by Karon Thackston ? 2005 http://www.copywritingcourse.com
You've got a great product or service. Now, how do you make
buyers sit up and take notice? How do you get them excited about
what you're offering? You have to pull the trigger.
There is at least one trigger for every product or service on
the market today. Finding it is the hard part. Once you
determine what will set your customers in motion, you've won
half the battle. This was the case with ForecastWatch.com.
With a new site, the owner of ForecastWatch.com (Jeff) was
unsure of what to do with the copy in order to connect with his
site visitors and cause them to take the action he wanted them
to take. Not to mention, Jeff wanted to rank highly with the
engines as well, so search engine optimization (SEO) had to be
taken into consideration, along with the selling aspects of the
copy.
The Problem
The only real problem was finding the right trigger. The
original site had little to no usable copy. That's not an
insult; it's the truth. You can see the original home page here:
http://www.copywritingcourse.com/forecastwatch-original.pdf.
Jeff knew he needed help from a professional copywriter, so he
spent little time on the site content.
The Solution
To determine the most powerful trigger, I took a look at all the
segments of ForecastWatch.com's audience. It was broken down
into three distinct types of customers. They were all interested
in the most reliable weather forecasts possible, but for three
very different reasons.
One group was made up of meteorologists. Their obvious interest
was in being able to provide the most accurate forecasts to
their viewers and listeners. A second group was compiled of
weather risk managers. It is the job of these professionals to
accurately assess weather for industries such as the stock
exchange, construction, transportation, national defense and
more. The last group needed weather forecast accuracy for
personal reasons, usually as a hobby or for sports reasons
(coaches, etc.).
While the last group was primarily interested in the weather as
amateurs, the first two segments (meteorologists and
weather-risk managers) have a lot on the line when it comes to
weather forecast accuracy. Their reputations and their jobs are
on the line.
And that's the trigger! I put it right up front in the headline,
which read:
ForecastWatch.com Because Your Reputation Depends on Being Right
About the Weather
The headline hit the nail on the head. It got the attention of
weather professionals, was of great interest to hobbyists and
included part of one of Jeff's keyphrases. The last word in the
headline (weather) tied into the first sentence of the copy and,
thus, created a keyphrase.
Keep in mind that engines don't read spaces or line breaks or
punctuation within the copy, so having one word of a keyphrase
in the headline and the remainder of the keyphrase in the first
sentence of the copy is an excellent way to make the copy flow
and keep in line with SEO protocol.
Now, the task would be to keep that same emotional twist and
energy throughout the copy. With the old copy, Jeff had no
rankings with the engines for his chosen keyphrases, so the
optimization of the copy needed to give him a presence.
The Rewrite
In the opening paragraph, I touted the praises of weather
professionals, letting them know their expertise was recognized
and appreciated. I also used one keyphrase twice and the second
keyphrase once. In addition, I used the individual word
"weather" and substituted "specialist" for "risk manager" in
some instances to add to the flow and give a well-rounded
environment for the spiders and bots.
Next, I provided a good overview of what ForecastWatch.com
offered. Again, a keyphrase was used in the headline (because it
worked for both the visitors and the engines, not strictly for
SEO purposes), and a keyphrase was used in the paragraph.
Finally, the copy was broken out into segments that targeted
specific individuals. This gave them precise information on what
benefits ForecastWatch.com offered them. Boxes for
meteorologists, weather risk managers and weather enthusiasts
were created. Within the copy for each block and again in the
anchor text for links to internal pages, keyphrases were used
where appropriate. These boxes lead each visitor to information
that was most relevant to him/her.
You can see the new copy here:
http://www.copywritingcourse.com/forecastwatch-rewrite.pdf.
The Results
I always like to let the customer take over in this section.
Here's what Jeff had to say about the rewrite of his home-page
copy.
"Traffic has steadily increased, and I've gotten a lot of leads
and my largest non-weather-company business customer from
Internet search. The rewrite helped me with more than just the
website. It helped me to define my business goals and to
articulate them in other marketing materials as well." In
addition, rankings continue to rise with current positioning in
the top five for one of his keyphrases.
Take the time to do a little research. Put yourself in your
customers? place. Uncover what's most important to them, and
you'll be rewarded with greater conversions in the long run.
About the author:
Copy not getting results? Let Karon teach you how to write SEO
copy that impresses the engines and your visitors at
http://www.copywritingcourse.com. Having trouble working
keyphrases into your copy? Check out ?How To Increase Keyword
Saturation (Without Destroying the Flow of Your Copy)? at
http://www.copywritingcourse.com/keyword.
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