~~~Writing for the Search Engines and Your Prospects~~~
We'll be continuing our Nobscot.com case
study this week. Today, we'll discuss "headline power" and discuss
why headlines are so crucially important to any copywriting strategy.
Headlines are good.
If you read Rank Write, you'll know that headlines are crucially
important for the search engines. But what about your prospects? Will
they care?
You betcha.
Savvy headlines give your site a leg up in two ways. The first way is
that headlines visually "break up" the text and make the copy easier
to read. If you've ever visited a site with a long, scrolling text
block, you know exactly what I mean. Your eyes start to burn, your
brain starts to fry, and you can't click the "back" button fast
enough.
The second headline plus is that people typically scan pitches. If
you've ever read a direct mail piece, you'll notice the majority of
paragraphs have a benefit headline. Something like, "Imagine all the
time you'll save..." or "All this support for pennies a day." Direct
marketers have long known that quick-scan headlines reel the reader
into the copy and set the hook for the sale. Even if my headlines
were a fake example, think of the two benefits I've pushed. One - the
reader will save time. Two, the headline implies the price is very
affordable. Voila! That's powerful stuff - and I did it in 13 words.
Personalizing your headline to a teeny-tiny niche group is bad.
I bet you're thinking, "Huh? Since when is personalization bad?" My
beef with the Nobscot headline, "Thank you for visiting us at the HR
Technology Conference in Baltimore, Maryland" is that it's NOT a
headline. Yes, it's warmly welcoming people to the site. But it's
only welcoming the people that attended the Baltimore conference - not
their entire target audience. If Nobscot.com could do it all over
again, I would recommend that they have a personalized landing page
exclusively for the conference attendees, and promote that link at the
conference. That way, the landing page could address any special
issues raised at the conference, and they can personalize the content
as much as their hearts desire.
I noticed today that the "old" headline is swapped out with a new
headline reading, "Visit us at the SHRM Diversity Expo in San Diego
Dec 3-5 and see how Nobscot's WebExit(tm) Glass Ceiling Module
measures the success of your diversity initiatives." Congrats to
Nobscot for promoting their trade booth on their home page! HOWEVER,
although I think this should definitely be included on the home page,
they should consider moving the text to the right hand corner of their
site. This would still ensure that they're spotlighting their seminar,
and it would allow them room for a "real" headline.
Now, what would happen if Nobscot screamed, "We like our seminar
promotion blurb there"? Well, two things. One is that they lose the
headline benefits that we discussed earlier. The other is that it's
continuously changing text for the search engines. Since this
"headline" is in a primo spidering position, they'll miss out on the
rankings boost that a stable, keyphrase-rich headline can provide.
The alternative to this is transforming their headline into a graphic.
This way, the search engines will skip the changing text and start
spidering after the graphic.
A short note about headline creation - Jill mentioned in Rank Write
067 that you can start with your Yahoo! description and edit it into a headline. Yes, you can do this - but I would be cautious. As a quick and dirty
headline template, it will work. If you are completely stuck and need
to use something as a headline, go for it. But remember, copywriters
get paid big bucks for headlines * alone *! Headlines can literally
make or break your marketing copy. If you need to do it this way, I
would recommend it as a temporary, short-term fix and not a long-term
solution. The last thing you want is people surfing away from your
copy because your headlines and subheadlines don't excite your
prospects.
Wow, can you believe you've read this far and we've only discussed the
headline? (Which demonstrates how crucial headlines can be!) In order
to save you from scrolling through an endless Rank Write, I'll close
this case study for today and pick it up when we return from Dallas.
Next issue, we'll dive further into the body text meat and discover
how Nobscot can create compelling copy.
Thanks for reading! Keep those online writing questions a-coming!
Heather
~~~Send Us Your Questions~~~
If you have questions about online copywriting or search engine optimization (or both!), just zip us an email to questions@rankwrite.com. We've had some folks ask if their question
was "too basic" to be printed - and you don't have to worry about
that! There are no "stupid" search engine optimization or copywriting
questions, so ask away!
