Why Your Copy Isn’t Converting

Marketing is a pointless activity if your site cannot effectively close a sale!

Web site conversion is the most important factor to the success of your business online. Conversion is simply the process of getting your lead or prospect to complete the desired action you want them to do when they arrive on your website. Desired actions could be - buy your product, sign up for your newsletter or update, fill out a contact form, call you, bookmark your RSS feed.

Are you sending traffic to your website or blog, or spending money on advertising such as PPC but seeing no results?

People have asked me how to get more leads from social media, PR or SEO but if you want these leads to turn into business on your website then you really need to address your website content first!

What could be wrong with your copy?

• you keep talking about yourself/your company
• your main landing pages have too many pointless large images and small text (unless your are in the creative sector this isn’t great)
• your copy lacks focus
• No clear calls to action

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Write down the answer to these questions:

What is your core service or offering? (i.e what are you selling)

Chances are your offering might not be 100% unique.

Why should a client purchase from you/come to your company for this?

This is where you will tell me how great you are/ company is and how many years experience you have and how many clients you have already served….. Most people will naturally talk about themselves. Arrogant aren’t we!

But usually mixed in between all of this you will usually come out with at least 3 great things about you or your company that makes you truly unique! These are unique selling points and you need to learn how to maximise and exploit these!

After answering this question go back to your website, are you getting those points across?

What problem do you solve and for who?

You might give a vague answer here – for example ” I design business cards and letter heads for clients”.

But dig a little deeper… “I design eye-catching business cards and marketing collateral for businesses who want to stand out from the crowd”

(that isn’t the best example – but you see where I am going with this)

Clever copy to get into the mind of your audience and using emotion and meeting their needs

I am going to assume that you know who your target audience is for this post.

People are naturally egotistic they want to know how you can benefit them, make them more money, make them feel happier, make their life easier, save them time…etc.

Very often if people have a problem and you can fix it, they will pay irrespective of the price.

Here are are few ideas you can apply.

Present and address the Problem

I asked you about the problem your business solves earlier, and we need to go back to this.People buy on emotion and it is easy to assume that if someone is landing on your website they know you can help them out. A lot of time people are using the Internet to search for things and find solutions, don’t keep them guessing! Actually address the problem they face when they land on your site to remind them why they got there in the first place, this will tie in with their emotional aspirations.

Proof

Talking about how many years experience you have and how great your company is, is a no no. Keep it brief. Yes, you do want to appear as a credible company but sometimes going too in-depth about your business history and background is simply not needed.
But, people do like Proof - case studies of similar problems you have solved. It helps them identify with your offering. Proof also appeals to human nature.

Write in the second person
Use ‘you’ and ‘your’ to keep your reader interested and motivated. Remember no one wants to hear ‘me, me me’.

Above the fold

Keep to the screen environment. People can be lazy, don’t make them have to scroll before they get to the juice. I see many sites use an image slide show or huge graphics on their website which take up half the site but have no use in driving conversions.

Features AND Benefits
A mistake is too focus too much on the features, tell people what they will get by all means but don’t forget to explicitly address the benefits. Put yourself in your customers shoes, what benefits do your products and services give them?

Pinpoint Call to Action
Make sure the call to action on the site is clear, and actually tell people what to do as a result of landing on your site. It seems obvious but I see everyday this is one thing people miss!

If you want any advice optimising your copy please leave a comment below or contact me.