How to Write for Website Sales

online, sales, requires strategy

Writing for website sales requires strategic digital knowledge and a good story.

When writing content is not your favourite pastime, it’s easy to put off or overlook. Often I find clients have ‘had a go’, or been paralysed by inability to really articulate their vision to their ideal client. I’m currently working with one client who has spent a whole year feeling stuck on providing website content and who was “very impressed” by how quickly and easily this can turn around when you have the right writer to work with.

If you’re finding that your website isn’t bringing in new clients very often, there’s a good chance you need to consider using a different approach. Content that is static on a website, or poorly written, has a huge impact on conversion rates. That also applies to blogs and projects never being updated.

The other killer is a website that wasn’t designed to create a sales journey in the first place. It’s nice to have a piece of ‘real estate’ on line to show you exist, but even lawyers and insurance brokers get better results with a website that is well planned to create enquiries.

There are in fact 200 ranking criteria for Google and similar search engines, including SEO key words, external links, spelling and grammar. A combination of these factors creates domain trust and organic search results for page 1, which is where you want to be to create genuine organic (not paid) new enquiries.

What kind of writer do you need?

You’ll be familiar with many of the following terms; copywriter, content writer, technical writer, blog writer. What you may not realise is that there is a step beyond this for getting ahead in website conversions – the digital copywriter.

“In order to be a competent digital copywriter, a copywriter should have a broad understanding of digital skills beyond idea generation and actual copywriting.” writes All Day Creative.

Sonia Simone writes:

“Really good content is unsurpassed at building rapport, delivering a sales message without feeling “salesy,” and getting potential customers to stick around.”

However, a digital copywriter also looks at the bigger picture –

  • Conversion rate optimisation
  • User experience or UX testing
  • Metrics (stats like bounce rates, etc)
  • Web design and development
  • Social Media Integration

Are You Missing Out?

From my experience in analysing websites as a digital copywriter, 95% of the time there are many improvements to make.

In this day and age, potential clients often ‘cyber stalk’ you, because they can; it’s quicker and less invasive of their time and energy. Knowing this is key, because you have an infinite opportunity for people to be warmed to your product or service before they even pick up the phone or send and email.

Once you are found online, this means having valuable, relatable content that tells your client that you can provide a solution and makes it easy for them to ask to you solve their needs. You want to have a ‘call to action’, a product offering, a mailing list and some way of tracking these potential clients, even if they didn’t stay.

What is Digital Copywriting?

“Digital copywriting is a specialist skill. It requires digital knowledge in addition to the ability to write. Writing for the web alongside web designers, UX specialists, and conversion scientists is an entirely different skill to writing traditional copy.” says All day creative.

Because we are involved with digital strategy and copy writing, as well as integrations such as mailing lists, we have seen some amazing results.

Doxie watches have gone from a 500% return on their copywriting investment in the first week to an exploding business online. Sales are now at around 500 times their investment every week.

Vicbeam also responded to me recently regarding their copywriting and SEO investment since we started working with them in August 2016.

“The level of enquiry that Shane and I have received now has been just mind-blowing. Initially we were getting 1-2 enquiries per month, which we thought was pretty good. Now we receive 2-3 new leads per week often on big projects, which is just excellent for us.

We are getting that broad enquiry from architects and engineers that we weren’t getting before using your services, which was pinpointed in the strategy and rewrite. SEO has been very much a part of this success and even today at lunchtime we were saying that the work on the website is just priceless.

The content was professionally written and in the short amount of time we spent together you got a very good grasp of our company and how we want to be portrayed. Your ability to take what we wanted to say and interpret it onto the page was absolutely excellent.”

In short, if your website isn’t creating the kind of opportunities you want, then don’t just think about getting any content writer, ask a specialist and get results with a digital copywriter.

 

About the Author Emma Sidney

Emma Sidney is a copywriter who captures the essence of her clients thoughts and aspirations and translates them into real identifiable results online. As a digital strategist and thought leader Emma takes the content and powerfully adds value through context while explaining the digital space exceptionally well to her clients. Everyone wins when Emma writes.

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