SEO Hosting Blog

Whenever I interview a new client to help plan their copy, one of the questions I ask is this:

What are some common of your customers’ concerns and questions they have when talking to you? Objections, points of confusion, etc. How do you address these?

Why is this important? It’s simple. There are many roadblocks between your target audience and making the sale. If you don’t address these roadblocks and offer solutions in your marketing messages, guess what happens? They don’t buy from you.

It’s that simple. So, how can you destroy these roadblocks and make the sale? Let’s take these one at a time.

Common Objections

Objections are those things that make customers resist the purchase. Every company gets objections from customers when trying to sell their product or services. The key to overcoming these objections is to understand why the prospect objects, what you can do to negate their objection, and how you can turn that objection into the customer’s advantage.

Some common objections include:

• Price—This boils down to the customer having a problem justifying spending their money on your product. There are many things you can do to overcome pricing objections. Show customers why your product is a great value at its price point (no matter how expensive it might be), offer money-back guarantees, or show how the product is a worthwhile investment.
• Lack of understanding—Sometimes, customers just don’t understand what you’re selling. So, their kneejerk reaction is to say “no.” What can you do? Clarify your message. Make it as simple and to the point as possible. Write it so even your mom understands it.
• Lack of trust—Customers may not trust you. You can gain their trust by using testimonials, offering money-back guarantees, being easy to contact, sharing your expertise, and more.
• Questions—In some cases, the customer just needs to know more before they’ll give you the sale. Your copy needs to address the common questions your customers have. Pay attention to the questions you get asked most often, and find ways to answer them in your copy.

How do you overcome your customers’ objections?

As a freelance copywriter, a lot of the projects I work on involve SEO copywriting. Sometimes, I work with the client directly, and other times, an SEO company contracts the work out to me, giving me guidelines on what they want for their client. In the latter situation, I have a little less leeway to do what I want since it’s the SEO company’s client.

Usually, it’s not an issue, but some SEO companies are still stuck in the past, using silly metrics like keyword density and word counts to judge the worth of website copy. And here is where I have a problem. I’ll save the topic of keyword density for a future post, but today I want to talk about the problems I have with using a word count in SEO copywriting.

1. There is no real evidence that word counts directly influence rankings. Thankfully, most SEO companies have gotten beyond the idea that copy needs to be between 400 and 800 words to rank well in the search engines. But there are still some out there that cling to this theory. Whether you believe in it or not, the simple truth is there is no real evidence that supports needing a specific word count to rank well. The top-ranked pages in Google for various search terms vary greatly in word count. I’ve seen pages rank well with 50 words or less and pages rank well with thousands of words. The truth is your rankings are largely determined by offsite factors, like link building. Word count does NOT directly influence rankings.
2. Quantity and quality are not directly related. When it comes to copywriting, quantity and quality are completely separate from one another. Just because a page is long doesn’t mean it’s good or bad. And just because a page is short also doesn’t mean it’s good or bad. What makes copy good or bad is how effective each word is and how well it converts.
3. Writing to a specific word count is restrictive and leads to forced copy. When you force a copywriter to come up with a set number of words, you’re just asking for trouble. The copywriter will either have to add fluff to meet the word count or cut back severely to meet it. Either way, it leads to unnatural copy, and forces the copywriter’s attention onto a trivial matter.

What do you think about word counts for web copy? Good idea or terrible idea?

To run a successful website, it’s not enough to rank well and get quality traffic. Those are nice starting points, but unless the people visiting your website convert, it’s really all for nothing. I’ve talked quite a bit about getting more conversions in the past, but today I want to focus specifically on the call to action.

Without a call to action, you have an “actionless” website that doesn’t motivate visitors to do anything with the information you’ve given them.

Here are some simple ways to craft a more effective call to action.

• Place a time limit on your offer—Say what you want about infomercials, but they’ve always understood the power of time-sensitive offers. And they just work. Same thing goes for home shopping networks. They say, “You have to call in the next 10 minutes if you want to get 50% off your order.” And guess what? People take action.
• Offer something free—Giveaways are kind of like a gateway drug. They entice people to take action and push them closer to your main goal: getting them to make a purchase. You can offer a free eBook, whitepaper, consultation, product demo, etc.
• Emphasize the limited supply—If only a specific number of products are available, make sure to point this out in your call to action. It makes readers realize they have to take action now if they want the product because it may not be available later.
• Show that price has been reduced—Another infomercial trick that always works is they show the old price of the item, then slash through it and display the new, lower price. Visitors love feeling like they’re getting a great deal, so when you’ve reduced the price of an item, emphasize that point to make taking action more desirable.
• Use a strong guarantee—Online customers are hesitant by nature. They’re wary of doing business with companies they don’t know, and if you want to convince the skeptical customer, you have to remove any roadblocks that keep them from taking action. Stressing your guarantee helps them see they have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

What are some other specific techniques you use to get immediate action from your visitors? Leave a comment with your best tip.

As a copywriter, it’s my job to create copy that connects with customers and makes them realize the company they’re dealing with truly understands their needs. The problem is that most companies don’t really know what their customers need. They don’t understand what’s important to their customers. They think they do. They think by shoving the features of their products or services down the customers’ throats that they’ll earn their business, but more times than not, this doesn’t work.

Why?

Most importantly, the features of your product typically aren’t all that different from those of the competition. Just compare your copy to that of your competition. Odds are, you’re focusing on the same features and benefits as everyone else. As a result, you’re indistinguishable. Ordinary. Average.

The way to truly stand out is to understand what your customers really care about…not what you think they care about. How can you do this?

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You can have all the right words. And they can be laid out in the best possible way. But just because the words are correct and the copy looks great, doesn’t mean it flows properly and funnels readers toward conversion.

Flow is an important, but often overlooked, part of effective sales copywriting. Great flow creates a conversational feel, and it transitions logically from one point to the next.

Want to make sure your copy has proper flow? Here are 6 tips for making it happen.

1. Write the way you talk—Why is it that when people start writing they immediately change their voice, getting all formal and rigid? They completely strip away their personality and go into term paper, corporate communications writing style. It’s boring, and readers don’t get engaged by it. Just be yourself. Write the way you talk so your copy will flow like a real dialogue.
2. Read it aloud—There really is a big difference between reading the copy silently on your computer screen and printing it out to read aloud. When you read aloud, you get a true feel for the flow of your copy. You can easily identify clunky passages and awkward transitions.
3. Have your friends read it aloud—Of course, as the writer of the copy, you may be able to read it more smoothly than a new reader. To see how customers will be reading the copy, try asking a few of your friends to read the copy aloud. They will have a fresh approach, so pay attention to any parts of your copy they struggle with as those could be troublesome spots that demand extra attention.
4. Let your copy breathe for 24 hours—Here’s a trick I’ve picked up over the years. After you write your copy, step away from it for a day. This break allows you to come back to the copy with a totally fresh approach, and you’ll probably find that you see new things you didn’t notice before.
5. Proof for different things—It’s hard to try to tackle everything all at once. Try going through your copy a few different times. One time, you could read through it for grammatical mistakes. Another time, you can go through to make sure there aren’t any poor transitions or illogical progressions.
6. Read it slower—Be tedious. Go through your copy slowly and meticulously. Force yourself to read it at a slower pace so you can catch every little detail to make sure it flows properly.

What are some of your tricks for making your copy flow better?