 SEO
Copywriting Makeover: Good Rankings but No Sales Part 1 of 2
By
Karon
Thackston © 2004-2005
It's been a myth
for as long as the Internet has been in existence. Get good rankings and
your site will be successful. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but that
has never been the case. What you get when you achieve good search engine
rankings is a lot of traffic. That *can* be a wonderful thing, but it by
no means guarantees even one sale.
You see, search engine rankings are not responsible for making sales. They
are responsible for getting visitors to click to your site. If you (or your
search engine optimizer) have done your job, you'll have descriptions in
your search returns (or PPC ads) that bring in qualified visitors. But still.
even with qualified visitors, the engines are not in a position to make sales
at your site. That's the job your copy and usability elements handle.
Top Security, Inc. faced this problem. They had good search engine rankings.
They were listed on the first page of most of the major engines. They had
the traffic. Sales, however, were not where they wanted them to be. What
was the cause? One look told me the copy was the culprit. (Take a look at
the original copy here:
http://www.copywritingcourse.com/topsecurity-original.pdf.)
The Problems
Top Security had a tough sale by anybody's standards. They sold home security
systems and maintenance services. (Something hardly anybody likes to talk
about until after something happens, and it's virtually too late.) In order
to get someone to move on products/services like home security, insurance,
and the like, you really must develop a sense of trust and urgency.
When I first viewed the Top Security, Inc. home page, it was obvious that
they knew what they needed to do. They had made a few attempts on the page
in the form of graphics and MP3 files to accomplish those two goals. For
example, they posted a current Threat Advisory graphic from the Department
of Homeland Security (establishing urgency). There was also an MP3 that played
kindergarten children singing "God Bless America" (plays toward patriotism
and trust). Lastly, the headline was designed to try to build a sense of
longevity. However, none of these was reflected in the copy. The most important
part of the page was overlooked.
In order to turn the home page around,
the salesman of the site (a.k.a. the words) needed to speak to the visitors
in their own language. It needed to show them what can happen to those who
have no security system and then offer a way to prevent those tragedies.
The copy had to give assurances and build trust while at the same time helping
visitors to stop procrastinating and make a move now.
While current rankings were good, there was still room for improvement. For
search engine purposes, the copy needed to offer better support for the chosen
keyphrases. There were virtually no keyphrases in the original body copy
and that had to be changed.
The Solutions
The biggest part of the solution for Top Security was to develop copy for
the home page. period. The copy on the original site was minimal, was
company-focused instead of customer-focused, and needed to do a better job
of addressing the needs of the site visitors and search engines.
The new copy had to set a tone of trust and community since Top Security
dealt only with local Florida residents. In fact, I pulled out all the benefits
small, local companies can offer their customers in order to play up Top
Security in the new copy.
At the same time, I wanted to weave the client's keyphrases into the text
without making them stand out. The goal was to have a home page that read
as naturally as possible to humans while giving the spiders and bots what
they needed in order to boost Top Security's rankings.
In Part 2 of this article, I'll show you how I implemented the changes in
order to improve conversions and what the results were.
About the Author:
| Karon Thackston
is a veteran copywriting pro who specializes in SEO copy. If your copy isn't
getting results, let Karon teach you how to write SEO copy that impresses
the engines and your visitors at
http://www.copywritingcourse.com.
Be sure to check out Karon's latest ebook "How To Increase Keyword Saturation
(Without Destroying the Flow of Your Copy)" at
http://www.copywritingcourse.com/keyword. |
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