What makes great copywriting? The answer varies widely depending on whom you ask. However, there is a constant string of qualities that embodies what the industry classifies as great: engagement, emotion, strong storytelling, and facts. But sometimes reading ‘how to’ material about creating great content for our website isn’t enough. Sometimes we learn a great deal more by example. That is why we are going to look to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his infamous detective, Sherlock Holmes, for some great copywriting advice.
Conan Doyle Creates an Icon
The great Sherlock Holmes, who appeared in publication for the first time in 1887, is more than an iconic character from a rather old series of books. His evolution from paper to screen is the ultimate display of great copy in action. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle managed to create a character that has stood the test of time and inspired numerous recreations—and even an inception into the modern world.
According to Wikipedia, Conan Doyle’s fictional stories about the quirky and brilliant detective are “generally considered milestones in the field of crime fiction.” He was a major hit in the late 1800s, and it speaks volumes to see the variety of venues and recreations inspired by his books.
Image Source: wikimedia.org
The Most Recent Evolution of Sherlock Holmes
The Sherlock Holmes book series covers a period from around 1880 through 1914. In 2014, while the majority of the population have not once laid a finger on one of Conan Doyle’s books, they know exactly who detective Sherlock Holmes is. In fact, since 2009 he has become a bit of a poster boy.
The 2009 Sherlock Holmes movie starred none other than Robert Downy Jr. as the eccentric detective. It was succeeded by a popular sequel, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, in 2011.
Holmes evolved his way to the television screen in 2010 in the BBC’s Sherlock. Portrayed by actor Benedict Cumberbatch, the detective is dropped into 21st century London in a modern update to the iconic series. The series is still running, drawing in a massive fan base populated by a young generation who know little about the books the character originates from.
What We Can Learn From Mr. Holmes
Although the famous sleuth can teach us a great deal about seeing what’s right underneath our noses, he comes with a much greater lesson for those of us in the copywriting world. He is the ultimate icon for how a single, brilliant idea can be molded to fit many forms of content and never ever outdated. Here are just three few of the brilliant lessons business owners, webmasters, and copywriters can glean from the notorious Sherlock Holmes:
Great storytelling isn’t always fictional. One of the little known facts about the Sherlock Holmes detective novels is that quite a bit of the technical information is based on fact. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wasn’t just a novelist; he was also a physician. The takeaway lesson for us is that you can mix great storytelling with hard facts. The content you produce can be 100 percent factual yet still grip the reader emotionally through the art of storytelling.
Great copy is timeless. Did you know that Sherlock came from the late 1800s? If there’s one thing we can learn from Robert Downy Jr’s portrayal of Detective Holmes, it’s that this character is timeless. Audiences were glued to movie screens for the 2009 and 2011 movies, and they didn’t see a recreation of a novel from the 1880s or even 1914. No, they saw a timeless character that gripped their attention, drew out their emotions, and even taught them a thing or two about logic, the science of deduction, and loyalty. Great copy is timeless. Invest in creating copy that excels at engaging, compelling, and involving the audience. Provide facts. Mix with storytelling. Result: timeless content.
Great copy can be repurposed. Holmes began his journey within the pages of a series of books. The books were so compelling that he sprang up as an engaging and thought provoking character on the big screen. Numerous movies and television shows have delved into recreating the science and storytelling contained within the pages of Conan Doyle’s books. Then, in 2010, the ultimate repurposing of content took place. Sherlock Holmes was modernized. The science and storytelling was brought into 21st century London to create one of the most compelling, engaging, and outright titillating renditions of the detective to date. What’s the lesson we can learn? It’s okay to repurpose content. In fact, modernizing and updating our content can be one of the smartest and most audience inspiring actions we ever take—if we take care in crafting it!
It’s elementary, my dear reader! Examples of great copywriting surround us. We need merely take the time to see and contemplate what is right under our noses to create brilliant copy.
Like Scrooge’s ghost of Christmas past, the keyword rich anchor text, once a very much alive and powerful way to get backlinks, has completely gone out of style. It’s no longer a useful tactic for SEO web content. Whether in your blogs, guest blog content, web content or any content published online, it’s good sense to avoid exact match keyword anchor texts.
Let’s explore just why this good old precept is now an outdated no-no.
There was a recent fiasco with Google approaching one of SEO’s biggest blogs in the community, Moz.com. One of the red-flagged items they sent to Moz in a warning email was about spammy anchor text. Oops—to one of the biggest SEO agencies on the web!
We are going to take a look at how you can link in your content without doing too much, if any, keyword anchor texts, as well as just what keyword rich anchor text is.
What Is Keyword Rich Anchor Text?
It is very simple and something we are sure you have done at some point in your content writing. Let’s say you are writing a blog about vegetable hair dye and you link to your product page that is specifically vegetable hair dye; if you link the page to an anchor text of “vegetable hair dye” then you are utilizing keyword rich anchor text in your SEO web content. Easy, right? Well, know that we have cleared that up, you are probably wondering just how you can link people to your website without doing too much keyword linking.
Let’s take a look at a few steps that can help you out significantly when you are either writing anchor text or not.
How Do You Write With or Without Anchor Text?
The good news is it is not very difficult to utilize anchor text in your SEO content. We are going to give you some help when it comes to how to write without keyword anchor text. The steps are as follows:
1. When Using Anchor Text, Use It Once. You can still use anchor text in SEO web content, but it is important that you use it sparingly and do not focus on keyword heavy text. Many websites were going about utilizing keyword anchor text and linking to multiple pages all over their site; this caused problems with Google and was considered to be quite spammy. If the websites happened to use their keyword anchor text only once, linking to the most important page for that particular piece of content, they would have been fine. Because of their mistakes, exact keyword-matching anchor text is something to avoid. When using anchor text in your SEO content, you should always make sure you are making variations because if you use the same anchor text all the time, you will find that things will not really go your way. If you use keyword texts, consider making sure that you only use anchors about use anchors about thirty percent of the time.
2. When Linking Anchor Text, Link to the Proper Landing Page. Linking to a relevant landing page is important for any linking in any post, especially when utilizing anchor text. If you write something about vegetable hair dye, make sure you link people to vegetable hair dye, not brushes or hair dyeing utensils. This will not only look like spam, but will create some upset clients. If they believe you are linking to some spiffy vegetable hair dye, and you don’t, they will leave quickly. Customers never want to feel like they are being scammed into buying something they are not looking for. If you are not linking to a specific landing page, but just want to get people into a general area, then do not use keyword anchor text. Either way is a great recipe for proper linking to make sure you avoid upsetting the Google gods. This makes sure that you use the right amount of links and make sure you stay relevant to your audience. You will find that the more you follow this step, the happier your clients, and potential clients, will be.
3. Never Over-Saturate With Links. It wise to always avoid saturating your website and SEO content with too many anchor texts, especially if these links are not relevant to your SEO web content. This is considered black hat SEO; avoid it. This is similar to keyword stuffing – the more you utilize the links, the more likely Google can think you are spamming readers. It will also read as if you are writing predominately to rank and not for the human clientele you hope to reach. You may feel that it will come across natural, but if you are solely thinking about how to write specifically to rank, you will always forget how to write for humans. Write for a human audience and come up with an anchor text that will be perfectly natural in your sentences. (Just an extra tip: You will find that the most natural sounding anchor texts might be ones that are in the middle of a paragraph instead of at the beginning or end.)
4. Write As Naturally As Possible. As mentioned above, writing naturally is a perfect way to incorporate your anchor text without over-saturating or sounding like you are trying to sell something. This is something that is highly important in content writing whether it is simply writing up web content or if you are writing an anchor text within the SEO content. You do not want to incorporate the anchor text in your writing where it sounds stilted and forced; this is a red flag to readers and Google. Do you remember reading all of those blogs about writing naturally? Have you started to forget them? Well, you should begin to refresh your mind and make sure you incorporate natural writing at all times. This will help your link strategy and will ensure that readers will enjoy reading your material and will eventually become part of your client base.
5. Try Different Anchor Texts For A Landing Page. If you find that one type of anchor text is not really helping the current landing page you are promoting, then it might be a good idea to try out different anchor texts in your content. This is a great opportunity to not use keyword-specific anchors. You do not want to keep doing the same thing if it is not working out for you and your site. In fact, even if your page is successful, it might just be a good idea to change up the anchor text every now and then to keep the clicks fresh for specific landing pages. Make sure you use your analytics to see how different anchors are helping, or hindering, your views.
6. Consider Linking To Three Resources and Three Landing Pages, Maximum. Sometimes, you may find that you want to include multiple landing pages and resources. Consider using three different resources and landing pages throughout your text, but no more. This can help you have a decent amount of coverage, but not so much that you oversaturate your SEO web content. One thing to keep in mind is that the more links you have on a page, the lower your page rank will be. In addition, the more links you have in a post, the more likely your site is going to be considered spam. This goes for your blog posts and any links that are on each landing page. Make sure you do not have an overabundance of links. However, you should always keep in mind that if you make a claim about something, you should have information to back it up.
7. Make Sure You Have A Great Link Strategy In Mind. When it comes to using anchor text in your SEO content, it is important that you have a specific strategy in mind. This will help to make sure you use the right amount of links for your site and can help you adapt easily to any changes Google makes in the future. If you do not have a current link strategy, sit down and look over the various guidelines and suggestions out there. Mold a strategy and then watch it play out. If you find that the first strategy you came up with does not work, never fear, you can keep tweaking your strategy until you find one that works the best for you. This could mean that you make several tweaks before you find the best strategy, but once you do, you will see some amazing results. Again, remember always to pay attention to Google and see what changes are being made so that you can make sure your link strategies are constantly up-to-date.
Avoid Improper Linking… & Use Some Great Anchor Texts
If you follow some of the above tips and utilizing great anchor texts, you will find that you keep away from linking improperly and keep the hounds of Google at bay. A great thing to add to your link strategy is to make sure you incorporate a few great resource links to balance out your commercial links (links that sell one or several of your products). Again, always keep an eye on your analytics to make sure any anchors you have chosen are working. Following the above steps and keeping an eye on your analytics will help you have a tremendously successful link strategy, while keeping you away from bans or penalties. Exciting, isn’t it?
Do you know what “the glance” is? It’s the .7 seconds that we have to win readers. In that tiny time period, we have to get the audience to take action. They have to want to go beyond a glance based on what they see and how it makes them feel in what amounts to the blink of an eye. How can you create the kind of irresistible content that wins clicks, reads, and shares? That’s what we’re about to consider.
The Challenges of Creating Content
One of the harsh facts of today’s business world is that everything runs on a budget—usually a series of tight ones. An even harsher fact is that today’s businesses are running on few staff and more workflow out of pure necessity. Who has time to write content?
According to PR Daily, a recent business study concluded that approximately 75 percent of buyers are likely to use social media during the purchase process. Roughly, 55 percent of B2B survey respondents confessed to using social websites to search for information.
So, how do you tie in a great headline, opener, even a tweet about your blog piece so people READ your blog…and want to go beyond the glance? Do you educate your staff or outsource? How about a little of both?
The Fundamentals of Irresistible Content
If we break it down to the basics, there are three fundamentals of content that cannot be ignored:
The Intuitive Title: The title has to pique curiosity. It’s one of the most important aspects of any piece of content. In as few as 5 to 10 words, a title conveys the entire point of the content. It hints at the tone of the piece, and—if crafted properly—it creates an instant emotional spark that draws the audience in, compelling them to click into the content.
Descriptive Headings: The skeleton of content is in the headlines. Each headline conveys an essential part of the content structure. Once a reader clicks into your content, the glance becomes a quick review of the headlines. It is vital to craft headings that pique curiosity, convey the meat of the content in short bursts, and make the reader say, “That sounds interesting. I should read that.”
The Story: If you do the job right, the title and headings will hook the reader in that .7 second window. But the hook doesn’t end there. Once they’re on your page, staring down your content and starting to read, you have to tell the story. Business2Community recommends writing “like you are talking.” The best way to connect and deliver a story that will keep the reader engaged is to write like you’re speaking directly to them. Tell them the story. Show them why they should care. Give them something of value to take away. The art of weaving classic storytelling into your copy is one of the most effective means of creating delectable and completely irresistible content.
Now, don’t think that these fundamentals are only applicable to your written content. These fundamentals are highly applicable across ALL of your content. It doesn’t matter if you’re broadcasting a podcast series, marketing an eBook, sharing a SlideShare, producing a video seminar, or crafting the meat of your landing page. A hooking title, classy and interesting breakdowns, and the unique story the audience can’t get anywhere else are the foundation of every piece of every type of tantalizing content. But the foundation doesn’t stop there.
Know Your Audience: We hear it all of the time, but it’s one of the most overlooked cornerstones of creating irresistible content. Copyblogger recommends using an empathy map to put yourself in the shoes of your audience,
Create An Experience: Storytelling isn’t the only way to create an experience. Everything contributes to your readers’ experience, from the look and functionality of your website to the copy they’re skimming and hopefully reading.
Show Your Personality: If you ask a big business why they invest so much in creating their own personal branding, they’ll likely say it’s because people like and trust brands. The more people like and trust you, the more likely they are to buy from you. According to Business2Community, one of the keys to creating irresistible content is to show your personality in your content.
Be Extreme: Business2Community goes on to point out that attempting to keep neutral ground is a recipe for frustration. Instead, be irresistible by offering something spectacular! Offer an opinion. State your outlook. Take a stand! “Only then” says Business2 Community, “will you attract…like-minded subscribers.”
Try Something New: The number of tools at your disposal to create irresistible content is truly amazing. For example, have you ever thought about using content curation as a means of filling that downtime in between your new content pieces? What about using crowdsourcing as a means of collecting knowledge from different sources? Don’t be shy of trying something new. Sometimes it’s that fresh infusion of a new way of doing things that suddenly boosts your content to irresistible.
Repurposing Is Okay: Copyblogger says that after you exert the effort into writing your content, you should be open to repurposing it. In truth, every piece of content starts out as copy. Podcasts and videos have scripts. SlideShares need to be outlined before the text and graphics can be pulled together. Once you’ve crafted your content, think about how to repurpose it and get the most mileage. Different types of content appeal to different members of your audience. The busy would be buyer who didn’t have time to read that blog post just might watch the related video because it works for their on-the-go lifestyle.
A Little Content TLC Goes a Long Way
With a little content TLC, you can be a brand hero and successfully create and publish irresistible content every day. Learn by example by checking out the 5 irresistible copywriting examples we covered in April. And remember, there’s no shame and everything to gain in educating your staff and outsourcing your content needs to an expert copywriter.
Amanda Palmer is an artist that knows how to make a splash and uses great forms of copywriting. From her stint with the Dresden Dolls to her recent TED Talk, Amanda Palmer has made connections with many people and regularly encourages her fans, even those who might not like her music. Even when she is at her most controversial, she is still making an impact in various areas. In fact, her type of copywriting is really what helps keep her afloat if the controversies get a little out of hand, and she is able to calm the waves by writing a simple blog or simply by connecting with her fans. Let’s take a quick look at how Amanda Palmer does copywriting.
The Dresden Dolls To Her Solo Career
Many people know of Amanda Palmer from her time with the band The Dresden Dolls. This band was part of an underground music movement many refer to as “dark cabaret” and Amanda Palmer made sure people knew the style of the band was a Brechtian Punk Cabaret style. She created this term because of how worried she was that the media would call the band “gothic.” She keeps the cabaret style as a solo artist and performs in many similar outfits to her Dresden Doll days. She keeps true to herself and the brand she is setting forward with her dark cabaret style. (Though she might shudder at being considered a brand.)
Amanda Palmer always makes sure people understand what she is doing or what she believes, which is great for many copywriters. While you may not want to get as personal as Amanda, you should always make sure your audiences know what you are up to. If you are doing something like The Dresden Dolls, you want to make sure people understand what the band is, instead of having them assume. This could change the course of your business or band. Take a stand like Amanda Palmer by making sure people understand your company, goals, and just what exactly you are writing about in your content. This can also help clients choose your business over your competitors.
TED Talk
Most recently, Amanda Palmer has been famous and talked about for her TED Talk in which she discusses The Art of Asking. It is an enlightening talk and something many people connected with. She gives information about her first days as a performer and that she started as a living statue, making money to pay her bills. She starts talking about much the simplest gestures meant to people on the street and how much she believes that simply giving something like a flower to a stranger could make a huge impact.
This is a great example of stepping outside of the norm and giving people something useful to work with. Palmer is known for her antics both online and offline, so when she made this TED Talk, she really caused a splash. People from all different musical tastes listened, agreed and shared. When doing copywriting, you should consider doing something a little out of the norm for your company. What Amanda Palmer did by giving her TED Talk was connect with people who enjoy Beyoncé, Green Day, She & Him, and different music styles. Many of these people might never have listened to her music, but that talk really did impact them. She also illustrated the power of storytelling by giving people background information about herself and how it impacts who she is now.
Interacting With Her Fans Frequently: Key to Copywriting
Another way that Amanda Palmer can influence your copywriting is how she interacts with her fans on social media. She holds regular conversations about various topics from help with her upcoming book to whether or not women should wear makeup. Whatever the topic, she will talk and respond to fans, retweet them, or address other issues that they may bring up. If a particular tweet stands out to her, she will respond and retweet to get her other fans to talk to each other. She always promotes engagement, discussion, and regularly tries to instill hope for those who follow her.
This is a great example of how you should interact with your client base. Again, maybe not as personal as Amanda’s responses, but by simply responding on social media, you are setting up a relationship with your clients. This is a great part of copywriting that many are still glancing over. Interaction on social media is important to maintaining a client base and bringing in new leads. If you have a difficult time coming up with ways to interact with your clients on social media, Social Media Examiner gives 7 great ways to improve how you interact on social media.
In Closing
Take a few lessons from Amanda Palmer and start creating a great copywriting campaign that involves stepping out of the box and client interaction. Apply some of what she does to your plans and goals and see how well it benefits you and your company!
Back in the “pre-historic” days of Google, just before the first major Pandas rolled out in all their glory, there was such a thing as links.
Through the use of links, from the use of a “linkwheel” to the worst of the negative, black-hat SEO link structures, webmasters were able to gain almost overnight rankings. This dramatically changed in 2011 when the first major Panda update from Google cracked down on thousands upon thousands of websites.
These websites lost first-place ranking and huge revenue streams overnight. The outcry was awful. However, in time, the terror changed to a realization the Internet was getting better. Instead of links and spam-filled, over optimized content, it was time to invest in real, readable blogs, web pages, and content that were written by qualified people and optimized for the reader.
Today, in 2014, exactly how do links still factor in? Do they factor in at all, or offer any use for us? Let’s take a look!
You need to make sure you have a strong content marketing outlined first before considering your links. Here’s the thing, links and SEO are all about getting you to show up in the search results. Once you’re there, you’ll probably start doing the samba and feeling pretty great about yourself, but if your content is crummy, you’ll lose any visitors you get.
Unfortunately, people aren’t seeing this and are still shelling out lots of dough for links in their content instead of buying great, valuable content. According to a survey held by Moz, about 40% of people they polled said that their businesses were focusing 51 – 75% of their SEO budget on link building. This leads one to the assumption that only a small portion of SEO budgets are aimed at getting great, quality content for their sites. This can really come back to bite you in the tush if you aren’t careful.
7 BIG Reasons Why You Should Start Investing In Great Content
As the majority of blogs out there are pointing out that quality content is becoming more and more the name of the Google game. You either have great content or you start to lose. It is a harsh statement, but quite true.
Let’s take a look at why content marketing is something you should be investing in:
1. Quality Content Keeps Visitors On Your Site Longer. Once you get people to your site via search results and ranks, you are going to want to keep them on your site. If you don’t invest in content, you will not keep those customers. While seemingly unfair, many people are going to skim over your content to see if it is worth their time to read; if they feel that it isn’t, then they will click right over to your competitors. Keeping people on your site opens up the opportunity to become more than just visitors, but clients as well. Basically, investing in content keeps people on your site and converts them into leads. Sounds like something worthwhile, doesn’t it?
2. Those Links and SEO Keywords Don’t Create Your Brand. Sure, links and SEO can help you rank as we have established, but the thing to remember is that it doesn’t build or create your brand. Only you can do that, and do it successfully. You know what you want out of your brand, what you want people to see, and, most likely, have an idea of how you will craft and achieve it. This is why it is important to invest in great content and content writers. You can easily give them the information you want to share, the voice you want them to use, and let them have at it. This gives your brand a personal touch that is completely lost if you are spending a significant sum of money on links.
3. You Can Save Money By Focusing On Content. Content is a great investment that you will see great returns on over time. You will realize that as you focus a great chunk of your budget on content that you are making more than you thought you would. The more you write and produce great content, the better your revenue will be. For example, if you spent time and money to optimize a product that helps people get to sleep without harsh additives, but not on quality content, you might not get as many purchases as you thought you would. With great content, you will turn that browsing individual into someone who wants to try your product. Like we’ve said time and time again, it isn’t just about getting a visitor to your site, it’s also about converting them into clients. Your quality content will do just that. Eventually, you may notice that you are able to invest more money in your budget for content creation, links, and SEO, but you’ll only get there if you make a content investment.
4. Content Ensures You Are The Expert In Your Field. When you are selling items online, you always want to make sure you come across as an expert or authority in your field. When you purchase items online, you most likely double-check to make sure the person whom you are buying from really knows what they are doing and understands what they are selling. The same goes for when people make purchases from you. A great way to establish yourself as an expert is through, well, content! Ah content, the magic term. Content is going to set you apart as a leader in the industry because you will have webpages, product descriptions, and blogs detailing information surrounding your products, services, and industry news. This is another great reason to move away from spending a large amount of your budget on links and SEO and move towards investing in content marketing.
5. You Will Generate More Client Interaction. Engagement is a big part of any company, and we are sure you already know that when it comes to making sales or dealing with clients face-to-face. A great way to engage in client interaction is to ask clients to give feedback. Clients might be more inclined to provide feedback if you have content that has engaged them in the past and many will be willing to make a review as soon as they receive the product. This is something that is important for all businesses; you can see that when you purchase a book from Barnes and Noble or make a purchase on Etsy. Within a week or two of making a purchase, you are asked to review an item. Now think back to when you last made an online purchase and left a review, did you feel more inclined to because of the level of interaction? Odds are you did feel more inclined. This should be a pretty great example of how other clients will feel when purchasing from you.
6. You Will Beat Your Competition Into The Ground. Besides just bringing in and keeping customers, investing in content will make sure you beat your competitors into the ground. Great, engaging, and high-quality content is going to help you standout from your competitors, especially if they aren’t on the content bandwagon yet. Clients really enjoy reading quality content because they feel like they are learning more about a specific product or service. Quality also helps them decide on a company because if the company has great content, then many believe the company will have quality products, services, and employees.
7. Your Reputation Will Be Maintained. Like it or not, you will get a few negative reviews at some point. While some might be justified, several others might just simply be trolls trying to bring your reputation marks down. This is something that is done for books, music, and any other time of product out there. Just take a glance at various Goodreads pages for books that have yet to be released, several have one-star reviews talking about how bad the book is or will be. Having consistently great content is going to help people know which reviews are truly one to take heed of and which ones they should just ignore. People will generally dig a little more than the basic reviews when they want to learn about the company, and this includes going to the business’s web page and seeing how they handle things. If your content is stinky because you’ve been focusing all of your attention on links and the rest on SEO, potential clients will begin to believe the negative reviews.
In Closing
As you can see, content really is the name of the game and will greatly benefit your company overall. You will start saving and making money, develop great relationships with your clients, and start beating your competition. Start re-considering your current link, SEO, and content budget and start restructuring it to allow for more investment in high-quality content.
