Content Writing & Copywriting Blog

Choosing the right keywords to promote your website

Feb 24, 2006 No Comments »

Before you start promoting your website for better search engine ranking you should sit down and brainstorm on what keywords and key phrases you should be focusing upon. This solves two purposes: (1) it helps you target the right people; (2) it helps the right people find you. Once you get these two things going, you’ve arrived.
I’ll take a personal example, but for me it was a blessing in disguise. When I was designing websites, one fine day I decided to optimize my website for the terms “web designing”. And I did optimize my website for this phrase. For a whole year it hovered around first, second and third spots on Google for the term “web designing”. But how much work did I actually get?
In one year I got 3 projects. Two were through referrals and one was perhaps from a person who was quite impressed by the tutorials I had written. No work came from the search engines. Personally, as I’ve stated above, it was good for me because anyway I wanted to write content for websites instead of designing them. But it was quite a profound education.
When I chose the keywords, I wasn’t very careful about whom it would attract. It attracted people who wanted to learn web designing. — 99% of them. If you are looking for a person to make your website, you look for a “web designer” or a “web developer”, or something like that. You don’t look for “web designing”. When you want to learn about web designing, you search for “web designing” or “web designing tips” etc. I kept getting one or two queries everyday, but they mostly dealt with subjects regarding web designing and programming. Instead of giving me work, people asked for free advice and tips.

Too long, or not too long: that is the question

Feb 13, 2006 No Comments »

I wrote a web page for a client and she was quite happy with it. In fact she said she had made the first ever sale after using my content. Then someone told her the content was too long and this dissuaded her visitors from purchasing her stuff, and consequently she was naturally all doubtful.
To be frank long text on various web pages bothers me too, and I never advise my clients to have lines and lines of text (although this can get me more money because for every extra 100 words I charge more) on their web pages — especially the home page. But long text is not always bad, especially when you really have something to say, or if you are catering to market that needs to read a lot before arriving at a decision.
Take for instance a cell phone model. The more you read, the better your understanding is. If the seller is able to present to you all the pros, and a few cons, you can take an educated decision and sometimes if the pros are presented convincingly, you even overlook the cons. OK, a cell phone is not a perfect example, because certain brands don’t need convincing because you’ve very often already decided to purchase the model. Still, it doesn’t harm to read more.
I remember when I wanted to purchase a Nikon Coolpix camera I had to visit various websites to read reviews. It would have been great if all the reading material were present on the Nikon website itself.
Long text seems tedious if it is not solving any purpose by being there. The text should only be there if it is conveying something relevant, something that actually needs to be expressed.