SEO and Copywriting

[claudefaucher83]

Hi everybody, this is my first post and I am so glad I found this site! I am currently working on starting my first online business, and wanted some general advice.


Basically, I am in the process of building a website and my web designer has (after producing wireframes) asked me to write the content for the website. Now, at first I was just going to write it myself, but then read a number of articles about the benefits of getting a professional SEO copywriter in (I did notice these articles were from copywriting sites!)


I really just want to go straight to the people that are in business and have personally seen the benefits, would love some advice, should I consider getting a copy writer in or do it myself? If I was, my budget would be no more than £500 to start with.


And if I was to get one in what criteria should I use to select them?


Thanks in advance, really looking forward to hearing from you all.

 

[AllUpHere]

What type of business are you in? What are you selling?

 

[claudefaucher83]

I am looking to enter the personal growth/development area, I am starting a membership site that helps people overcome the fear of public speaking.

 

[SillyBill]

You should write the content as you know the business best. Quality content is better than generic copy, always. Then perhaps once you are up-and-running get a professional to look it over and suggest ways to make your original content more Search Engine friendly.

Nothing worst than reading a poorly executed copywriter drafted website, reads like it is, keyword bingo and/or absolute clickbait titles with nothing of substance.

I have a reasonable sized business and I'm never too busy to not write original content, such is the importance I think to put your own words on your own business.

 

[claudefaucher83]

You should write the content as you know the business best. Quality content is better than generic copy, always. Then perhaps once you are up-and-running get a professional to look it over and suggest ways to make your original content more Search Engine friendly.

Nothing worst than reading a poorly executed copywriter drafted website, reads like it is, keyword bingo and/or absolute clickbait titles with nothing of substance.

I have a reasonable sized business and I'm never too busy to not write original content, such is the importance I think to put your own words on your own business.

Thanks I appreciate it, it's been a pretty steep learning curve getting into the online world. While I am at the very early stages I really just want to make as little mistakes as possible, so its been great finding this community.

 

[AllUpHere]

I am looking to enter the personal growth/development area, I am starting a membership site that helps people overcome the fear of public speaking.

Then you are going to have to write the copy yourself. You aren't going to get anybody who is any good doing that for £500. With that sort of budget, you are going to need to find another way to get leads.

 

[SillyBill]

Thanks I appreciate it, it's been a pretty steep learning curve getting into the online world. While I am at the very early stages I really just want to make as little mistakes as possible, so its been great finding this community.

It is good to do your research, it is also good to know when to jump in anyway. As the most important thing is always doing something. Often the best way to learn is to lose money, believe it or not. Albeit if you have very little to start off with, I understand the prudence.

 

[claudefaucher83]

Then you are going to have to write the copy yourself. You aren't going to get anybody who is any good doing that for £500. With that sort of budget, you are going to need to find another way to get leads.

Thanks, I was looking at up-work and some copywriters made it sound like it was a sure thing! But that makes a lot of sense.

 

[claudefaucher83]

It is good to do your research, it is also good to know when to jump in anyway. As the most important thing is always doing something. Often the best way to learn is to lose money, believe it or not. Albeit if you have very little to start off with, I understand the prudence.

Agreed, I think am just going to spend some time and put the hours at the beginning, there is no substitute for hard work. I have a budget of around £5k to build everything but the web design is almost half of that, luckily I am in partnership with a friend who is a stack engineer so he is doing the coding for free.

 

[AllUpHere]

Thanks, I was looking at up-work and some copywriters made it sound like it was a sure thing! But that makes a lot of sense.

They wouldn't even be able to do the initial research for 500 quid, so how on earth they will know what to write I don't know. It's not a difficult area to write for, if you know what you are doing. Personally, I'd say balls to the SEO and just write the content for the visitors. There are much better ways to drive traffic for a site like that than SEO anyway. Your area lends itself to emotion based copy which will convert well, but not by the time some wally on up-work has SEO'd it.

 

[claudefaucher83]

They wouldn't even be able to do the initial research for 500 quid, so how on earth they will know what to write I don't know. It's not a difficult area to write for, if you know what you are doing. Personally, I'd say balls to the SEO and just write the content for the visitors. There are much better ways to drive traffic for a site like that than SEO anyway. Your area lends itself to emotion based copy which will convert well, but not by the time some wally on up-work has SEO'd it.

Thats very true, I was going to use a web designer from there (am sure there are good people) but when I had the zoom call with them it completely put me off. So went with a recommended designer instead, more expensive but the quality of his work looks good. Appreciate the advice!

 

[AllUpHere]

Thats very true, I was going to use a web designer from there (am sure there are good people) but when I had the zoom call with them it completely put me off. So went with a recommended designer instead, more expensive but the quality of his work looks good. Appreciate the advice!

Just remember that a design simply has to be good enough not to put anyone off. Apart from that it's the content that does all the work. Spend 90 % of your time and budget on a well thought out strategy, and get the site done only when that's all sorted. A website is only a way of delivering the content to your target market's eyeballs.

 

[fisicx]

I am looking to enter the personal growth/development area, I am starting a membership site that helps people overcome the fear of public speaking.

Your big problem isn't going to be writing content, it's going to be marketing the services. All you need is an average looking site, doesn't have to be anything special - certainly not worth spending much money on.

Sort out your marketing plan, write the appropriate content so it meets the aims of your plan and then launch the site.

If it gets traction then you can think about adding the membership module.

 

[claudefaucher83]

Your big problem isn't going to be writing content, it's going to be marketing the services. All you need is an average looking site, doesn't have to be anything special - certainly not worth spending much money on.

Sort out your marketing plan, write the appropriate content so it meets the aims of your plan and then launch the site.

If it gets traction then you can think about adding the membership module.

Thanks, well the membership is for a web application am working on that helps people prep for public speaking, so people are paying for the software rather than the advice of becoming a a good public speaker. But I do like the idea of a marketing plan, and wondered if you have online/books that you might be able to recommend? I have not committed to any spend yet, the web designer has quoted me 5 -7 days work at £250 a day, do you think this is excessive?

 

[claudefaucher83]

Just remember that a design simply has to be good enough not to put anyone off. Apart from that it's the content that does all the work. Spend 90 % of your time and budget on a well thought out strategy, and get the site done only when that's all sorted. A website is only a way of delivering the content to your target market's eyeballs.

Sound advice, I think am going to take a few steps backs as am flying straight into the website design of things, I dont suppose there is anything you can recommend regarding a marketing plan?

 

[AllUpHere]

Sound advice, I think am going to take a few steps backs as am flying straight into the website design of things, I dont suppose there is anything you can recommend regarding a marketing plan?

Most of my posts on this forum (in the website review section) are telling people they are putting the cart before the horse. Have you done any marketing research or planning at all? How do you know there is a market for what you are offering? I'm not a fan of public speaking, what exactly could you do for me?

 

[fisicx]

I have not committed to any spend yet, the web designer has quoted me 5 -7 days work at £250 a day, do you think this is excessive?

YES!

You have no idea if this idea is going to work. Don't commit to ANY major spending until you have done a lot of testing.

Setting up a simple membership site can be done for free.

 

[claudefaucher83]

YES!

You have no idea if this idea is going to work. Don't commit to ANY major spending until you have done a lot of testing.

Setting up a simple membership site can be done for free.

Thats a resounding yes! Ok, I am definitely going to slow down a bit and get back to the basics. This forum is great.

 

[fisicx]

Go right back to the beginning.

Decide who you are targeting. I wouldn't even mention public speaking. You might just want to target those who need to make a speech at a wedding or family occasion. Or maybe those going for an interview where they need to make a presentation.

Decide how you are going to market to these people. What message are you going to send them? How are you going to send this message? Adverts? Email? Cold calling?

You can do all of this without a website.

 

[The Byre]

Marcus Tillius Cicero: "I prefer tongue-tied knowledge to ignorant loquacity."

A website about how to speak in public sounds like a radio programme about how to ride a horse. Or as Frank Zappa said, "Writing about music is like dancing about architecture!"

Here is everything you need to know about standing on your hind legs and speaking in public -

1. Keep it short. Make your point and shut up, otherwise the audience will forget what it was that you said and tire of listening to you.

2. Practice, rehearse and practice some more. Use every opportunity to practice.

3. Don't read. Speak ad libitum and be yourself. Rehearse the speech in advance so that you can perform without reading.

That's all folks! That's all anybody needs to know about the act of speaking in public. Anything beyond that comes from natural talent and intelligence.

So what other business ideas have you got?

 

[Paul Carmen]

This really should be a research and marketing led project, it sounds like you've decided on a service, but where are the customers, what do they want, how are you going to market to them and sign them up?

Quite how you can design a website without the marketing and lead capture process in place is difficult to understand, it sound like the copy is being designed to fit the site wireframes, when the site should be built around the copy and lead generation/sign up process...

You really need to identify if there is any search volume for the sort of services you offer, and crucially are people prepared to pay for this. If so then you start looking at the competition and how you get customers, an initial research plan would look something like this: -

1. Research where your customers will look for these services/products & what they look for, is it online & if so what do they type in search engines, is it via another channel like social media?
2. Identify your customers for marketing purposes (age groups, locations, demographic, affluence etc.)
3. Identify the core services/products you want to promote, these should be profitable for you & something you can deliver/scale if your lead generation really takes off
4. What do these services/products mean for your customers and how do you communicate this succinctly; e.g. what is their problem, how do you fix it and why should they choose your company/service/product
5. What's your USP; e.g the hook to get them interested (this should come out of point 4 above; e.g. do you do something great that the competition doesn't, is your process simpler, are you better on price, offer a guarantee etc.)
6. What budget and time do you need to assign to the build, what to the ongoing lead generation (based on pages/processes the site needs and cost for PPC leads/SEO etc)?

A website and the copy should come out of this sort of process, if there's no market online, or its very limited, don't build it!

If there's an opportunity there then make sure you're building something that will do the job.

Most people get a web designer to build a site, then think off we go... unfortunately, that's when the work really starts; driving traffic, testing and changing the campaigns, site pages etc to improve conversion and performance.

 

[AllUpHere]

This really should be a research and marketing led project, it sounds like you've decided on a service, but where are the customers, what do they want, how are you going to market to them and sign them up?

Quite how you can design a website without the marketing and lead capture process in place is difficult to understand, it sound like the copy is being designed to fit the site wireframes, when the site should be built around the copy and lead generation/sign up process...

You really need to identify if there is any search volume for the sort of services you offer, and crucially are people prepared to pay for this. If so then you start looking at the competition and how you get customers, an initial research plan would look something like this: -

1. Research where your customers will look for these services/products & what they look for, is it online & if so what do they type in search engines, is it via another channel like social media?
2. Identify your customers for marketing purposes (age groups, locations, demographic, affluence etc.)
3. Identify the core services/products you want to promote, these should be profitable for you & something you can deliver/scale if your lead generation really takes off
4. What do these services/products mean for your customers and how do you communicate this succinctly; e.g. what is their problem, how do you fix it and why should they choose your company/service/product
5. What's your USP; e.g the hook to get them interested (this should come out of point 4 above; e.g. do you do something great that the competition doesn't, is your process simpler, are you better on price, offer a guarantee etc.)
6. What budget and time do you need to assign to the build, what to the ongoing lead generation (based on pages/processes the site needs and cost for PPC leads/SEO etc)?

A website and the copy should come out of this sort of process, if there's no market online, or its very limited, don't build it!

If there's an opportunity there then make sure you're building something that will do the job.

Most people get a web designer to build a site, then think off we go... unfortunately, that's when the work really starts; driving traffic, testing and changing the campaigns, site pages etc to improve conversion and performance.

I wouldn't worry about search volumes, it's not the kind of business that would need to have people looking for it. "Internet marketing" isn't the way to go with a business like this.

 

[fisicx]

You really need to identify if there is any search volume for the sort of services you offer,

There won't be.

There will be some traffic on Youtube and maybe a some using Google for hints and tips but almost nobody needing a mentoring service or paid training.

 

[claudefaucher83]

Go right back to the beginning.

Decide who you are targeting. I wouldn't even mention public speaking. You might just want to target those who need to make a speech at a wedding or family occasion. Or maybe those going for an interview where they need to make a presentation.

Decide how you are going to market to these people. What message are you going to send them? How are you going to send this message? Adverts? Email? Cold calling?

You can do all of this without a website.

Thanks again for this, it's really giving me something to think about. I am really selling a web based application which can help people in certain scenarios and I think you have just helped me identify who I should be targeting my market research at.

 

[fisicx]

Is this app something they download and install? Or do they need to login to a site to view videos or whatever?

Either way, your market research will indicate the most appropriate way to deliver the content.

It might be people prefer to pay for one-to-one tuition (using zoom or skype or whatever).

 

[claudefaucher83]

Is this app something they download and install? Or do they need to login to a site to view videos or whatever?

Either way, your market research will indicate the most appropriate way to deliver the content.

It might be people prefer to pay for one-to-one tuition (using zoom or skype or whatever).

They would need to log in and then use the web based application, ideally I want as little human interventions as possible and would link them with experts who can help them after they have used the tool. I have done very basic market research e.g. friends /family who really like the concept and will expend it to the general public, its just that I have not built a working program yet (its in progress).

 

[claudefaucher83]

This really should be a research and marketing led project, it sounds like you've decided on a service, but where are the customers, what do they want, how are you going to market to them and sign them up?

Quite how you can design a website without the marketing and lead capture process in place is difficult to understand, it sound like the copy is being designed to fit the site wireframes, when the site should be built around the copy and lead generation/sign up process...

You really need to identify if there is any search volume for the sort of services you offer, and crucially are people prepared to pay for this. If so then you start looking at the competition and how you get customers, an initial research plan would look something like this: -

1. Research where your customers will look for these services/products & what they look for, is it online & if so what do they type in search engines, is it via another channel like social media?
2. Identify your customers for marketing purposes (age groups, locations, demographic, affluence etc.)
3. Identify the core services/products you want to promote, these should be profitable for you & something you can deliver/scale if your lead generation really takes off
4. What do these services/products mean for your customers and how do you communicate this succinctly; e.g. what is their problem, how do you fix it and why should they choose your company/service/product
5. What's your USP; e.g the hook to get them interested (this should come out of point 4 above; e.g. do you do something great that the competition doesn't, is your process simpler, are you better on price, offer a guarantee etc.)
6. What budget and time do you need to assign to the build, what to the ongoing lead generation (based on pages/processes the site needs and cost for PPC leads/SEO etc)?

A website and the copy should come out of this sort of process, if there's no market online, or its very limited, don't build it!

If there's an opportunity there then make sure you're building something that will do the job.

Most people get a web designer to build a site, then think off we go... unfortunately, that's when the work really starts; driving traffic, testing and changing the campaigns, site pages etc to improve conversion and performance.

Thanks for this Paul, this is great information.

 

[fisicx]

They would need to log in and then use the web based application, ideally I want as little human interventions as possible and would link them with experts who can help them after they have used the tool.

Nobody is going to create an account just to use a tool that links to an expert.

Make the app freely available for anyone to use. They then pay to get the expert advice.

Have you sacked the web developer yet? Even creating a wireframe is pointless, the fact they did this without knowing your marketing strategy is worrying.

 

[Ian J]

Here is everything you need to know about standing on your hind legs and speaking in public -

1. Keep it short. Make your point and shut up, otherwise the audience will forget what it was that you said and tire of listening to you.

2. Practice, rehearse and practice some more. Use every opportunity to practice.

3. Don't read. Speak ad libitum and be yourself. Rehearse the speech in advance so that you can perform without reading.

That's all folks! That's all anybody needs to know about the act of speaking in public. Anything beyond that comes from natural talent and intelligence.

I disagree. Just because public speaking comes easily to you doesn't mean that it comes as easily to everyone. In my younger days I was expected to give lectures to bank officials & assembled businessmen and the mere thought of it turned my legs to jelly and my brains to mush

 

[The Byre]

I disagree. Just because public speaking comes easily to you doesn't mean that it comes as easily to everyone. In my younger days I was expected to give lectures to bank officials & assembled businessmen and the mere thought of it turned my legs to jelly and my brains to mush

It comes easily to nobody at first. I appeared in my first play at the age of 17 and I nearly passed out with fear. By the third night, I was almost enjoying it and by the end of a two-week run, I was ad-libbing through prop malfunctions and couldn't wait for another crack at appearing in public.

That's why I said, "Practice, rehearse and practice some more!"

There are no short-cuts to learning to speak in public. You just have to put yourself out there.

 

[Mark T Jones]

I disagree. Just because public speaking comes easily to you doesn't mean that it comes as easily to everyone. In my younger days I was expected to give lectures to bank officials & assembled businessmen and the mere thought of it turned my legs to jelly and my brains to mush

Plus of course, there may be little correlation between people who think they are good at it and people who are A bit like those who describe themselves as ‘born salesmen’

I’d say it’s very much a skill that can be taught and learned - the OP just needs to find a target audience who are committed to learning

 

[claudefaucher83]

Thanks everybody this is sound and great advice, am going to take things slow and really test the market, the application on offer has had good comments from friends and family but the true acid test is the public and to ascertain if they would pay for it. I do have a unique selling point as there is currently nothing like it in the market at this time.

 

[NickGrogan]

Friends and family will always say it's great, they're being polite. If you really want to see what they think, offer them the chance to sign up and pay. You'll be surprised at the difference.

It's unlikely that there is nothing like it right now, you probably just haven't found it. But if you are the only one, that's not always a good thing. It could be because there is no demand.

 

[fisicx]

...the true acid test is the public and to ascertain if they would pay for it.

They won't. They will want a free trial first to see if it's any good. They will then search youtube and any other free resource to see if they can find something. If after all this they still can't find what they want they may come back and pay. But you will still get a very high rejection rate. You might be lucky and sign up 1 in 1000.

 

[Paul Carmen]

There's lots of advice on here, most of it sensible, but at this stage it's largely unqualified opinion, your friends and family also aren't a good barometer of apps or websites.

Its very true that different demographics will do different things; e.g. younger people will tend to gravitate to YouTube, rather than Google search, to look at videos to help them, older demographics will often rather read and find the pertinent info.

The model you are talking about sounds like one where you need to take a commission or a referral fee to put them in touch with experts, as I cant see anyone paying for this service first when Google effectively does that.. Is that something you've explored, as the experts/courses may well have their own way to generate customer leads already?

This is the key task, to identify potential customers and create a service/product that fits the bill, do the customers exist, where are they, what do they want?

It's patently not true that there aren't plenty of people looking online for these type of services, some is irrelevant granted, but there is targeted medium and longer tail search that's relevant. There are 10,000+ generic searches a month on Google for "public speaking" related terms (even more if you include YouTube), but most of this links to free resources, tips, videos etc.

However, if you drill down there are loads of people actually looking for potential paid help in various guises; e.g. 2,000 searches per month for "public speaking courses", another 1-2k per month for geographic based variants of this search. 1,000 for "classes", 400 for "public speaking coach". There are many more related searches for "training", and other "near me" type variants. So it suggests there are plenty of people looking online, the key is what will they pay and how do you convince them to use you, as the organic results are competitive and there is plenty of PPC competition?

There are other terms and possibly potential markets, but where people are doing this as a one off (e.g. weddings), they are much less likely to pay for anything, let alone speak to an expert or go on a course. This is where the research and planning comes in, identifying the customers, their needs and the way to get the leads, looking at the market and current offerings, and potentially doing some testing and research for your intended product/services.

 

[claudefaucher83]

Friends and family will always say it's great, they're being polite. If you really want to see what they think, offer them the chance to sign up and pay. You'll be surprised at the difference.

It's unlikely that there is nothing like it right now, you probably just haven't found it. But if you are the only one, that's not always a good thing. It could be because there is no demand.

Having spoken to a few people about it I am going to scale down my original budget and test the waters with a MVP and take it from there if someone bites then scale it if not I learned what not to do next time! win win .

 

[claudefaucher83]

They won't. They will want a free trial first to see if it's any good. They will then search youtube and any other free resource to see if they can find something. If after all this they still can't find what they want they may come back and pay. But you will still get a very high rejection rate. You might be lucky and sign up 1 in 1000.

Thats a good point, out of curiosity what is a good conversion rate? I suppose it also depends on the cost of marketing.

 

[fisicx]

How long is a piece of string?

A lot will depend on your marketing plan and how enticing you make your offer. If you appear wherever anyone looks for help you will get more clicks. If when they land on the site they click to get whatever you could class this as a conversion. Or you could just wait for those who give you their money.

1 in 1000 is probably a good number to start with. If you can get this down to 1 in 100 over the course of 5 years you are doing well.

 

[NickGrogan]

What's your revenue per client?

Without this everything else will be guesswork.

 

[fisicx]

What's your revenue per client?

Without this everything else will be guesswork.

Good point.

If the cost per acquisition is too high the business isn't viable.

As an aside, who are these experts you plan to use? Are they all signed up and available?