copywriting
10 Usability Heuristics – From the View of Copywriters
Jakob Nielsen is the world’s leading expert on Web usability. He developed the 10 heuristics meant for user design that is also applicable for Copywriters in order to have an active content
Listed are some of the methods:
Visibility of system status
“The system should always keep users informed about what is going on, through appropriate feedback within reasonable time.”
Generate quick response to users after their feedback on visiting your site. Keep the site active through interaction contents.
Match between system and the real world
“The system should speak the users’ language, with words, phrases and concepts familiar to the user, rather than system-oriented terms. Follow real-world conventions, making information appear in a natural and logical order.”
Use simple and common terms that reach your target audience effectively than the technical usage.
User control and freedom
“Users often choose system functions by mistake and will need a clearly marked “emergency exit” to leave the unwanted state without having to go through an extended dialogue. Support undo and redo.”
While writing copy for online banking process or transactions, make sure you have sight of error text, “back” and “close” buttons that meant to enhance user ease accessibility.
Consistency and standards
“Users should not have to wonder whether different words, situations, or actions mean the same thing. Follow platform conventions.”
This relates to using plain language, especially for copy that supports practical user tasks like product research, online purchase and other types of conversion.
Help and documentation
“Even though it is better if the system can be used without documentation, it may be necessary to provide help and documentation. Any such information should be easy to search, focused on the user’s task, list concrete steps to be carried out, and not be too large.”
When writing the content for support and FAQ avoid jargon as it can cause misinterpretations on user’s point of view have the content clear and simple that is understandable by everyone.
Impact of Google’s New Font on Content Writers
Google one of the popular search engines has redesigned its search page in order to give new look and feel to its readers. Let’s look at the significant changes made by Google.
- Size of result titles got much bigger compared to earlier search pages
- Underlining the context got removed
- Uniform line heights are introduced
- Encountering character limit for page titles
- Spacing for Meta descriptions got changed
With Copywriters these changes do not affect the actual content but the appearance of the site got revisited. Even then, presenting page titles in a precised manner that attract audience will be a challenging task. Meta descriptions have to be also maintained with in 155 character limit. These new changes are made to be effective in order to enhance readability and create an overall cleaner look.
So, attention content writers now it’s our job to present the content more flexible in line with the new changes.
Apple’s Copywriting Techniques
Apple’s success can be sited as they are the pioneers in experimenting with the ground-breaking tech innovations. But the way it brands and markets its products also has a massive impact.
Buzz-Free Language
Apple’s word choice is so simple that it can be understood even by any lay man. Steve Job’s uses words like “magical”, “revolutionary”, “cool”, and “great” to perfectly describe technological wonders. Apple’s marketing team scrubs every sentence free of mind-bending jargon and boils their message down to something anyone can understand and appreciate.
Magic of promoting readability
Writing should be of such a manner keeping things simple and understandable. Apple’s magic of words lies in eliminating anything that a 6-year-old couldn’t understand. Big words may sound smart but they may confuse readers. Instead of highlighting with jargon, expressive “benefit stories” can be used to grab more attention on the product’s features. When it comes necessary to include any technical terms, sufficient time has to be invested in explaining it in the perception of layman’s terms.
COPYWRITING VS. CONTENT WRITING: HOW IT DIFFERS IN SEO?
Many people think Copywriting and content writing remains one and the same but there exist the distinction between copywriting and content writing. The difference actually lies in the goal of what the written text is designed to achieve.
Copywriting- Copy is the written text that is designed to sell something, which means that copywriting is the practice of writing the text with the means of selling a product or a service. Here is a basic outline of how the copywriting structure has to be:
- The first paragraph must introduce what is being sold.
- The following paragraph must highlight the advantages and benefits that the product or service offers.
- The end is defined by a clear call to action aimed at the reader (“call now,” “schedule an appointment,” “ask us for a quote”).
Content writing- Content is the written text that is designed to inform, educate and engage people. The quality of content is defined by its ability to effectively reach the audience, rather than to sell them. When content is used for marketing purposes, it should follow the principle that you earn the readers’ trust before you try to sell to them.
WAYS TO WRITE SEO FRIENDLY CONTENT
SEO friendly content helps the website to become more established and fetches consistent traffic to the website without needing to survive through ads across the web. The SEO friendly content plays a predominant role in ranking the site higher than others.
Keyword Balance
Keywords are the most important SEO element for every search engine.
Choose the right keywords to optimize.
Avoid using more keywords on a webpage because it can be taken as spam.
Don’t overuse the keywords that tend the text to read in an unnatural way.
Meta Descriptions
Meta Descriptions are a paragraph that describes the information that searchers can find useful and relevant to what they are searching.
Meta descriptions should be in a summarized manner with the maximum word limit of 150 characters.
Never copy Meta tags descriptions, create dynamic and distinctive descriptions.
Headlines
Compelling and descriptive headlines of an article makes the content more shareable.
Conduct keyword research in order to find relevant keywords on search terms of customers.
Page URLs
URLs are designed to substitute IP addresses which computers use to communicate with the servers.
The well-written URL can serve its own anchor text and give ranking credit to the page.
Have a short URL and set up content with subfolders instead of subdomains.
SEO Link Building
The search engines can analyze the popularity of a website & page depending on the total and reputation of pages linking to them through links.
Link optimization is important in order to bring traffic and search ranking success.
It is effective to keep your links fresh, continue updating with additional links.
Write Quality Content
Make sure to write quality, useful, original and engaging content.
Content should be short and direct, use appropriate keywords to make content more effective.
Proofread the content before publishing.
Choose the Apt words for copywriting/Editing
It is a fact that you undertake some research before you write about a topic, and there are exceptions on those who are experts on the subject. We may not be the first person to have a say about any issue. Many people may perhaps discussed and had written articles on the same subject but in different headlines and point of views. After reading numerous articles there are chances for you to get influenced and replicate the same and some of you seek help from thesaurus to find alternative words and phrases. Those who are good in writing could reproduce an article efficiently by adding some more points to make the outcome better. Inexpert will use synonyms which have similar meaning with respect to the word, but it may not always do justice to the context as a whole.
Looking up words in the thesaurus greatly enhances the formality of your writing provided you use the words correctly and suitably.
These are the common errors which people confuse always.
For E.g., She got good marks for the board exam. Instead of “got” we could use secured, obtained, received, achieved, attained etc , but the apt word matching the context will be ‘achieved” which gives importance to the context.
Choosing the right word to express the idea and also making it more interesting to the readers is vital. Words are used as verb and noun and at times people muddle up both.
For. E.g.
- Advice & Advise:
Advice is a noun, something that you give. Say, “Please give me some advice.”
Advise is a verb, something that you do. It is some action. Say, “Please advise me.”
- Affect and Effect:
Both are used as Nouns and Verbs
As nouns, they possess different meaning. Affect is affection, related to emotion. Effect is the result.
As verbs, they change. To affect some thing is to have some influence upon it. To effect some action is to cause it to happen.
- Fewer and Less:
The traditional rule is to use “fewer” with things that can be counted and “less” for measuring. ”
E.g,
There is less cheese on this plate.
There are fewer pieces of cheese on this plate
- “Because of” and “Due To”
Another mistake we tend to make is the usage of “Because of” and “Due to” thinking that both of the pairs refer to the same thing, and that they can be used as synonyms. This is an absolute misconception according to English grammar rules but in modern English both can be used interchangeably.
“Due to” is an adjective, so it can only modify nouns and pronouns according to the English grammar rules.
“Because of” is an adverb, which can only modify verbs, adjectives and clauses.
It is generally advised and considered wrong by experts to use “Due to” in the beginning of the sentence whereas “Because of” can be used.
E.g, Because you helped me, I am going to repay you.
Because I love you, I shall do that for you.
The essentials of Good Writing
An SEO Copywriter has to impress both the reader as well as the search engines. You may generate wonderful content, but it may not hit your target unless you use apt words and phrases that are relevant and attractive to your users or potential customers.
One should always give importance to the language elements while preparing content. Colloquialism has invaded English language. It is advisable not to use colloquial terms in SEO copywriting.
- Word choice is very important, For e.g. In informal writing we use words such as “kid”, ‘how come”, ‘quote’ etc meanwhile in formal writing we use ‘child’, ‘why’ and ‘quotations’ respectively. An informal style may make listeners feel more comfortable when you are speaking, but a formal writing style can make a good impression. Please pay attention in selecting words to convey your message. For e.g. use ‘adorable’ instead of ‘cute’, ‘film’ (movie), pretty (fair).
- It is also very important to avoid contractions in formal writing, for eg Use ‘Cannot’ instead of can’t.
- In formal writing, the pronoun “I” is replaced by the pronoun “We” and this is known as the royal we or editorial we. The pronoun “You” is generally avoided in formal writing when it refers to people in general.
Eg; You should sleep eight hours each night. (Informal)
One should sleep eight hours each night. (Formal)
- Avoid starting a sentence with a coordinating conjunction. In the written language, coordinating conjunctions such as “and,” “but,” “so,” or “or” are meant to join words, phrases, and clauses. Develop short, choppy sentences into longer, more graceful sentences with conjunctions. Formal writing generally uses longer sentences, which add variety to your writing and can be effective when paired with short sentences; the contrast grabs the readers’ attention.
The significance of Keyword for SEO Writing
For SEO, the content should be strictly focused on the topic and centered on the relevant Keywords. Search engines crawl the relevancy of the page based on the keywords. Do not assume that they just see the keywords alone. They are smart enough to evaluate the significance of the keyword with regard to the entire content. Spamming with keywords will never work, in fact it will have a negative impact on the content, ie you will no longer be noticed by search engines. It is crucial to research and be creative to find and use keywords especially in the online world because it dictate whether you attract browsers or buyers, information seekers or product and service seekers, and finally, keywords even help to determine how many visitors you receive from search engines.
Before writing the content a careful analysis of the competitor with respect to the content and keywords is vital. Also there is no point in writing a large content with unnecessary explanation. Users will get attracted to quality content and also in the very first paragraph itself you need to provide the summary of the article by following the journalistic norm ie, the content should be in an inverted pyramid style including 5 W’s(WHAT , WHO, WHY WHICH, WHEN, WHERE and 1H (HOW).
Title is the first thing that a potential visitor will find in search results. Keywords should begin with the title in order to woo the search engine and also the users. Also important is the Meta description which induces whether or not you get the click and it should be limited to 165 characters so that the full description will be visible in search results. A keyword density more than 5.5% will be considered as keyword stuffing, and certainly irritates Google. Keywords alone cannot take your site on the top slot on a search result page but using the right keywords plays a great role in getting search engine traffic.
Your site can be accessed only through the relevant keywords and without them it is invisible to everyone whatsoever, useful and informative they may be. A professional copywriter will always learn the competition for the product or service and hence use appropriate keywords at the right places with accurate headings. The keywords should be proportionate and equally disseminated throughout the content.
SEO Copy writing and Promotion
SEO Copy writing has come a long way that now it turned a little more complex than before. Search engines are becoming smarter day by day updating their algorithm often and also upgrading their criteria for ranking. You cannot just write some content by stuffing all the keywords. Google and other search engines know very well how to tackle low quality content that carry keyword stuffing. Google brought out “Content Farm” which demote the sites carrying low quality content and also an option to its users to report sites that carry low quality content via Personal Blocklist Chrome Extension“(If installed, the extension will send the blocked site information to Google and Google will conduct a study to consider that as a potential ranking signal for their search results). Irrespective of the number of tips one can give for SEO Copywriting, ultimately the quality of content only matters the most and in the coming days this will remain as one of the significant aspect for ranking. Once the content becomes popular you will get natural backlinks. Also very important is the way you market your content. Even though you possess quality content, if it is not endorsed then you can’t expect the dissemination of the same. So it is also important to promote it competently and the best medium is via social platforms. One of the most authentic way of propagation is “By Word of mouth” and it becomes a chain communication while referring from one person to another, the same you could expect with social media platforms. For e.g., if you share your content with known people and if they find it worth, without even asking they certainly promote it. Social media like facebook, twitter, Digg in, Delicious, stumble upon are apt medium to promote yourself and also the content. You could also participate in forums to get credibility for what you say and write. So keep in mind that Content is the King and forever it remains the same, and equally important is the promotion of the same via social media platforms.
How to write effective hyperlinks
A hyperlink is a more convenient way of jumping from one page to another. That’s all hyper linking is on most websites.
Don’t use these link phrases as they are not meaningful
Click here to enter
Click on this
Select this
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