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A Tale of Two Ad Titles – Part Two

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Yellow sunglasses isolated on white background
The second of two advertisements that appeared in Science News Magazine illustrates a second set of lessons about blog titles and blog content writing in general.

(The first, “It’s Enough to Make You Blue in the Face” was an advertisement for the Stauer Urban Blue® wristwatch.) That ad was overloaded with features, benefits, a testimonial, even a giveaway offer. And, while the title made a “cutesy” use of the color blue of the watch and the expression “blue in the face”, it had no keyword phrases in it that would work for SEO.

The second ad,

“But When Driving, These Sunglasses May Save Your Life”
(advertisement for Eagle Eyes® Navigator sunglasses)

used a very different approach, called “fear marketing”, centering on the dangers of not using the product:

  • “Driving in fall and winter can expose you to the most dangerous glare…do you know how to protect yourself?”
  • “Some ordinary sunglasses can obscure your vision by exposing your eyes to harmful UV rays, blue light, and reflective glare.”

Like the Stauer® Urban Blue wristwatch ad, this ad lists product benefits:

  • “The TriLenium® Lens Technology offers triple-filter polarization to block 99.9% UVA and UVB
  • A 60-day money-back guarantee

And, like the wristwatch ad, this one offers a giveaway – an extra pair of glasses, with two micro-fiber drawstring cleaning pouches.

In place of a customer testimonial, this ad cites the official recognition given its product by the Space Certification Program of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

What are some takeaways for corporate blog writers?

First, while fear is one of the seven emotions that marketing writer Courtney Mills calls key drivers for successful ad copywriting, my view is that scare tactic marketing is not the best approach in blogs. To appeal to a better kind of customer – the kind that buys for the right reasons and then remains loyal, Calls to Action  should appeal to readers’ logic and positive emotional appeal.

The blog title does contain the keyword “sunglasses”, but might be more effective placed at the beginning, “These sunglasses may save your life”.

The connection with research done at NASA makes for interesting “backstory”content that could have been made the focus of the blog post. Alternately, the focus might have been on helpful hints for protecting your eyes.

As I like to remind business owners and professional practitioners, it’s interested people who are showing up at your blog in the first place. Now the task is to help those searchers get to know you and your company. Keep it informative and go easy on the hard sell.

 

 

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A Tale of Two Ad Titles – Part One

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wristwatchTwo advertisements, both appearing in Science News Magazine, illustrate two different approaches to blog titles and blog content writing in general, I realized, resolving to use the pair as examples in my next blog writing training session.

It’s Enough to Make You Blue in the Face
(advertisement for the Stauer Urban Blue® wristwatch)

This ad covers every base you can think of:

Features:

  • sturdy stainless steel caseback and crown
  • genuine leather
  • simple, clean lines
  • striking metallic blue face
  • cotswold™ mineral crystal
  • 60-day money back guarantee
  • water-resistant to 3ATM

Benefits:

  • high end performance
  • style
  • on-trend  (quote from WatchTime: “Blue watches are one of the growing style trends seen in the watch world in the past few years.”)

Testimonial:

“The quality of their watches is equal to any that can go for ten times the price or more.” Jeff from MicKinney, TX.

A giveaway:

“We’ll even throw in a pair of Flyboy Optics® sunglasses with purchase.”

 Takeaways for bloggers:

1.  The title? Cutesy use of the color blue and the expression “blue in the face”, but doesn’t have any keyword phrases in it that would work for SEO.

2.  An even more important blog writing takeaway from this ad is that it’s a little (no, a lot) too much! You don’t want your blog to be an all-in-one marketing tool that forces a visitor to spend a long time just figuring out the 87 wonderful services your company has to offer and the 92 benefits of your product.  No, your business blog should offer just a “peek”, enough to convey to the individual searcher that he/she’s come to the right place, and to invite him/her to move on to your website to learn further details.

3.  On the other hand, what you can do with the blog is offer different kinds of information in different blog posts.  In a way, each time you post (or have your ghost blogger post), you’re offering some valuable information or advice relating to just one aspect of your business. another day, your blog post can highlight a different benefit or feature.

Don’t overload your posts with content to the point of making your readers “blue in the face!”

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Just a Spoonful of Keyword Phrases Makes SEO Go Up

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White sugar

“To maximize the traffic that comes to your blog via search engines, focus on optimizating each of your blog posts for just one or two keyword phrases.  Too many keyword phrases dilutes the content of your post for readers and can look like spam to both readers and search engines,” Susan Gunelius cautions in abouttech.com.

What, exactly, are keyword phrases? “These are words that you enter into your meta tags that describe your page so that when someone goes to a search engine and types in one or more of those words your page will be added to the list of pages they are given,” Linda Roeder explains. How long are keyword phrases? Statistics show that nearly 60% of keyword searches include phrases consisting of 2-3 words, according to Gunelius..

Gunelius’ tips for effective keyword use include:

  • Choose just one or two keyword phrases for each blog post
  • Use them in the title (however, don’t sacrifice the title’s ability to motivate people to click through)
  • Use keywords multiple times in the post, first within the first 200 characters, several times throughout, and near the end.
  • Use keywords in and around links
  • Use keywords in image alt-tags

While using keywords in links is a great way to boost search engine optimization, Gunelius warns, too many links can be viewed as a spam technique. The accepted link-to-text ratio is one link per 125 words. (For this very Say It For You post, for example, the two to three links I’ve used are just about right.

So how do you know which keywords deserve your focus? One of the easiest ways to get a basic idea of what people are looking for online, Gunelius says, is to check the popularity of keyword searches on websites that deal with keyword popularity, such as:

  • Wordtracker   (http://www.wordtracker.com/)
  • GoogleAdWords (http://www.google.com/adwords/)
  • Google Trends  (http://www.google.com/trends/hottrends)
  • Yahoo! Buzz Index  (https://www.yahoo.com/)

Like Mary Poppins’ recipe for making the medicine go down, incorporating keywords into blog posts – but only by the single spoonful – can be the secret for getting found on search engines.

 

 

 

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The Hire or DIY Decision in Blogging

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taxes
Should you hire an accountant or do your own taxes? That’s the Point/Counterpoint question John Peragine tackles in Speaker Magazine this month.

“Don’t hire” responses included:

  • “Organized people can do their own taxes.”
  • “I’m a trained CPA, so I don’t need outside help.”

“Yes” responses included:

  • “Tax professionals know their stuff.”
  • “I hate taxes and billing. I sleep well at night knowing the experts are doing what they know how to do best while I am doing what I do best, which is bringing in the money that they have to work with.”

Reading Peragine’s column, I couldn’t help thinking that the same two “camps” would form when it comes to hiring professional content writers for a corporate blog. Just as many speakers felt they can handle their own financial records; others felt they lacked the time, the expertise, and the inclination to prepare their own tax returns.

In the same way, while a minority of business owners and professional practitioners prefer to do their own writing, most lack the time – or the inclination – to compose corporate blog content with enough consistency and frequency to make a difference in search results and customer engagement.

There’s another important way in which business tax reporting and maintaining a blog are similar. No speaker’s CPA (who is not the CFO of the company, keeping track of finances throughout the year) can prepare tax returns for that speaker without being given correct and detailed information by the client. As one professional speaker described her process, “I have a bookkeeper for my everyday finances and payroll, and a CPA for my tax returns.”

Similarly, a freelance blog content writer can do the most effective job on any business owners’ behalf when there is a free flow of information from owners and from their boots-on-the-ground  sales and customer service employees to the writer.

Just like a CPA, a ghost blogger is a specialist – in writing, and in particular, writing for online marketing, and writing with consistency over extended periods of time. Most business owners lack the time to keep up that effort.

 

 

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To Sell Something, Eliminate the Risk of Buying It

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Erasing Risk
That strategy of “educating” the customer about who you are?  Totally dead, says Jeffrey Gitomer, author of “The Sales Bible”.  Gitomer has news for us.  Prospects don’t care who we are, UNLESS, he says, they perceive that we can help them.

The traditional selling sequence:

  1. Appointment
  2. Probe
  3. Present
  4. Overcome objections
  5. Close

“Those 50-year old practices are dead,” says Gitomer.  “The problem is that 95 percent of salespeople haven’t heard the news.”

What’s new in selling, Gitomer advises, is step-by-step risk elimination.  What’s that? Well, a risk of purchases is some mental or physical barrier, real or imagined, that causes a person to hesitate about ownership. The salesperson’s job? Identify the risk and eliminate it.

Some of the fears that may go through prospects minds include:

  • Financial – am I spending too much? Is this a budget violation?
  • Quality – something better exists.
  • Salesman is lying – (risk of nondelivery or overstated promises)
  • Hidden agenda – (friend in the business, I’m not the real decider)

How does the salesperson go about eliminating these barriers to a sale? List the corresponding gains – and loss avoidance –  if they buy.

Most people will not react overly positively to a blog that is just sales spin,” cautions Problogger.net. “While blogs can be used as a tool for selling they are at their best when they are relational, conversational and offer their readers something useful that will enhance their lives.”

Business blogs, I’m fond of saying in corporate blogging training classes, are nothing more than extended interviews.  (Just as in a face-to-face job interview, searchers who read your blog evaluate the content, judging whether you’re a good fit for them.) The good news for business owners and practitioners who use blogs as a marketing tool, is that blog posts are an ideal vehicle for demonstrating support and concern while being persuasive in a low-key manner.

You might say that due to the cumulative effect of ongoing content posting, blogs and step-by-step risk elimination are a perfect match!

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