Buzzwords Copywriting Manchester

It always amazes me that more companies don’t use case studies as part of their marketing mix. Business, by definition, is based on customer transactions and a lot of those must have interesting angles which could be turned into a case study.

So why aren’t case studies more widely used as the cost-effective marketing tool they surely are? 

In some cases, there are obviously problems with confidentiality.  Others don’t want to alert their competitors to the fact that they’ve found a pot of gold and they fully intend to hang onto it!

Some may be ‘too busy’ (ho-ho-ho!); yet others may feel that this is a commitment too far that won’t deliver on the cost-effectiveness front. 

Like all PR tools, the main purpose of case studies isn’t to generate a ‘direct response’.  What they will do is build an awareness, a heightened market presence, for your company over a period of time.

This can be further enhanced by the sheer versatility of case studies.  A case study copywriter can take the raw material of a case study and modify it for use in a press release, sales letter and many other forms of marketing collateral - not forgetting the online applications such as websites, online PR and articles.

A case study is an extended testimonial.  It proves your company has delivered.  Third party endorsement says you can - and you did!  So why do so many companies let these opportunities go begging and leave the way open for their competitors?

Maybe if they spoke to an experienced case study copywriter, they’d open up a new and profitable revenue stream. 

Most people’s idea of SEO copywriting would probably be writing a website with major keywords included at a suitable density.  Throw in some expertise in the on-page SEO department and the job’s as good as done.  Or is it?

If you personally commission SEO copywriting, either for your own company or on behalf of a client, you should know that SEO copywriting skills can use those same keywords to great effect in other ways.  We’re back to link-building again - using keywords in areas like Online PR and Article Marketing (aka Article PR) to link back to a landing page on your website (whose URL should also include the magic keyword[s]!).

Any SEO copywriter worth his salt will be able to create links with online article directories, PR newswires or distribution sites.  With skillful keyword research and some savvy online marketing, extending the reach of your keywords (and, by extension, the number of links pointing to your website) is only an SEO copywriter away!

Listen to some SEO commentators and you’d be forgiven for assuming that meta tags are no longer a factor in the way search engines rank websites.  Following a recent Google declaration, greater  emphasis is now placed on the number of quality, inbound links which point to a site.

It’s obvious that this will be a good indicator of the ‘importance’ of a site but, it should be said, meta tags will always remain as the signposts which indicate relevance of content.  That in turn must surely mean that  meta tags will always be an important part of on-page SEO.

Fortunately, the search engine robots can now identify ‘natural’ language patterns in online copy.  The death of ‘keyword stuffing’ is not only good news for the readers of websites who now no longer have to endure unreadable and repetitive text.  It also frees up copywriters to write in the way they prefer - in real sentences that concentrate on the flow of ideas and information, rather than including as many keywords as possible.  

Keywords are still important, of course.  The difference now is that they should be used carefully - in <h1> tags certainly, and also in introductory sentences. They also have a place in <title> tags - the nearer the beginning of the line the better.  (And if you can also include main keywords in a page URL, this too will help with ranking.)

The conclusion to all this is that mega tags are alive and well but - in an increasingly c0mpetitive web environment - the search engines have been forced to look at inbound links to sort the wheat from the chaff. 

And yet, this is far from being a perfect science - even with all the powerful semantic analysis tools at the search engines’ disposal.  Generating links from online articles and PR, for example, is a process that is still open to abuse by automated submission software but, here again, search engines are ‘on the case’ with their increased awareness (and intolerance) of duplicate content.

It’s important for online copywriters (and those who brief them) to remember that search engines exist solely to provide the most relevant search results for their punters.  Quality content will bring its own rewards in increased uptake among the online community.  Meta tags, similarly, will always be needed to invite the search engines to ‘come see about me’.

If you want a higher ranking website, make sure you work on those inbound links!  SEO copywriting is a great tool for doing this and I’ll be looking at the various ways to approach this massive subject over the next few weeks.

Suffice it to say: Google now sees the number and quality of links pointing to a website as probably the most important factor in deciding that site’s fortunes.  The part that SEO copywriting can play in this is enormous - on-page SEO, article marketing (aka ‘article PR’), online PR and systematic directory-led link building… all of which is based on solid keyword research.  It’s enough to make your eyes water!

On the web, inbound links affect a website’s position in the search engine rankings.  Generating quality links that win search engine brownie points is best achieved through article PR and online PR. 

A huge amount of copywriting work is involved, especially when it comes to writing worthwhile, informative articles  - suitably optimised with appropriate keywords of course.  Online news releases are more straightforward to write, and bring better returns on time invested - providing you have something to say on a regular basis.  Again, SEO and keywords play a part, but frequency of output is vital to achieving meaningful success.

If you can post articles and releases on your website a couple of weeks before launching them into the outside world this allows time for the content to be indexed by search engines and helps in the linking process (although it may be wise to write an edited version of your content to be doubly sure of avoiding ‘duplicate content’ penalties.) 

Apart from anything else, continually adding to your website is viewed favourably by the likes of Google - hence the power of blogs to surge through the search rankings, and stay there, providing content is updated on a regular basis (daily is the ultimate, but weekly keeps the pot simmering). 

The links associated with blogs are of course generated through tags.  Social media links to Technorati, StumbleUpon, Squidoo and so on also help.  Main websites which incorporate a blog therefore have a head start over their ‘unblogged’ counterparts.

Creating links is hard work - hard copywriting work that is also very time consuming.  The dividends are impressive, however,  especially if search engine rankings equate to new business enquiries for your company.

Finding the time to do all this - the writing, distributing to online directories and media etc - is usually a problem for most companies.  Employing a specialist freelance copywriter to handle it all makes lots of sense. 

Not only do you get quality writing and the regularity of output that comes with commercial commitment.  You’re also buying-in specialist knowledge of the market and, crucially, how the market works.