I have a confession to make! I haven’t blogged in months! With many personal things going on and the fact that my desire to write has been at a scarily low level.

I think it’s slowly coming back! It started a couple of weeks ago when I decided to see where this page was ranking. Low and behold it’s numero uno for “professional copywriter” and “professional copywriting”. This was obviously a pleasant surprise as I already had Bing and Yahoo under my belt.

But what had i’d done to have influenced the positioning, in short, nothing. For weeks this site has only shown twitter updates and that’s about it.

If I ever needed proof that Google enjoys fresh content, this would be it.

I’ve noticed an increase in traffic 20-50 per day and I’m quite proud to be ruling the roost. Not only have I captured top stop it was almost done entirely automated.

I essentially did the following -

  – thought of a keyword phrase “professional copywriter”
  – bought a relevant domain (as above)
  – bought an SEO kick ass theme (wp thesis)
  – did the meta data dance (keyword optimize pages)
  – added the right plugins (basic seo compliancy and syndication/twitter tools)
  – linked my site from a couple of my personal pages (twitter, linkedin etc)
  – footer optimised
  – wrote 12+ articles on the train home on my android (like now)
  – set my blog to announce all my tweets on a weekly basis.

Leave for 2 months until ready. Still pink on the inside.

This military style keyword optimising with very little linking (check using seoquake) was all I needed to dominate a niche.

The next thing on my list is SERP domination. Position 2,3,4 here I come!

People often ask the difference between writing for b2b and b2c. They share the same endgame and goal, but the style in which this is achieved is completely different. Great copywriting often appeals to one or the other, it isn’t until you analyse the content carefully that you realise who it is for, in brilliant copywriting, you can’t tell.

When writing for clients, the most important part is their client base, their customers and the people they are looking to convert. Depending on the type of customers they keep depends on your writing style and inevitably effects your copy.

Writing b2c. (Business to customer) is predominantly an easier readership, than b2b(business to business) simply because the people reading your content are often the decision makers, they’re often the people who want what you sell and have the money in their pocket to buy it.

From a copywriting perspective this makes life a little easier, identifying why they want your product, what appeals to them and how they feel when they have your product is pretty easy to write, basic market research and demographic analysis will give you what you need to know.

Another big benefit of b2c is the fact that there is one person reading your copy, the same person wanting your product and the same person holding the money, in b2b it’s quite different.

In b2b the content has to show them the benefits of picking you, for everyone that reads it, both secretary, manager, buyer and director all need to see the benefits of picking you, each person has different needs and will have different views of your product.

Allow me to explain…

The secretary – these are the people you should focus on predominantly, not only are they your first port of call in communicating with a potential client, but they also tend to read the most copy. How many directors ask their secretary or PA to look for a particular service. “Find a decent web agency, decorator, restaurant, training provider, etc. You can name anything and at some point, a secretary has made the first decision in picking you. A recruiter friend of mine called secretaries “the gatekeepers” and I couldn’t agree more, they are your first way in and often all you need.

Managers – in larger organisations managers will often be looking to acquire a particular product and service. In the dog eat dog world of middle management you need to look after number 1, so much so it carries into how they read your copy.
When choosing you they want to make themselves look brilliant, make themselves look like they’ve done the job, bought the best product or got the right service. Here they might not actually care about what YOU do, but how it will make THEM look.

Copywriters the world over accept that sometimes your readers don’t care what you sell!

Directors – The big fish are often the trickiest, as now your copy has to please 2 readers at the same time. A director has asked their secretary to find a product or service, you’ve managed to get on their list of 5, the list is then emailed or handed to the director(s) for them to make their decision, you copy needs to please them too!
You need to determine the balance between quality and price that exists in your marketplace, how much do your clients like good value compared to high quality, try and give them both. In an ideal world writing for a director is very similar to b2c again, you just need to add facts and figures to emphasize you USPs.

B2b content is often more difficult to write, but the rewards are always greater, business sales and contracts are often large and in turn people are willing to pay more if you can help them get a sale.

I’d love to know your thoughts on b2c vs b2b and how it affects your marketing strategies.

My apologies for the blatant link bait title! But hey! It got you here!

I’ve just joined a gym for the first time in my short and relatively uneventful life (24+ years) and I’ve noticed the amount of energy I now have at my disposal is abundant, improving my thought processes, enthusiasm and more importantly reducing writers block (3-4pm especially) so I can continually produce great content, come up with new ideas, and feel enthused over the mundane.

Now granted I’ve had a powerade and redbull after training, but my energy is created in the gym rather than the sugar+ caffeine combo.

So how can the gym help copywriting?

With a long day behind you, you’ve had a dozen creative meetings, you’ve produced copy which could do with some tweaking, and you’ve seen the scale of the task ahead, energy and morale may be at an all time low. Built up tension and stress flows through your body, inevitably making it difficult to sleep…..and the process starts over again.

The need to release the stress is an absolute must, some people will get blind drunk at the weekend, which inevitably doesn’t do the body any good and is more of a distraction than a cure.

However, the gym is a perfect solution, it allows you to vent frustration, work up a sweat, and get rid of the stress that you’ve accumulated through the week.

Sure the gym costs the same as another contract phone, but hey the benefits outway that 10 fold, plus with £30 riding on it every month, you almost force yourself into it (which is nothing but a good thing I might add)

Writing for robots and readers is a difficult job for a professional copywriter. In order to strike the balance between ranking for keyword terms in search engines and making sure that the readers find your articles, informative, inspiring and interesting. Getting the balance right is vital for a successful SEO and marketing campaign. It is pointless ranking for a KW term which won’t give the readers the information they require. You may be ranking for “car insurance” but if you only deal with travel insurance or classic car insurance you may not be ranking for the right terms and therefore becoming redundant to the readers.

Pleasing robots varies in difficulty considerably depending on the competitiveness of the particular keyword. it is worth comparing the traffic figures for keywords against the competitiveness.

Long tail optimisation often gives you the opportunity to target many low traffic easily achievable keywords to and generate the traffic that a competitive would achieve. When choosing whether to target the long tail it is worth deciding what the ROI would achieve. The ROI is not monetary but more the usage of time and how much work it takes to rank for a keyword.

In the land of the blind, the one I’d man is king. In the world of Social Media the man without self promotion is daft!

In an ever competitive employment industry with the difference between success and failure is so small, it is no surprise that people are developing brands to surround themselves.

As a Professional Copywriter it is no surprise that I’ve decided to develop Michael Jessop “The Brand” in order to show myself in the best possible light. Especially in a world of Copywriters it is no surprise that I want to write and that I want to write well. A website therefore works brilliantly allowing me to write about the copywriting industry, whilst also creating my own distinct voice within that industry. The website becomes more fascinating to me as SEO walks hand in hand with copywriting………So how am I ranking???

The Keyword Term is often the deciding factor between a successful and unsuccessful strategy bringing with it varying levels of competition as well as varying sized sites and companies. After some brief consideration I decided on “Professional Copywriter”. Since starting this campaign 1 month ago I thought it would be worth letting people know where I am ranking in Google, Bing and Yahoo. Obviously Google is the competitive one but obviously as an SEO copywriter I’m attempting for the whole shebang! Ideally a top 3 result for each search engine would leave me happy and content (no pun intended) so with no further ado.

Bing……………………….Nowhere! (Microsoft huff!)

Google…………………11th

Yahoo………………………………….Numero uno! 1#

These results were correct as of 11/02/10

After I try different strategies with the attempt to increase my rankings I shall keep you informed!

Regards,

Michael Jessop – The Professional Copywriter……………Bye!

Calling all copywriters!! Calling all Copywriters!!

Forgive the 1930′s Chicago newspaper distributor! READ ALL ABOUT IT!!!

I’m sorry for bringing up the iPad again. As an Android user i’m pretty much anti Apple which makes this more difficult to bear. The problem is that the iPad, if successful, good revolutionise the way in which copywriters are used and could give writers the opportunity to write for the ibookstore. If my predictions are right ( I hate speculation posts too!) the iTunes phenomenon, in particularly the podcast element could be replaced by an online magazine rack with content/online mags being accessed through the iBookstore, similarly newspapers are already bartering with prices with Apple to be included in this ibookstore. It fills me with excitment that Apple has the power to thrust traffic your way by simply having you in their good books. Now I’m sure it won’t be easy to get on this list (to remove any spamming or potentially harmful material) but once there you can easily monetise the online mag and there you are – targetted consumers of your material brought to you by apple. The simple bookmarking of a magazine will be as simple as RSS or listening to a podcast.

Watch this space because I am confident that this is how it will roll out.

I wanna be the first one on there!! without a doubt.