You Can’t Make This Into Filet Mignon- Ditto for Your Website

Oh. My. Gosh. The writing on this website was terrible.

Run-on sentences galore. Rampant misuse of punctuation forced my eyes to pause after every third word. The same few words and phases repeated over and over. And what the heck does that paragraph even mean?

It was a case of SEO copywriting gone horribly wrong. No wonder the site wasn’t converting visitors into quality prospective customers. Once visitors got to the site, they couldn’t understand in 3-5 seconds why they should be there!

The person in charge of the poorly written website was a marketing director who had been charged by the V.P. of marketing with increasing the ranking of the site on Google to attract more visitors, which they thought would lead to increased volume of prospective customers. In an effort to save money, the

marketing director hired a cheap copywriter through eLance. In a case of ‘you get what you pay for’, the site was packed with keywords and vague, overblown copy but little else. When I asked why they accepted the copy, she said, “My boss thought that’s what SEO copywriting was supposed to look like.”

When I asked how I could help, she said, “Can you just tweak it a little so it sounds better and put in some keywords?”

As much as I wanted to say yes - no, I can’t. And that’s because you can’t take ground chuck and make it into filet mignon. Translation: If the copy is already bad, “tweaking” it won’t help. The only thing you can do is scrap it all and start over.

I understand why she was afraid of a total website re-write. The site was on the first page of Google for their keywords and driving OK traffic. Her first concern (which makes sense) was “if we change the site, what happens to our rankings?” But, getting rankings is just one piece of the search engine conversion pie. A top position means nothing if the website doesn’t drive high conversion metrics.

Wondering if your website falls into the “ground chuck” category? Here are some things to check:

• What do your site analytics say? Are people staying at your site, maybe going to several pages per visit – or leaving mere seconds after they arrive?

• Are your rankings OK, but your conversions are non-existent?

• Do you know deep down in your gut that the copy is bad? (It’s OK to admit it. We’ve all been there. The first step to recovery is admitting your problems.)

To eliminate your ground chuck status, your only help for salvation is action. There are ways to re-write the copy so the rankings aren’t ruined. In fact, that’s the easy part (more on that in a future post.) A smart copywriter can easily craft new copy that maintains your keyword positioning.

Will re-writing your copy be painful? A little. Yes, you will be spending time and money. But, like all things worth having, the pain is definitely worth it. Although a SEO copywriting overhaul sounds overwhelming, it will more than pay for itself in increased conversions. Besides, once you’re at the bottom the only place to go is up, so the sooner you take action, the sooner your visitors regard your website and company as “filet migon” and start asking how they can get some!

One of my all-time favorite Calvin & Hobbes comics from late great cartoonist Bill Watterson, I have this on the wall of my office to remind me that the most effective writing is straightforward and easily understood. So often I see writing in BtoB marketing that uses terms like “on demand business process solutions provider.” While I understand the need to convey a tone that business audiences relate to and respect, good writing speaks their language, not the language sometimes made up internally within companies that ‘makes us sound smart and industry-leading.’ Going over the heads of the people you’re speaking to is never a good idea.

Consistently Valuable Information = Loyal Subscribers

For most B2B companies email newsletters are an extremely effective vehicle for building prospect and customer relationships, establishing thought leadership, and generating leads. Achieving these goals, however, requires that these newsletters contain valuable content for your readers, or your clients, partners and prospects will simply stop reading your newsletter.

Most B2B newsletter subscribers opt-in looking for best practices, tips, trends, news, and a viewpoint, and do not want to be overwhelmed with marketing/sales messages. The objective of your newsletter is to establish or enhance a relationship based on trusted content. This content then drives readers to your Web site where they take a desired action – register for demo, call a sales person, download whitepapers and in some way move the prospect or customer to the next level of the relationship.

To ensure that your B2B newsletter continuously delivers value, consider the following 20 tips for better approaches to format and content.

1. Opt-In Page Expectations — An effective content strategy starts with your opt-in process. Be certain you manage subscriber expectations at the start. Describe in a sentence or two the type of content your newsletter contains and the value it will deliver readers. Also provide a link to back issues so that prospective subscribers can see exactly what to expect.
2. Identify and Stick to an Editorial Focus — Your recipients only have room for a limited number of newsletters on their list of “must read” newsletters. Identify the core focus of your newsletter, establish an editorial approach and then stick to it.
3. Establish Regular Columns and Features — A key to sustaining ongoing value is to institute recurring columns and topic features. Subscribers will know what to expect and it also allows you to plan and focus the content and develop a real position and expectation in recipients’ minds.
4. Table of Contents — If you have more than two articles include an “In This Issue” section at the top of your newsletter. Give them a quick sense of what the articles are about and provide a link down to each article within the newsletter.
5. Use Short Teaser Articles — For articles longer than three or four paragraphs, use short “teaser” introductions that whet your reader’s appetite and motivate them to click through to the entire article posted on your Web site. This makes it easy for readers to determine their interest in the topic and enables you to track which articles and topics are of most interest.
6. Sidebars — Use sidebar boxes and columns for promotional and supporting information that is not the primary focus of the newsletter. This includes company and new product information, news, events, resource links, brochure links, etc. This enables the reader to easily find this information while clearly separating it in their mind from the primary editorial value of the newsletter articles.
7. Have a Personality — Just because you are producing a corporate newsletter doesn’t mean it can’t have a personality. You want the reader to have a sense that there are humans on the other end of the newsletter. Establish someone as the editorial face of the newsletter and don’t be afraid to have them interject some humor and personal flavor. Humor can be great, but be careful not to offend.
8. Tips and Best Practices — In my experience B2B readers love “tips” and can’t get enough of them. (This article is no exception!) No matter what profession, workers are always interested in practical ideas and best practices they can put to use. Consider including a Quick Tip feature and focusing some of your articles around actionable tips.
9. Benchmarking and Statistics — Your customers and prospects are keenly interested in how they are doing compared to other companies. Providing benchmarking information and industry statistics will keep readers coming back for more each month.
10. FAQ/Ask The Expert — Columns devoted to answering questions are a great way to generate reader interest and feedback, while simultaneously enabling your company to establish its expertise in particular areas.
11. Case Studies — Customer case studies are always of interest to readers. They provide practical examples of success stories and strategies, and enable you to convey your company’s value proposition.
12. Use Click-Through Stats to Refine Editorial Focus — Continuously monitor which columns and type of articles are driving the most clicks. Use this information to refine both topics and editorial style.
13. Monitor Web Analytics — Check your Web site log files on occasion to determine which articles and content on your site are most visited. Use this information as key input into your editorial focus.
14. Reader Surveys — Consider conducting reader surveys a few times a year. An annual survey can uncover changing needs and interests among your readers. Additional reader surveys can be conducted on specific topics on which the results form the basis of future articles.
15. Ask Sales and Support — Other employees are great sources of ideas for content. Sales and support staff in particular can have great insights as they are dealing directly with customers and prospects on a daily basis.
16. Competitor and Industry Newsletters — Read industry and competitor newsletters and make a list of future story ideas based on interesting topics in these newsletters.
17. Subject Line is Key — Tie your subject line to a specific article in your newsletter that will generate the most opens. Don’t feel limited to use the same words used in an article title. Think newspaper headline style and craft a subject line that will stand out in your recipients’ inboxes.
18. Subtle Self Promotion — While educating your readers with tips and best practices, insert subtle, but supporting, references to your company, product or service. Done well it won’t seem out of place for your readers and helps achieve your overall goals for the newsletter.
19. Feedback — Provide a “Feedback” link after each article so that readers can easily send you feedback and suggestions for other articles.
20. Partner/Customer/Expert Articles — Solicit articles from your clients, partners and industry experts. Using these external sources will help position your newsletter in readers’ minds as having greater interest and value beyond your company’s self promotion.

Need some creative inspiration? View B2B e-newsletters I’ve created that utilize the above tips.

What newsletter strategies or content have been effective for your organization?