see the blog header above). Better still, include your business hours under the phone number so customers know exactly when they can call. 8. Testimonials – Testimonials is up there with word-of-mouth, repeat customers and referrals as key elements in growing your business. Whether you serve businesses or consumers direct, the value of a testimonial is indispensable in gaining trust and confidence with your prospect. The more testimonials you can have on your website, the better it is. Adding the contact details of your customer within the testimonial, such as his/her website URL and perhaps, even a picture will help the testimonial make a greater impact. 9. FAQ page – What’s a good way to make your website more rich with useful content without overwhelming or boring the user? Get a FAQ page.
A FAQ page allows you to supplement the main ad-copy of your offering with additional features and benefits and can help provide the user with enough information so as to take an informed decision. FAQs also have a SEO benefit since it allows you to increase your content’s keyword density without compromising on the design by eliminating the need for placing important keywords and keyphrases in irrelevant areas. 10. Multiple ways to e-contact: Most websites have a contact form. However, many website owners do not provide a contact email id in the fear of being inundated with spam and unsolicited content. In most cases, the benefits of generating additional leads via your website by offering an additional way for the customer to contact you will far outweight the costs associated in the time and effort required to get rid of spam in your inbox. Many users may prefer to use their own email editor (the email id listed on your site should open the users default email program) rather than use the standard contact form. Offering multiple ways for the customer to contact you makes it easier for the user to actually do so and gives the impression that your company is approachable.
Most suggestions we have made in our Website Improvement Tips series of blogs is based on our research and experience on some of the things that helps a website improve conversions.
If you have found any of our tips has helped improve your sites performance, we would love to hear about it!
Website Bounce Rate is a measure within Google Analytics of how many people website visitors left the website without having gone any further than the initial entry point (page). In other words, it tracks the single-page visits and is expressed in percentage.
Why you should be paying attention to your website’s Bounce Rate It gives an indication of how relevant and useful your users find your webpage content. The word ‘content’ here is taken in the broadest sense- images/text/colour/font and just about any element of your webpage makes up the content here.Although average Bounce Rates vary amongst industries and sectors, 30-40% is widely accepted as an average (Flow20.com’s website design services on average yield a 25% Bounce Rate for our clients ).
If your website is returning a Bounce Rate of over 40%, you should be evaluating your website content and finding ways to add rich content that makes sticking around worthwhile for the user. Here are 3 ways on how to reduce the Bounce Rate:
Testing
Testing
Testing
That’s right. The best way to add value to your website is to first know what sort of content your user will find valuable . This means getting feedback from your website users/customers – What do they think about the design? Are the page titles and headlines accurate? What features/info would they like to see added? Is your website loading correctly and quickly on a range of OS and browsers?
Of Course, you would already be having some idea about how to make your website appealing to your user. This, combined with actual user feedback can significantly help the overall effectiveness of your webpages.
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If you own a website or infact, responsible for the marketing of one, chances are that you already know the pivotal role 
While you may not need a PhD in psychology to write a website sales copy, a lesson or two from the study of human behaviour can make your website content more appealing and help you get maximum conversions.
Here’s an interesting piece of information about the history of the internet: the first 25.com domain names every registered. The table lists the date for each registration, the website address and some information about the domain and/or registrant.
).