3 Ways to Tap Into Your Creativity Like Never Before
Being a better SEO copywriter takes one thing, and one thing only: more writing. The old axiom is to commit to write 500 words every day, and maintain that schedule no matter what you’re writing about, but how are you supposed to come up with consistently great ideas for topics to write about? Content is king when it comes to SEO copywriting, and maintaining consistently great content is the key to success in the online realm, but many business owners can feel more than a little out of his or her depth when trying to keep up with a rigorous writing schedule, even if it is only 500 words per day, if they key to maintaining success is consistently engaging content.
Good marketing through SEO copywriting is a careful balance – you have to take care of the needs of your current customers without even neglecting the need to always be catching the eye of new leads. If you’ve been neglecting your marketing efforts, believe me, you’re not alone.
SEO Copywriting: 4 Tips That Will Hook Readers Every Time
One of the easiest ways to drive your marketing car is by constantly adding new and fresh content to your website. If your site doesn’t have a blog page, consider adding one. The benefits you could gain from adding a blog will far outweigh the relatively small amount if time it will take to set one up.
For those of you who do have a blog, or are just starting one, you may be struggling to find ways to keep fresh content rolling out on it. Developing a regular posting pattern is definitely advisable, and choose a schedule you can stick to. If that means one post per week, that’s fine. If it’s three, that’s even better. Consistency is key, and over time you can even develop a regular readership.
Now, setting a schedule is one thing, but filling that schedule with good SEO copywriting is another. I get it. Sometimes as a SEO copywriter you can start to feel like a broken record, covering the same topic in seemingly every way you can. The key when developing the same tired old topics into fresh material is to attach a hook to every post, and that is what this article is here to help you do.
What is a “hook?”
“Hook” is a term borrowed from songwriting (and fishing). Put simply, it’s a turn of phrase or particular line that causes a song to be memorable and enjoyable. The band Blues Traveler has a song about this concept (you’ve probably heard it, the chorus (and hook, actually) begins, “The hook brings you back”), and it’s as true in SEO copywriting as it is in music. In copywriting, the hook is the art of the headline. It’s the subtle skill of spinning a topic this way or that, making it seem more inviting, enticing, or informative for the reader you’re looking to grab. In this article we’re going to look at some common tactics for hooking new readers with your newfound SEO copywriting skills.
1. The Problem-Solver Hook
If you’re in a business, then chances are your customers all have problems, and they’re probably pretty similar. Spend some time brainstorming, and ask yourself: how do I solve the most common problems of my customers? Spin those ideas into headlines: “Check Engine light in? This may be why.” “Get rid of ants in a week with this home remedy.” “8 amazing hairstyles you can do yourself.”
These are just some examples. You may notice that none of these headlines are sales pitches. To the contrary, they seem to be encouraging your readers to fix these problems themselves – and you’re correct!
This may seem like the opposite of asking for business, but don’t fret. If you help a reader solve a simple problem themselves, this lends credibility and an air of respectability to you, and later, when that customer has a bigger problem, you’re going to get that call.
2. The Horror Story Hook
As a general rule, customers want to do business with a person and not a company. We develop personal relationships with our doctors, not with the receptionists or the clinics where they work. There’s no better way to humanize your business than with a disaster story. Every business has its blunders. Tell your readers about your biggest disaster, and of course include the punchline where you were able to turn the situation around and solve the problem. Your readers will be wowed at your ingenuity, and will love the fact that your sense of humor enables you to share such a disastrous tale.
3. The FAQ Hook
You probably hear the same questions over and over again. Creating a series of posts, or even video blogs, addressing these most frequently asked questions will save your customers time when they’re searching for someone to do business with. If you can address the most common concerns without ever speaking with a potential customer, then you’re making a connection with them without even trying!
4. The Newsroom Hook
News from the industry that’s relevant to your readers is another great way to spin the same old topics in a new way, and there’s a bonus here: if you’re sharing and reacting to industry news, this is a perfect way for you to use your competitors’ announcements to improve your own search results.
Did that dry-cleaner downtown just open yet another new location? Use that as an opportunity to explain that the competition’s rampant expansion is causing poor results, and that your small, family owned dry cleaning shop will always do a better job.
When doing SEO copywriting, it’s easy to get bogged down in the “textbook” methods, and lose sight of the reader.
But writing without your reader in mind is simply a waste of time.
After all, being on the front page of Google isn’t going to do you any good if your content isn’t relevant, compelling, or engaging enough to draw a reader in.
At the end of the day, your goal as a copywriter should be to make readers love you.
That’s not to say you should completely ignore the basic tenets of SEO.
But you do need to find a balance between appeasing Google’s webcrawlers as well as your human audience.
The goal of SEO copywriting and inbound marketing strategies is simple:
Gain leads that have a high chance of conversion.
Unfortunately, once you’ve gain these leads, it’s not all that difficult to lose them.
But let’s take a step back. Not only can the simplest mistake cause you to lose the leads you’ve worked so hard to gain, but it can also hinder your chances of gaining new leads in the future as well.
I’m going to go out on a limb and assume you want your copy to enhance your chances of gaining leads.
But if, for some reason, your aim is to drive your audience away, take a look at the following tips to help you do so.
You can’t market to everyone. It’s just not possible.
That’s why marketers hone in on specific audiences for their brands.
Here’s the logic: For every product or service, there exist ideal buyers who will be totally into it, desperately need it, or some ratio of both.
No, you can’t market to each of them individually.
But, you can distill their similarities into an overall audience persona.
This persona is a fictional human you create who has all the traits common to your target audience.
This sounds great in theory, but why should you create one for your brand? How do you get started?
The answers are right here.
Why Create an Audience Persona?
Besides the fact that using personas can boost your success rates (one company reported an increase in sales leads of 124% as a direct result of using targeted personas), what are some other reasons to use them?
1. Talk to Exactly Who Will Buy From You
Imagine standing on a stage and looking into an audience full of people. You want to talk to the ones who will buy what you’re selling – but how? Right now, they’re just a sea of random faces.
Now, imagine if you could shine a spotlight on an audience member who represents your ideal targets. This person’s interests, behavior, demographics, job, income, etc. are all indicative of your ultimate buyer.
In fact, if you could pool your ideal buyers, take their common traits, and mold them into a new person, this is what that person would look like.
All of a sudden, by singling out this one persona, you have the opportunity to speak directly to your buyer and get them to engage. If you tailor your messages to them, you’ll not only grab their attention – you’ll hold it, which will lead to profitable results across that audience segment.
2. Keep Your Messaging, Copy, and Content Consistent
Besides being representative of a segment of your target audience, your persona is also a tool to use in your copy and content.
When you create a persona, you create a person to write for – someone you can get to know intimately. You’re no longer writing to anonymous people, but to someone with preferences, needs, wants, and traits.
Much of writing is about the audience. Your persona will guide how you write so it’s more pointed and powerful for the exact right people.
Plus, personas are tools you can use for your business at every level to make sure your entire team is referencing and addressing the same targets.
3. Waste Zero Time on Non-Prospects
When you create a targeted audience persona, you weed out the people in your audience who don’t need what you’re selling or won’t buy from you.
These people may be interested, but there’s no urgency in it. Here’s how HubSpot frames that conundrum:
If you try to address your entire audience with the exact same message, it won’t be as effective for some as it is for others. This is because they’re at different stages of the buyer’s journey.
Creating personas that target specific types of people in your audience, and then creating messaging and content for each of them, eliminates this problem.
How to Build a Persona for Your Audience: Research, Compile Data, and Get Personal
Over and over, you’ll find that researching is the best way to approach building an audience persona.
Then you can compile what you find and distill it into one, two, or a few different personas that represent your audience segments.
Step One: Research Your Audience
For research, there are some wide-ranging options for gathering data about your targets:
Use Facebook Audience Insights
Facebook has a tool you can use to research your audience and build multiple personas, and you don’t need an advertising or business account to access it. (You just need a profile.)
You have two options in this tool: research using all of Facebook’s existing user base, or just research people who are connected to your account.
Moz recommends the former option just in case your account connections have been “dirtied” in some way (i.e. if you have paid for followers in the past, your connections might not be an accurate representation of your target audience).
After you choose which type of data to research, you can search various interests related to your industry and then narrow down the audience based on what you find.
For example, say you sell books in Missouri. You would enter that information to find out who you should be targeting. As you can see, 67% of people in Missouri with an interest in books and reading are women:
With this in mind, let’s narrow down our target audience to women only. Then we can look at demographics and stats for their household, like income and home ownership:
Now we have more information for our persona: She should be a woman who makes $50-75K and owns a home.
You can keep going into further detail from there as you browse the sections and continue to narrow down this woman’s traits. Check out this guide from Moz for a deeper how-to.
Create Surveys
Find out more demographic information about your audience with surveys. A simple survey can tell you exactly where your audience lives, their income, their education, family size, age, job industry and title, and more.
Tools like SurveyMonkey are perfect for the job. You can create your own surveys for free and distribute them yourself, or you can pay to use SurveyMonkey Audience to collect data from a pre-qualified target audience with attributes you select.
Chat 1-on-1 with Customers
Don’t forget to go back to basics. Just take some time to have a chat with your customers to find out their preferences, interests, behaviors, and demographics.
This can be as easy as commenting on social media, or you can get more formal and request to do an interview through email, Skype, or over coffee.
Talk to Your Sales Team for Insights
Your sales team is out there in the trenches, talking to customers day-in and day-out. They will have plenty of insights about them and can share what they’ve learned from these crucial sales interactions.
Review Analytics
Review data on your website about consumption, like page views, open rates for emails and newsletters, downloads, click-throughs, and bounce rates. This information can give you valuable insights into your audience’s preferences and needs.
Step Two: Compile the Data
Once you’ve researched and gathered enough data, it’s time to sort and compile it into trends you see happening.
When you see that a large section of your audience possesses certain traits or demographics, you can add those to your persona profile.
Eventually, you should end up with a list of common attributes among a segment of your audience.
Step Three: Get Creative
Here’s the creative part of building an audience persona. It’s time to take that compiled data and turn it into a profile of your ideal buyer.
Content Marketing Institute recommends giving your persona a name and a picture. This helps you and your team imagine this fictitious person better and think of them as a real person.
Ideally, you should turn your persona into a shareable asset you can pass around to various departments or team members in your company.
Most businesses create a profile card of their persona with a quick run-down of that buyer’s name, demographics, preferences, and habits.
Video game enthusiasts will note how much the resulting profile looks like a character card, which gives you an overview of a character’s strengths and weaknesses.
Don’t be afraid to get creative and detailed with personas. Your writers, content creators, and other team members will be more inspired if it’s engaging and helps them use their imaginations.
Your Brand Audience Persona Is a Valuable Tool
Ultimately, the benefits you receive from creating an audience persona will make the effort worth it.
Your entire team can use the persona to help them craft consistent, pointed, targeted content that truly speaks to your ideal buyer.
Keep one handy for reference, and don’t forget to update it periodically to reflect your changing audience and business needs.
If you need help creating content that resonates with your target audience, our team of expert writers can help! Learn more about our available services in the Content Shop.
