Estimated reading time: 9.5 minutes

The perfect landing page is a powerful tool. When created thoughtfully, it propels your business, generates quality leads and engages and converts an active audience. Your WordPress landing pages are the anchors in paid and organic marketing that can amplify your overall return on investment. 

How well you design your landing page is crucial for the success of your Perth business. 

If you want your content to rock and your sales to soar, your landing page must be engaging and persuasive with high-converting elements. There’s no point in wasting time and resources on a lazy page that looks good but doesn’t perform. That’s why working with an SEO content writer and WordPress web designer is fundamental in taking your site to the next level. 

Here are some tips for structuring your landing page for products and local services.

What is a WordPress Landing Page?

Landing pages are single-page websites built for a specific purpose.

Similar to your homepage, landing pages are often the first experience visitors have with your site. Users typically find a landing page by clicking on an ad, email campaign or social media post.

These webpages are a focused marketing tool to capture leads and entice prospects to become customers or clients. You can achieve this by exchanging something of value with users, such as an eBook or webinar signup, in return for their basic contact information. By offering something relating to your industry and rewarding users with interesting content, they’re more likely to trust your brand and be pulled further into the customer funnel.

WordPress landing pages must be highly targeted and well-crafted to gain a visitor’s data, with conversion optimisation to kick your marketing campaigns into gear. 

Let’s dive deeper.

1. Set Your Focus CTA

Unlike a homepage with multiple calls to actions (CTAs), a landing page has a single, focused CTA that encourages visitors to take a specific action. When clicked, this CTA button takes them to the next (and often final) step, converting them to a lead or customer.

Set your focus CTA by first defining your goal.

Are you looking to generate leads, promote a new product or register users for an event? Your CTA should give visitors a reason to click. For instance, subscribe to your newsletter, buy your product or service, sign up for your event or install your app.

The strongest CTAs are a strategic combination of creative copy and design. Think:

• Goal-focused
• Specific and concise 
• Benefits-focused 
• Optimised for performance
• Well-placed in a prominent spot with contrasting colours to maximise visibility

Example #1

Take a look at this example from Mondaydotcom:

The ad popped up in my social media feed. Immediately their CTA grabs you.

Who doesn’t want to work smarter? Especially when 180k+ others already are! So I clicked on ‘Sign Up’ to see what it was all about.

It took me to their landing page where their primary CTA caught my eye.

There’s nothing more frustrating than signing up for a free trial and being forced to add your credit card details. You might not be ready to buy or use long-term yet, let alone hand over this information – and these guys understand.

Using the words ‘free forever‘ and ‘no credit card‘ makes it easy to click ‘get started‘.

2. Target Specific Demographics

WordPress landing pages can be tailored to target specific demographic groups in Perth. This creates a laser-focused approach for personalising user experience and boosting conversions while helping you craft content most relevant to your audience. 

For instance, if you’re targeting tourists visiting Western Australia, include information about local hotspots or activities. If you’re targeting the Perth business community, include information about networking events or business resources your audience will find practical. You could create specialised deals on local attractions for tourists, or offer discounts on networking events and brand development courses for Perth businesses. 

This type of targeted information is gold for motivating users to act. 

Make sure you use appropriate colours, images and language that resonates with your audience. Without creating an instant connection, it’s impossible to offer relevant deals or promotions that capture their attention and provide enough value for them to hand over their contact details.

3. Optimise for Local SEO

A WordPress landing page will throw cash down the drain if you don’t optimise it for SEO. 

Search Engine Optimisation keeps your content in focus by providing a vital blueprint that helps your audience find the information they’re looking for. SEO gives your page staying power and increases its online visibility, the same way it would for your homepage or a blog article.

Optimise your landing page by:

• Performing keyword and competitor research to determine what search terms your audience is likely using
• Including the location name with keywords ie: my local branded keyword is ‘The Little Typewriter Perth’ and for services, I use search terms such as ‘Perth Copywriter’ and ‘SEO Content Writer Perth’
• Adding local references in the meta title and description
• Optimising the URL, images, headline, copy and title tags
• Using the right SEO plugin for WordPress – tip: I use and recommend Yoast SEO.

4. Add Non-Negotiable Conversion Elements

Every high-converting landing page needs non-negotiables including:

• A user-friendly form for capturing essential information 
• Interactive elements to encourage the user to ask questions, subscribe or purchase 
• The most important content in the hero section ie: keep your headline, USP and CTA above the fold
• Visual elements to attract attention, but keep it simple
• Social proof and testimonials for authenticity 
• Mobile-friendly design

5. Simplify Your WordPress Design and Copy

The most effective landing pages are straightforward and distraction-free, quickly and clearly pointing users to your CTA. And it’ll work best if it stands alone.

Remove unnecessary content, links, site navigation and confusing page elements that complicate the user’s experience. Kill your darlings, as writers Stephen King and Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch say.

Example #2

This one also showed up via a social media ad.

Click on the link to view the full landing page.

It’s simple, distraction-free and pulls in their target audience perfectly with the right content and design elements.

Podcasters are content creators. They want to engage an audience – preferably a worldwide one. With this landing page, podcasters can trust they’ll get the efficient and unparalleled tools to personalise their presence on Spotify, allowing them to grow their show, measure interactions and show off their pages.

Everything creators need in an interactive and effortless fashion.

Example #3

Another good example of a landing page is Moz.

It has valuable content and leverages trust factors by showing testimonials and awards.

Their CTA is also well-written, what business owner doesn’t want to outrank their competitors, see measurable results and gain more customers? And we all love the word free.

6. Write Location-Specific Content about Your Perth Business

Publish strategic and conversion-driven content distinct to your local area. For your WordPress landing page to really hit the sweet spot, location-specific content must connect with your audience and meet what’s significant to them. 

What information are they looking for? And what copy corresponds with their search intent? Your landing page copy should provide the solution. 

Make your copy:

• Easily skimmable with large chunks of text broken up
• Keyword-focused and intent-specific
• Part of your local SEO strategy 
• Persuasive and engaging

7. Leverage Local Trust Factors

Claim ownership of your Google My Business profile and use it to add reviews to your landing page. Local ratings play a pivotal role in the success of your site. By sharing reviews and testimonials, and embedding a Google map with your location or the areas you service, you can increase conversion and someone’s trust in your business. 

Especially if they’re not familiar with your brand, leveraging these trust factors helps them choose to engage with you. 

8. Drive Action Now, Not Later

Create a sense of urgency to convert users before you lose them. You can do this through a smart CTA, benefit-driven headlines and location-specific content that guides your audience seamlessly through the buyer’s journey. 

When you’re ready to launch your Perth website, test variants for page copy, headlines and CTAs before determining what works best.

4 Details Not to Forget

1. Ensure quick load times to reduce high bounce rates – check your speed
2. Add a thank you page that appears once the user submits a form or takes the desired action
3. Request indexing to encourage search engines to crawl your WordPress landing page faster
4. Track and analyse landing page data via Google Analytics

Need help personalising your landing page?

The post How to Design WordPress Landing Pages to get the most from Your Website appeared first on the little typewriter.

Estimated reading time: 9.7 minutes

ChatGPT has taken the digital world by storm and more businesses are using AI for automating tasks and shrinking creative exhaustion. For good reason too. With burnout causing a not-so-silent crisis, work and life demands have become too demanding for most.  

As a small business owner and SEO content writer, I get it.  

Which is why, like any smart copywriter, I’ve explored and experimented with ChatGPT content. 

Here’s what I learnt. 

Despite the hype around ChatGPT articles, it isn’t the holy grail to your content woes. Sure, it can be a companion, but AI-generated content cannot replace SEO articles – and nothing beats that human touch for creating authentic connections with your audience. While ChatGPT is helpful as a foundation, no one should rely solely on AI tools to create content. Especially if you want to provide real value. 

Still, there’s a place for ChatGPT if you know how to use it intelligently. 

More importantly, those who embrace the ever-changing digital landscape must understand what good content writing is and how it works for such tools to be successful. 

This article can teach you creative ways to combine ChatGPT with human skill. It’s for educating business owners on the best strategies and what to be aware of. 

Understanding ChatGPT

But first, what is this ChatGPT that’s dominating headlines?

Open AI’s ChatGPT is a powerful deep-learning tool that provides answers in seconds. It uses a Language Learning Model (LLM) to understand the intricate relationships between words and information and sources responses from an extensive dataset of websites, online books and journals.

You can ask the computer bot questions and converse with it like a person. Then it regurgitates content and answers into new prose. Similar to responses from a Google search, but much faster and without citing sources. 

Of course, taboo subjects are off limits, such as trying to overthrow the government and illegal activities. There are also questions ChatGPT won’t answer. 

Let’s dig into how I’m harnessing ChatGPT for SEO articles. 

1. Eliminate Procrastination 

One way I’ve been using the AI tool is to amplify productivity. For most creatives, this means eliminating procrastination areas. 

Those deep rabbit holes we sometimes get stuck in. 

Procrastination is something most writers and business owners face. Quotes from avid creatives remind us that writing is 90% procrastination, and pie graphs poke fun at the writing process. A chunk of time gets spent staring blankly at the wall, binge-snacking and random Internet surfing – a tidal wave away from productive research. 

I know because I can be guilty of it too. 

With ChatGPT, you have a procrastination killer. It can be a handy helper for drafting article structure and sub-headings, and gives you a blueprint to work from.  

For example: I asked ChatGPT to suggest subheadings for this piece. Although I had already mapped the points, it’s a good way to find new angles or ideas you might not have thought about. 

Fire up Your Creative Synapses

ChatGPT is a catalyst for fast idea generation. It can be the perfect tool for when inspiration isn’t striking. 

While I prefer picking up a book and disconnecting for 20 minutes to fire up my creative synapses (as Stephen King does), client deadlines often take priority. For those times – or to get your juices flowing – use ChatGPT to brainstorm ideas. 

The best way to do this is by starting a conversation.  

Just as you would brief a copywriter, ChatGPT needs detail and precise objectives to generate worthy ideas, topics and research. 

With the right person behind it, ChatGPT can revolutionise your research game. Use it as a researcher for:

• Brainstorming blog topic ideas
• Recommending headlines
• Industry research 
• Exploring the initial points for SEO articles
• Finding potential pain points linked to your target customer

There needs to be a partnership between a qualified writer and ChatGPT to make this relationship work for quality SEO content. A copywriter can refine and expand the data for your brand voice, goals and audience. Then uses their expertise to bring it to life and add vital SEO copywriting elements. 

Additionally, you want an industry expert who knows your niche and understands the importance of value-added content that connects and converts.

Because that’s something ChatGPT articles can’t do. 

You can use the AI tool as a launchpad for creating more engaging ideas. But it’s only a dirty draft with serious limitations. These include:

• Privacy and plagiarism: Generated content is paraphrased from existing content without proper attribution
• Superficial and soulless: Robotic content, limited creative thinking and zero personal experience and emotional intelligence
• Stifles creativity: Over-dependence on AI technology can lead to less collaboration and creativity, steering content away from that vital human touch
• Poor quality: Google rewards high-quality, people-first content which AI content can’t always produce. If it’s not helpful and reliable, your content will be devalued
• Lack of experience and personalisation: Content must show Experience, Expertise, Authority and Trustworthiness to build trust and credibility with your audience 
• Lack of search engine optimisation: ChatGPT lacks the understanding and insights a human SEO copywriter or specialist has. What’s more, it can’t provide essential data on website traffic, rankings and conversions
• Lack of research and comprehension: Yes, it’s a research tool but you still need to understand your audience and the different ways of communicating with them first. Research for your messaging is a step you can’t skip
• Lacks real-time data: Its knowledge cut-off date is September 2021 making ChatGPT ineffective for recent research and statistics

I’ve also been using the AI tool to make space for fresh ideas by eliminating clichéd and obvious concepts. I stole this great idea from Tom Roach, an expert in marketing and branding. 

2. Discover Seed Keywords and Phrases

ChatGPT can assist with keyword research by suggesting relevant search terms to expand your list. Tell it your topic, brief it on your business and target audience, and ask for associated keywords and phrases. 

It’ll spit out ideas in seconds – but I wouldn’t be using it solely for keyword research. 

Think of ChatGPT as an alternative to Google’s Keyword Planner. You still need other platforms like Semrush or UberSuggest for reviewing the raw data, and it doesn’t replace the skills of an SEO copywriter for finding the most appropriate search terms and using them in your content.  

The thing about keyword tools such as ChatGPT, Yoast, Ubersuggest and Semrush is they’re simply tools. They make our jobs easier but you need human expertise for the final decision. More importantly, you need a creative copywriter who knows how to find ranking keywords and turn them into relatable content that’s unique and better than what’s ranking in the first spots. 

While this trick doesn’t replace the skills of an SEO pro, it can give you a starting point. But it won’t provide information on search volume, intent, SERP features or keyword difficulty, which are vital for keyword research.

ChatGPT SEO example:

Ideally, ChatGPT could’ve recommended location-specific search terms since Perth and Australia are in the brief.

The below example provides a better response. I like how it recognised you need additional tools for in-depth data and mentioned niche-related keywords, however, this was only after I regenerated the response. 

Hot Tip: Google any keyword ideas you get from ChatGPT to see what content is ranking, identify gaps, and better understand the search intent. You should never rely on ChatGPT for your SEO strategy either.

3. Gather Helpful Information

People want helpful content that’s written by humans for humans. If your content doesn’t prove experience and meet the E-E-A-T standards, then it won’t be deemed helpful by your audience and Google. Consequently, it’ll be devalued and dropped in the search rankings. 

Creating helpful content starts with gathering essential information. While you shouldn’t use AI tools to write your web copy and blogs, ChatGPT can streamline how you collect data. This makes your day more productive and provides a platform for fleshing out content and adding copywriting expertise. 

For example: Recently I was writing an article for my local winery client. They wanted a piece on annual organic audits to show their customers why certified standards and inspections are important. 

I knew I needed more information from my client to begin. 

Usually I’d spend 15-20 minutes researching potential topics and angles and mapping points to include. Instead this time, I called on ChatGPT. 

I had an idea of the points to highlight and used this to prompt ChatGPT. This is what it said:

I wasn’t going to get AI tools to write the content – ChatGPT isn’t an article writer. But it enabled me to send the right questions to my client and uncover the information I needed for mapping and writing the piece. By doing so, I saved 20 minutes in research. 

The result was a unique blog tailored to their winery and vineyard, and why these audits matter to their products and customers. 

Expert Tips for Effective ChatGPT Content

Writing SEO content that provides value demands a certain level of skill, experience and creativity – something AI tools aren’t yet equipped with. Yet there are ways to embrace the tool. 

Make sure you:

• Add ‘experience’ elements – the first E in E-E-A-T – professional experience and human experience
• Master the art of writing good ChatGPT prompts
• Double-check suggested article titles and topics haven’t been used before
• Provide specific instructions and always refine
• Use words like ‘expand’ to delve deeper into a point or topic
• Fact-check information for accuracy and plagiarism 
• Review ChatGPT SEO articles for sensual experience – sights, touches, tastes and smells breathe more humanity into content
• Enhance the content ie: visuals, quotes, statistics and internal linking to related articles 
• Download the ChatGPT Chrome extension 
• Create content machines can’t replicate

The Takeaway

AI is already starting to fill the Internet with noise, ultimately making quality human-created content more valuable.  

Still, the question remains. Will AI tools like ChatGPT replace creative copywriters? 

It depends on your standards. 

Canva didn’t replace graphic designers and neither will AI for copywriters and SEO specialists. 

But there’s no use denying the technology – it’s already here. Rather than treating AI as a replacement for human expertise though, use it as a tool. Supplement your productivity and accelerate how you work. 

ChatGPT isn’t an SEO article writer. It’s an assistant – and a limited one at that. And it doesn’t excuse you from working on the real foundation of great content writing: listening, empathy and connection.

The post 3 Creative Ways to Use ChatGPT for Your SEO Articles appeared first on the little typewriter.

With AI tools like ChatGPT and Bard sweeping the globe, business owners are considering their options for writing more efficient content. Of course, it makes sense. Copywriting is hard work. It takes investment and creative energy, and planning content on a regular basis is time-consuming and costly.

That’s also fueling the frenzy around AI writing.  

Everyone wants more for less. But does that mean you should cut corners?

Definitely not. 

Shortcutting the process won’t achieve high-quality work. 

If you want content that connects and converts, you need the appropriate drivers behind it: human emotion, creativity and strategic thinking.

The technology of AI is spectacular and intelligent, but as with any digital tool, there are limitations. AI-generated content cannot replace SEO copy and the creative content it generates remains superficial and soulless. What’s more, AI tools cannot replace authentic human emotion (yet).

Before we dive deeper, let’s consider the Three Laws of Robotics.

These rules were developed in 1942 by sci-fi writer Isaac Asimov to protect humans from androids by restricting robot behaviour and keeping AI ethical. 

1. A robot may not injure a human or, through inaction, allow a human to come to harm
2. A robot must obey the orders given by humans except where such orders would conflict with the First Law
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws

Asimov envisioned the problem we face today, as sci-fi often does, and created a principle for safe, compliant and robust robots. 

More than 80 years later, the fundamentals have not changed, just evolved. Here’s how to stop bots from harming you or your business when considering AI tools.

Key Points:

• Users want helpful content that’s written by humans, for humans
• AI should be used as a foundation, not the final (or only) solution
• 100% AI-written content is ‘rubbish’ for SEO and will be flagged by Google
• AI maximises productivity and streamlines repetitive tasks, but AI content lacks the key drivers for creating emotional connections

Where Creative Copywriters Trump AI

You don’t need me to tell you that human emotions and connections are integral to content marketing. I know I bang on about the importance of creating connections, but you need them if you want your content to perform. 

So if you’re not getting the results you want from your web copy (or copywriter), you’ll look for alternatives. Cue robots and AI for business. 

Great SEO copy performs and actively engages an audience. It provides value and creates an emotional connection, one that’s often built through the power of stories.

While AI is a smart tool to aid the process, no matter how good it is at churning out copy, those words aren’t the best words for your audience. 

Why?

Users demand audience-specific content tailored to their needs, wants and search intent —content that’s written by humans, for humans. 

The best website copy is not superficial. You don’t simply choose keyphrases and write optimised copy around them either. Good SEO copywriting, like any form of marketing, sprouts from strategic thinking, originality and the ability to creatively connect dots in ways we haven’t seen from AI tools like ChatGPT. 

That doesn’t mean AI shouldn’t be a valuable part of your toolkit though. There are benefits, especially if you want to maximise productivity and streamline repetitive and mundane tasks. 

When used logically, AI tools can help create better content. But they should be used as an assistant, not an outsourcing solution. 

Is Your Content Experienced?

ChatGPT opposes everything Google asks for in user-friendly content; web copy that demonstrates Experience, Expertise, Authority and Trustworthiness. Without meeting these signals, you leave your audience unsatisfied and run the risk of Google devaluing your content. 

Since AI-written copy lacks E-E-A-T credentials, quality raters (and users) will struggle to trust content that doesn’t showcase the expertise of the writer and their years of experience. 

Imagine what that lack of trust and credibility could do to your brand.

Google’s Helpful Content algorithm is also something to factor in, which rewards content that gives readers a satisfying experience. The most recent update highlights that content must be written by people, for people to be deemed helpful. After all, it’s content from humans that provides a more cohesive and satisfying approach to creative copywriting and SEO. 

Without the experience or interpersonal understanding of your business, how can AI articulate why customers should choose you, or most importantly, why they should trust your brand? You need more than just a bot to handle your strategy.

Copywriters and business owners cannot rely solely on AI tools for web copy, doing so is irresponsible and detrimental to your brand. 

If you want to spice up your content and make your readers and Google hungry for more, focus on creating authentic human experiences. 

For websites, this demands three essentials.

1. Uniquely written, reliable and people-first content 
2. SEO elements according to best practices 
3. Functional and visually appealing web design

AI for SEO

Bots like ChatGPT can be incredibly useful for marketing materials such as emails, sales letters, social media and speeches. But 100% AI-written content is ‘rubbish’ for SEO. Your web copy might be new, but it won’t be original or have that competitive edge. Quality content with backlinks is what ranks. 

The SEO value of content depends on how informative, useful, credible and engaging it is. High-performing copy must also be optimised for your target keyphrases.

AI tools can find and categorise keyword opportunities and generate content that ranks – much quicker than any SEO specialist or copywriter could. But using AI to automate the process puts your content and SEO strategy at risk. 

Because anything less than reliable damages your brand and hurts your online presence.

A New Era of Search

We’re almost living in The Jetsons era. But instead of flying cars, we’re seeing robots make mind-blowing breakthroughs in medicine, healthcare and agriculture. 

The online world is no different, and there’s no denying web search is changing. 

Just recently, Microsoft and Google have jumped on board with AI-assisted search similar to the conversational bot ChatGPT. But Google is no stranger to AI search technology. Its machine-powered algorithms have been helping to process search results for years, for example, RankBrain and BERT among others. 

These algorithms use Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Natural Language Understanding (NLU) to scrape answers from websites, process search queries and determine what results appear and how.

SEO still remains relevant, no matter how sophisticated AI gets. AI search simply creates new opportunities the same way Google’s Knowledge Graph, Alexa and Siri did when they first came out. 

Penalties for AI-Generated User-Content

With AI, you have an indispensable tool for automating the time-consuming parts of copywriting like research, outline development and generating ideas. 

But everyone who uses AI tools such as ChatGPT and Jasper is using the same language model. This can generate similar content for related topics and causes copy to be flagged if it’s too similar to published materials. The secret behind this is advanced pattern recognition. 

When you use AI tools to generate content, it’s very similar to article spinner tools that shuffle words and use synonyms to spit out copy. This doesn’t provide value to your audience and steps wildly on plagiarism’s toes. 

Google says AI falls under auto-generated content which is against guidelines and can lead to a manual penalty, harming your website and business. On the other hand, the company also has a policy of rewarding high-quality content and will continue to prioritise people-first copy, whether humans or machines produce it. 

It would be unlikely for Google to completely ban the use of AI content anyway, when they use AI so heavily themselves. 

Robots or not, there’s no way to beat search algorithms outside of creating reliable, human-first content. And Google is smart at detecting (and penalising) AI-generated words. 

How to Avoid Ending up in Digital Landfill 

If you’re using 100% AI-generated copy for web pages, blog articles, product descriptions or any other form of digital content, it’ll be flagged as rubbish by Google. And your site will be dumped into the digital landfill – a place where profits crumble and customer engagement dissolves. 

The best way to avoid compromising your SEO and hurting your brand is to use AI as a foundation – not the final (or only) solution. 

There are three options to consider as a business owner who needs web copy:

1. Hire an experienced SEO copywriter who has the expertise to write for your business – whether we use our own unique creative brilliance or embrace AI transparently in one or more processes
2. Learn to work with AI automation but don’t use it to spin hundreds of articles or manipulate the algorithm – and make sure you’re upfront about where and why you’re using AI
3. Write all of the content yourself, which isn’t ideal for time-poor business owners or someone without SEO copywriting experience 

Tips to Maximise the Benefits of AI

I’ll let you in on a little secret. 

Digital marketing isn’t all conscious planning and creative brilliance. There are many tedious tasks we can speed up, automate and improve with AI if it’s used ethically and responsibly. AI tools might not be able to replace the skills and real-world experience of copywriters, but it doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be used in digital marketing and the SEO industry. 

Here are a few processes that can be streamlined with AI:

Spark content ideas

While creativity can’t be forced, AI tools can be useful for stimulating ideas. It’s still important to work with a copywriter who can flesh them out with human skill and find a unique angle to further research into, plan and write. And you should never publish topics or ideas as they come. 

Research

Extensive research is an enormous part of marketing, especially SEO and copywriting. AI chatbots can help simplify the process, summarise PDFs and create content outlines, providing a solid starting point to dive deeper into.

From an SEO perspective, most conventional keyword research tools already use an AI input, helping to crawl and analyse large amounts of data in far less time. But it’s the experience of an SEO copywriter that solidifies the right information into creative web copy that converts.

Editing drafts

Every piece of content you publish must be grammatically checked. No one is perfect after all, and typos can fall through the cracks when double-checking information, even by the smartest of people. 

Grammar-checking programs such as Hemingway Editor and Grammarly are powered by AI-enabled algorithms. I’ve been using both to tweak and polish my copy for years. In this case, it could make sense to test an AI tool for streamlining the editing process. A skilled human proofreader will have to refine the final output. 

Automate helpful content

Not all use of automation and AI-generated content is spam. There are types of helpful content, such as transcripts and weather forecasts that many publishers automate with AI to save time. AI tools can also be useful for Google Ads and social media captions. Human editing and fact-checking are still required. 

With or without AI, you should never publish any content without asking yourself is it helpful or spam? Was it written with purpose or does it add to the noise?

More importantly, does it offer a solution to your audience’s problems? 

My Creative Copywriter Bias

There is a lot of concern surrounding AI technology stealing jobs. In many industries it already has, so it’s normal to have some anxieties around it. But I don’t believe robots for writing or online search is something to be anxious about. 

AI isn’t here to take over, it’s designed to help. And believing robots might replace copywriters is like thinking computers will replace writers. Can a tool replace the person who uses it? Maybe for menial tasks. But writing content that creates connections is far from menial.

As predicted, AI has evolved into imaginative and highly-intelligent machines. But that emotional human component is still integral for content marketing and those important parts of people’s searching and buying journeys only a human can relate to. 

Key Takeaway

While AI-generated content may seem efficient and affordable, it lacks these key drivers of creative thinking and personal perspective that are needed for creating content that converts. 

AI technology is always learning and will only get more sophisticated. Instead of trying to beat it, why not find ways to ethically embrace it? 

As an SEO copywriter, it’s my job to provide value through helpful content that creates connections. I’ve been doing that for many happy businesses for more than 10 years – and I’ll always strive to give more value than a bot can. 

Robots may not be able to harm you (yet), but don’t let them harm your words, your website or your brand either. 

Disclaimer: 

There are elements of AI I use in my work regularly:

• AI-powered online searches each time I perform research for articles, websites and client research
• Keyword research tools that use AI inputs, which help me find suitable keyphrases to target and content gaps to fill
• Hemingway Editor and Grammarly for minor edits that refine final blogs
• CoSchedule’s Headline Studio – a tool that uses AI to analyse headlines against key parameters and provide a headline and SEO score

The post Should You Use AI for Creating Brilliant, More Efficient Content? appeared first on the little typewriter.

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

Blogs are an essential tool to have in your business toolbox. 

Whether you’re a sole trader, small business owner or run a large company, having an updated blog keeps your brand at the forefront of customers’ minds; making it easier for them to extract the information they need, when they need it.  

When executed properly, business blogs are a powerful tool that can be used for more than amplifying your site’s traffic. They are highly effective for connecting with audiences, increasing conversions and boosting brand presence, among other benefits.  

Creating regular blog content doesn’t come easy though. 

Blogs rely on time, expertise and creativity. While you are an expert in your field, not every business owner has the skill or time to create consistent, quality blog content. 

Those who do make the worthy investment get the competitive edge a solid blog brings. Explore some of the advantages below.

1. Strengthen Your Customer Relationships

When you interact with your customers through high-quality content, you create a conversation that cultivates brand loyalty. Blogs are a vital tool that helps facilitate this engagement and get into the heart of your audience.

The best way to do this is by learning what your customers want and creating relevant content that targets their pain points. 

This two-way conversation allows you to write content on the issues your audience is interested in while inviting them to share their feedback. Through relevant blog content, you can learn what your customers expect and need based on the types of articles they respond to and then adjust accordingly.

2. Build Trust

Blogs are an affordable tool for building trust. Trust in your brand, as well as in your products or services. 

The more value you provide your audience, the higher chance you have of fostering a stronger relationship. Ultimately this establishes credibility and authority, which is important for being a business that your customers choose to advocate for. 

When it comes to online buying behaviour, consumers often research first, especially if it’s a big purchase. Having informative blog content helps your target audience in the early stages of their buying process.

In fact, 60% of consumers find reading blogs important, and small businesses with blogs generate 126% more leads than those without. 

Build trust through blog articles by:

• Creating informative and educational content
• Using blog articles to help your customers overcome their challenges 
• Making buyer personas to understand your audience better and target content specifically for them 

3. Tap into Organic Search Traffic

There are some serious SEO benefits to blog content. 

Increasing organic traffic is often the top reason why businesses add a blog to their website. However, there is a lot of behind-the-scenes work that goes into optimising an article for search to get it in front of the right people. 

If you want blog content that drives and amplifies traffic to your site, it must:

• Be relevant and valuable
• Include suitable keywords in the correct places
• Written for your audience first, then optimised for Google
• Have the optimal headline
• Include a call to action to convert your traffic into leads

4. Stamp Industry Authority 

Stamp authority within the industry by using blog articles to address consumer concerns. Not only does this establish your brand as an industry leader, but it’ll help boost sales by positioning your business as knowledgable, approachable and personal. 

High-quality blogs are a tool to share your expertise and tackle key issues. When you create content your audience relates to, you make your brand more memorable and boost engagement, which ultimately leads to results.  

5. Create Content to Utilise 

Blog articles give you useable content you can use across multiple platforms. Instead of reinventing the wheel each time, feed your social media funnel with educational information and reuse those delicious words for posts. If you’ve invested in web copy or you post regular blogs, turn snippets from each page and article into quick tips for informative posts. 

Share the full article on your social platforms or find 3-5 key points your audience will find valuable to break up and post, tip by tip.

Your story page? Use a snippet as an intro post to welcome new followers. Your FAQ page? Write a Q&A post to target your customer’s pain points. Your service pages? Create a post about what you offer and how it can benefit your target audience. 

6. Humanise Your Brand

Transparency creates likeability, which leads to trust. 

Regular blogging humanises your brand by sharing business news and valuable content that’s not always about selling. Have a brilliant case study that showcases a happy customer? Share it as a blog article with real results. Interviewed an industry expert for the latest tips or trends? Add it to your content schedule. 

Your blog should:

• Connect with customers on a personal level and show them you’re human too
• Never underestimate the power of good storytelling 
• Make your customers the hero of your story
• Highlight what your business is up to and how this can benefit your audience
• Go behind the scenes 
• Discuss current trends and topics related to your industry 
• Be engaging and audience-specific 

What’s Next?

If you’re thinking of adding a blog to your website, the answer is yes!

But don’t start without a plan. 

Blogging takes effort and creative energy. To get the best return on investment, invest in a blog writing service that can take your brand’s voice and write content that speaks to your people. It doesn’t have to be difficult to start – learn how I can help below.

The post 6 Reasons Why You Should Add a Blog to Your Website appeared first on the little typewriter.

Estimated reading time: 8 minutes

We live in a world where a good online presence is essential for businesses, regardless of their size. If your website copy doesn’t speak to your audience, or your site isn’t user-friendly and hard to find, the impact on your business is harmful.

This is where a creative copywriter who’s qualified in Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) comes in. 

More than ever, businesses are now turning to digital experts to improve and maintain their online presence. When you hire a creative copywriter, you’re in a stronger position to satisfy your audience and be found online. For business owners, it’s a cost-effective way to increase brand visibility through consistent, valuable content that converts. 

Here are the fundamentals to consider before you hire an SEO copywriter.

1. Choose Professional over Personal

We all have that one friend who’s the jack of all trades. They’re a photographer, graphic designer and marketer, and can whip up a website in a week that looks decent. But that doesn’t mean they’re right for your project. 

I’ve seen many business owners turn to friends for help in an effort to save money. I get it, sole traders and small businesses have tight budgets. Unfortunately, it doesn’t always work out and ends up costing more time and money in the long run.  

Unless your friend has specific expertise as a creative SEO copywriter, use a professional. 

Why?

Because there’s a fine art to writing for people and search engines that cannot be achieved by anyone – including web developers, designers, SEO experts and other business owners. 

Web developers specialise in programming websites, SEO companies specialise in generating traffic and creative copywriters are experts in crafting content. The same way a writer differs from a marketing professional is why you wouldn’t get just any copywriter (or friend, SEO agency or web developer) to write your web content. 

2. Map Out Your Requirements 

The best way to hire the right person for the job is to map your requirements. 

Ask yourself these questions first:

• What do you need the copywriter to produce? Ie: blog articles or web copy pages such as home, about and services 
• What are your content goals?
• What does your target audience look like and want?
• What are the key messages about your brand?
• What style and tone should the copywriter adopt?
• Will there be dependencies on others like web designers?
• When do you need the project by?
• What’s your budget?

Copywriters will give you a creative brief to nut out these project questions. By having these guidelines in place early, your copywriter will understand what you want to achieve and how and why you want to say it. As the relationship develops, we will get to know your organisation as if it were our own. 

Be realistic about your requirements, timeframe and budget. Professional copywriting is affordable, but quality doesn’t come cheap and some of the best copywriters are often booked out months in advance. 

What does an SEO copywriter cost? Learn more about how much you should pay. 

3. Understand the Process

You don’t have to know everything about how SEO copywriters work to benefit from our services, but it pays to have a good idea. 

SEO copywriting services combine professionally written content with search engine optimisation. By creating quality content that provides readers with value, along with current white hat SEO strategies, websites have a higher chance of ranking higher in the search results. 

The 4-part process consists of:

1. Keyword and Competitor Research: What use is a website if it can’t be found? Finding relevant keywords and phrases (search terms), and incorporating them naturally into your content and key places onsite help your content produce results. Keywords are also useful for finding new topics to write about, learning what your audience wants and amplifying content to meet content gaps
2. Content Research: Crafting the magic with the reader, brand and search intent in mind
3. Writing: Optimising and structuring the content with header tags, call to action and target keywords. For search engines to see content as relevant, it needs to be at least 500 words 
4. Meta, Editing and Review: Adding an enticing meta description with your main keyword, optimising the URL and editing (at least twice), reviewing and publishing the content piece

Explore a day in the life of a Perth copywriter.

4. Hire an SEO Copywriter who Doesn’t Sacrifice Quality

SEO is essential – but you should always write for your readers first, and Google second. 

Writing for search engines and people has similar goals. A good SEO copywriter will understand how to optimise content naturally to help it perform well while writing content that solves the user’s problem. It’s not just about ranking well, but providing value to your readers without the fluff or over-optimising. 

5. Agency or Direct?

Agency copywriters very rarely work directly with their clients. The project brief is given to an in-house writer or outsourced to a lower-quality writer. While agencies can get the job done quicker, with better availability and multiple copywriters or freelancers to outsource to, they often charge higher rates and you don’t always get to choose (or know) who writes your copy. 

Agencies aren’t just about copywriting, either. They work on a variety of digital tasks and pay their copywriters full time, even when they’re not working on your project. 

When you work directly with a copywriter, you can build a stronger relationship that supports sustainable results. Costs are more affordable, with inherent flexibility on scope and budget. Over time we begin to breathe your brand. 

Disclaimer: I work closely with my clients and don’t outsource any writing. This ensures a level of quality and expertise for the businesses I work with. While I am biased and believe working directly with an SEO copywriter gives the best value, I have also worked for an SEO agency as a Senior Copywriter and understand the pros and cons of both. 

Why Hire a Creative Copywriter Qualified in SEO?

Businesses can become more competitive by understanding how to hire a website copywriter. When qualified in creative storytelling and SEO they bring insight, experience and an expert understanding of the power of great copy. 

An SEO copywriter will know how to unlock your brand’s voice, select the best keywords and tackle extensive competitor research, creative writing and editing specifically for your industry.

The post How to Hire a Creative SEO Copywriter – 5 Fundamentals appeared first on the little typewriter.

Estimated reading time: 8 minutes

Did you know most business owners fail to consider keyword research when planning their website?

But the importance of keyword research cannot be overlooked if you want to create helpful content for your audience.

It’s like building a house without a blueprint. You wouldn’t do it, because the project would fail and cost you more in money, time and energy. And how would you know what you’re building without a blueprint anyway?

The same logic applies to your website. 

Construction plans rely heavily on the blueprint as the foundation for the entire planning process. Websites rely heavily on keyword research to drive the content strategy and ensure tangible results.

If you want your business to be found online, there’s more to the puzzle than the layout and web copy. The purpose of keyword research is to unlock deeper insights into your users and the queries they’re searching for online. It’s essential for streamlining your site, keeping your content on track and your brand and audience in focus. Yet business owners too often leave it until after the design and content. You put your website or new content together, then optimise it.  

But keyword research is not an ‘after’ tactic. 

When Should You Perform Keyword Research?

Before you start designing your website or writing new copy.

Prioritising keyword research helps map your audience’s journey. When you skip this process (or do it later), you miss valuable insights about what your users want. Without clear direction, how do match their search query with the appropriate content on your site? 

While it’s possible to go back and implement keywords once the content is written, you’ll need to reconfigure a lot of the development work already done. 

For example; changing the IA (Information Architecture) and setting up redirects. You’ll also miss out on organic traffic, making your website and copy a waste if the right people aren’t finding it. 

Is Keyword Research Still Important?

Yes!

The most obvious benefit of keyword research is it helps people find your business online. On a wider scale, it’s important for cutting through the noise and understanding your audience to write the right content for them. 

There are over 3 billion users online. Even if you only wanted to reach 500, you still need a performing website to stand out from the competition – one that’s optimised for your audience and Google. 

Keyword research for SEO benefits business owners in the following ways:

Drives Your Marketing Efforts

Keywords give you a deeper understanding of your audience’s behaviour, the type of content they need and how it all fits in the buying funnel. 

This allows you to:

• Build a strong digital marketing foundation – social media campaigns and PPC are also keyword-focused 
• Boost your content strategy 
• Create an ongoing SEO plan focused on your buyer’s intent
• Produce unique, educational and conversational copy, while also identifying content gaps to improve your content
• Avoid writing content blindly 
• Satisfy search intent

Increases Leads and Conversions

If your goal is to attract leads and like-minded customers, you have to learn their language. Keyword research helps uncover the words and search terms your audience is using, so you can write specific content for them. This level of targeting maximises your conversation rate because your copy is attracting the right people at every stage of their buying journey. 

Keeps Your Business Relevant

Keywords determine what your business is known for. 

When you create content relevant to your user’s search intent, you show up higher in the search results making your brand more connected.  

Here’s why:

• Best answers come first, therefore your content needs to be relevant to rank 
• By doing keyword research early, you can analyse what websites are currently ranking and be in a better position to understand your user’s search intent

Allows You to Understand Market and Search Demand

It’s one thing to identify your audience, but unless you recognise how they search too, you won’t be able to create content for them. 

Keyword research starts with your target market. 

1. What problem(s) they are trying to solve
2. How they search for these solutions

Once you grasp this, you need to analyse what information you should create to meet their demand and ensure there’s a big enough audience for your efforts. Search demand reveals the estimated search volume (traffic) for your business and industry, which is key to the success of any digital marketing project. 

Search queries also tell a story and can provide an endless source of quality content ideas – all of which help you serve your users better. 

Every Internet search has a need behind it, even if only informational. Eventually, this need will translate into a transactional search – if your content and products or services fit with the user’s need. At the very least, it’ll keep your business at the forefront of their minds when they’re ready to make a purchase or use your services.

Encourages Organic Search 

No matter how valuable your content is – if it’s not optimised or you’re using search terms with no volume, your website won’t perform properly. 

You’ll also risk publishing topics with little or no interest to your users, or investing in content creation for search terms that are too competitive. Both are costly mistakes. 

4 Quick Keyword Research Tips

There are plenty of tools for keyword research and the search demand process.

1. Know what you’re already ranking for

If you’re updating your website, find what keywords you already rank for so you can find new related search terms to target. 

You can use tools like Google Search Console, SEMRush, UberSuggest and Keyword Planner (Google AdWords).

2. Use long-tail keywords

Long-tail keywords are made up of three to five words. Now Google places more emphasis on semantic search, keywords have evolved from words to phrases. Semantic search allows users to search entire sentences to find what they’re looking for. Look at questions people are asking online and consider longer phrases. 

For example: ‘best photographer near me’ over ‘Perth photographer’.

3. Put yourself in your audience’s shoes

The only way to satisfy the needs of your customers is to think like them. Understand the context behind their search queries and you unlock content ideas to solve their problems with.  

For example: ‘eco coffee pods’ or ‘stainless steel coffee pods’ give more context over ‘coffee pods’. 

4. Combine keyword research with competitor research

Study websites within your industry and see if there are relevant search terms you could use. You can manually search for keywords by viewing the source code or Ahrefs and UberSuggest allows limited free reports to see how your competitors are positioning. Use competitor research to identify any content gaps too. 

Wrapping Up

As a general rule of thumb, you should revisit your content and SEO strategy every 6-12 months. It’s not a one-time deal, because the needs of users are constantly shifting. Make sure you monitor your site and look for changes in search behaviour each month. 

Not sure where to start? Get in touch to learn more.

The post The Importance of Starting with Keyword Research for Website Success appeared first on the little typewriter.

The Coronavirus has pushed the world into a new digital era. The number of remote workers has exploded, and more time is being spent online by consumers and business owners. It makes sense many businesses are now transitioning digitally and adapting their products and services to stay afloat. 

While everyone still remains in the grip of COVID-19, there are options to ensure your business stays workable today and on the other side of the crisis. 

One of the best ways to drive online success is through a small business blog. Regular content on your website brings more readers and potential customers to you. But not just any blog will do. To encourage people to find your content, you must create SEO-friendly articles. After all, if it can’t be found, what’s the point in writing it? 

If you want to hit the ‘publish’ button on the next stage of your business, it’s important to keep a regular blog. Businesses with active blogs produce 67% more leads and get 55% more website visitors than those without.

Learn how to get the most from your blog with these tips and grab your free checklist below.

This article will cover:

1. Strategy and Keyword Research

Before you create, you need to plan. 

Part of a successful content strategy is keyword research, which is the process of finding what keyword phrases your audience is searching for, so Google can measure relevance for each search query and you can target content to what readers want. 

Before writing any website content, invest time into SEO keyword research and topic research. 

Your chosen keyword phrases should consider:

1. Relevancy (how relevant the keyword phrases are to your products or services)
2. Frequency (number of searches)
3. Competition (how many websites are trying to rank for them, the higher the competition, the more time and effort you’ll need to put in)
4. Search intent (what web content people expect to see, for example; if someone searches ‘Thai food’ they may want anything to do with Thai food, but, if they search ‘takeaway Thai food near me’ or ‘Thai food recipes’ it’s very clear what they’re after

Keyword phrases are crucial indicators of how people search. Once chosen, they should be strategically placed (not stuffed) in your article title, content body, Meta descriptions and image ALT text. 

For a small business blog to bring results, there also needs to be a consistent flow of articles. Plan content in advance with a schedule you can stick to. A three-month plan is a good starting point and allows for seasonal blog content, industry news and articles around the search terms your audience are using. 

2. SEO-Friendly Formatting 

A coherent blog structure is an integral part of SEO to improve readability and climb organic rankings. 

Without a set text structure, your content will appear disorganised and unreadable. This puts readers and Google off, as Google prioritises user-friendly web content. 

To create an SEO-friendly blog format include these key elements:

• Use correct headings and subheadings (h1 for your main title followed by h2, h3 or h4)
• Make your content skimmable with small blocks of text, bullet points and whitespace
• Break text up with images and blockquotes
• Use transition words and clear paragraphs 
• Include an introduction, content body and conclusion 
• Have a distinct focus (1 niche or topic per blog post)

Format your content using the readability analysis in the Yoast SEO WordPress plugin. Both the free and paid versions offer insights into how user-friendly your blog post is. Don’t forget to check how your article looks on desktop, tablet and mobile before publishing. 

Bonus Tip: Run your title heading (h1) through CoSchedule, a free tool that teaches you to write better headlines by balancing the essential factors needed for an attention-grabbing title. The Hemmingway app will also help refine your text and give a readability score. I like to keep mine above 70.

3. Data and Detail

Readers love data. Use facts and statistics from trustworthy sources to build trust with your audience and back up what you’re saying. 

Quality content also has enough detail to satisfy readers and is optimised for an appropriate blog length. Web content should be at least 400 words to perform. Generally, longer blog posts rank better. But not if it’s full of fluff. The aim is to meet the searcher’s needs with comprehensive content that offers value. A mix of short and long-form content will help your business blog perform. 

4. Internal and External Links

Relevant internal and external links within your blog content are good for SEO. 

Why?

1. They establish hierarchy, giving the most important articles or pages more link value than others
2. Encourages good linking structure on your site
3. Creates relationships between content, which helps users and Google follow links and find other pages/posts that cover similar subject matter
4. Points your readers to other relevant content where they can find more information 
5. Spreads your ‘link juice’
6. Increases time spent on your website and pages per visit 

Use internal links to connect posts or pages on your own website and external links to connect your content to other websites. The Yoast SEO plugin will recommend popular or relevant posts and pages you could link to in the right-hand sidebar in WordPress too.

Bonus tip: Make sure external links open in a new window and internal links open in the same window. 

5. Proofreading

Avoid badly written content by proofreading posts before you publish. 

Even the best writers need to edit. After I write a blog article, I find it better to let it breathe for a few hours before editing. Then I sleep on it. Writing is more concise when it’s left to simmer. The fresh perspective of moving away and coming back allows you to see your content differently and find things you would otherwise miss. Edit multiple times and read it aloud. Better yet – have another set of eyes look over it for you. 

6. Metadata  

The snippets of text that show up in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) tell people what your content is about. In particular, Google looks at the title tags to determine where to show your site in the results. 

How to optimise Meta titles

• Accurately reflect what your post is about in 50-60 characters 
• Include the keyword phrase you’re trying to rank for (preferably at the beginning) 
• Add your business name at the end

How to optimise Meta descriptions 

Meta descriptions are keyword searchable. While they aren’t a ranking factor, they do entice readers to click through and visit your site. Be creative and transparent. 

• Accurately reflect the content on the page in 50-160 characters 
• Include the target keyword phrase
• Add a unique call to action
• Use an actionable, active voice

Bonus Tip: Write unique Metadata for every web page and post. I use SEOMofo which previews how the title, description and URL will look.

7. Image ALT Text

Use at least two images in your blog article to break up text, illustrate points and ensure your content is visually appealing. Ideally, your copy, graphics and branding colours will work together to encourage your audience to stick around. Eye-catching images also help when promoting the post. See point 9. 

Adding ALT text to images allows the visually impaired to understand your graphics using a screen reader. They’re also necessary for Google to crawl and display them under Google’s image search.  

Make sure you:

• Use the ALT text to clearly describe what each image is about (under 125 characters + separated with hyphens)
• Add ALT text to every image
• Include your targeted keyword phrase in at least one relevant image
• Name the image file before uploading 
• Aim for small file sizes, without losing image quality (under 100KB is ideal)

Bonus Tip: Optimise images to avoid slowing down your website. Free tools like Optimizilla and Website Planet will help.

8. Clear Call to Action

A powerful call to action tells your readers what you’d like them to do after they finish reading. 

It’s not used to sell – the purpose of a small business blog is to direct readers to valuable information and connect further with your brand, not bombard them with sales talk. Instead, use your call to action to tempt people to read more of your blog articles or see how your services may help them. You could also ask for their email address in exchange for exclusive content or a free downloadable document. 

Bonus Tip: Stick to one call to action as multiple choices confuse and lose readers. 

9. Promotion Plan

After you hit the publish button, tell your audience you have new content with a promotion strategy. To help blog articles rank higher, Google wants to be sure readers will love it – and this requires traffic and clicks. 

• Share on social media
• Add the new article to your email signature
• Include social sharing buttons (I use Social Warfare)
• Create Pinterest-worthy images 
• Add to your newsletter
• Encourage other websites to link to your content by reaching out to anyone you think may be interested – the more relevant links back to your article, the more popular it is in Google’s eyes 

10. Ongoing Optimisation 

Now your article is live and shared, it doesn’t mean the work stops there. SEO is an ongoing task to monitor and improve your content for the best results. Use tools such as Google Analytics and Google Search Console to analyse, optimise and tweak blog content monthly. 

Business blogs are an effective tool to attract a wider audience, establish trust, gain credibility and increase engagement.

If you want to tap into the daily 3.5 billion Google searches, a well-written article isn’t enough – you need to optimise it for user search and publish consistently. 

Need help managing your business blog? I’m a Perth copywriter and creative storyteller who specialises in digital content. Contact me today to find out how my experience supports you.

Grab your free copy of my SEO-friendly checklist.

The post How to Get the Most From Your Business’s Blog appeared first on the little typewriter.