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.
Don’t Talk About Benefits
When you are offering about your products and services, don’t mention the benefits. Contacts are selfish creatures, with a “what’s in it for me?” attitude. If you mention the benefits that your offerings have and how they can help a prospect solve his problems he may decide to become a customer.
Instead, focus on the advantages of your offerings over your competitors. Don’t use emotional content or descriptive phrases that make for quality copy; use content that is flat and uninspiring. You don’t want people to find your information valuable and you definitely don’t want them to share it with other people.
If you provide effective calls to action they may follow up on them and that can lead to more customers than you can handle.
Don’t Give Information
Don’t provide enough information to answer specific questions that your contact may have.
Don’t give them tips on how to solve problems that they have or techniques to help contacts help themselves. This will only confuse leads into thinking that your company is an authority in your field and make them want to buy from you.
Instead, let them know very little information and make them pay to have their questions answered.
Force them to talk to salespeople and have to deal with a pitch to understand what benefits the company offers.
Make them deal with reports that are only disguised advertisements full with information on why they should buy from your company instead of how they can solve an important problem.
Why would they buy the cow if they can get the milk for free? Tease them with intangibles and don’t deliver on promises you make when you encourage them to download the report.
Bore Your Readers
Readers love it when you bore and confuse them with technical jargon. When you talk over their heads it makes them feel like you are smarter than they are so you have to be a thought leader. When you speak to them in plain English and educate your market members so that they understand, how you can help them? It will make them think that you are customer service oriented.
Don’t try to make your content engaging. Readers don’t like to be informed and entertained; they want dry content that has no life, only bare facts. When you engage, excite, and inform your readers they may think that you are a company worthy of their patronage.
Don’t Leverage Page Titles
Page titles that are used as hyperlinks on search engine results pages can be leveraged the same way you can optimize headlines for articles and blog posts. When you include keywords and create intriguing headlines you encourage people to find and click on your links. It increases search engine results and can lead to increasing your conversion rates.
What you want to do instead is make page titles simple and uninspiring. That way they won’t rank well in the search engines and they won’t attract the attention of potential customers. Using keywords and secondary keywords in page titles only makes them easier to spot and categorize. Leave the inspiration to the magazine headlines and profitable blogs.
Don’t Care about Reputation
When you create good content you can improve the reputation of your company online. Individuals in your market will have positive things to say about your company when they meet others in social media.
They also will spread your content by sharing links and discussing it on forums and other blogs. They will tout you as a thought leader and let people know that if they want to learn about a topic or work with a reliable company they should visit your site. That will lead to increased web traffic and qualified leads landing at your doorstep. Why would you want that?
When you create content don’t worry about whether it will have a negative effect on the reputation of your company. Rush through the content creation process and don’t try to coordinate your efforts throughout the Internet. Editorial calendars, best SEO copywriting tips, and inbound strategies are too much work to understand and implement. If you take the time to learn these strategies you will only increase your conversion rate.
Don’t Give Proof
You don’t have to provide proof that the information you offer contacts is accurate. You’re the expert; they should take what you say at face value without needing supporting information. Create the most innovative processes but don’t explain how you came to the conclusion that these processes will benefit your customers. Don’t offer information on how you gathered the statistics you have and the research you used to reach important conclusions.
Proof only confuses people that don’t understand it and it takes to much time to explain it to them in detail. They won’t be able to grasp the concepts anyway, so why bother
creating videos or slideshows explaining the information will only show the market your expertise and may lead to a sale.
SEO copywriting isn’t about creating value, establishing relationships, or finding long-term customer relationships. It’s about marveling contacts with technical jargon, boring them with detail, and using see-through sales strategies to scare away your customers.
If you aren’t interested in increasing your conversion rates, then using these six tips will help to make sure that you meet your goal. If you are looking to help make each qualified lead a customer, then you will want to abandon these tips for SEO copywriting strategies that will engage contacts, provide them with valuable information, and utilize page titles to optimize search engine results.
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