At the moment they are ranked 1 to 100 on Google for the main keyword.

The agency works diligently and fairly for all of them using the same techniques.

Now guess what their Google positions are for their specified keywords.

1 through 100.

Q.E.D.

So what’s the deal with SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) copywriting? Can you, by mere dint of clever wordsmithery, boot a site onto the front page of Google, possibly to the very top? Or is there something else going on?

I spent an hour or so combing through some of the supposedly best SEO blogs on the web, including one regarded in the SEO “community” as the best, to find out what’s the current advice on best practice. Here’s what I discovered.

Google employs many hundreds, possible thousands, of clever and quite morally driven people whose job it is to update the famous algorithm that determines PageRanks for a website.

They are not unaware of what’s going on out there so they simply weight the algorithm in favour of factors that are totally outside a site owner’s control.

Most important of these are “Trust/authority” and “Link popularity”. Loosely translated, this means if you are a highly regarded authority on a particular subject, budgerigar breeding, for example, many people who are also interested in budgerigar breeding will link to your site.

You can write about budgerigar breeding till you’re blue in the face (or possible green, or yellow), but unless you have those links, forget it.

It’s a simple but effective way of ensuring that the site owners who get the PageRanks are the ones with the deepest reputation, not the deepest pockets.

Copywriting (now referred to as part of “on-page optimization”) is important, but it comes pretty well bottom of the pile of decision-factors.

Listen to many soi-disant SEO experts and you will hear a great deal about the importance of keywords, meta tags, bold and italic tags …blah, blah, blah.

Once you have blown away the smoke and smashed the mirrors, the truth is revealed.

It’s no more a specialist art than decent direct mail copy ie make your copy relevant to your reader by talking in detail about the things that interest them. Use bold and italics to highlight key passages – but don’t overdo it. Write interesting headlines that help the reader understand what you’re talking about.

And, overall, write for your reader not for the spider – advice provided gratis by Google in its own report on SEO.

Just to close, here are a few of the qualifications in a report on on-page optimisation.

On tags:

“although not used for “rankings” by any of the major engines”

“although not necessary”

“we never recommend employing the tag”

On keyword density:

“A complete myth as an algorithmic component”

On body tags:

“never studied in a depth of detail that’s convincing to me”

“it has a very low correlation with high rankings (close to zero, in fact)”

“These tags appears to carry little to no SEO value”

“a very, very tiny amount of SEO weight”

“No testing has yet found that internal anchors are picked up/counted by the engines”

And their earth-shattering conclusion?

“whatever works best for the content and the visitors is likely ideal

The truth is that in the process of producing great web content, we sometimes forget, sometimes ignore and sometimes intentionally disobey the best practices laid out above.”

Right.

Asking for the order

I ran my first freelance copywriters’ masterclass yesterday in central London.

It was, I think, a success.

Our first exercise, as well as being a chance for the delegates to introduce each other, was to get a sense of everyone’s burning issues.

Perhaps not surprisingly, there were a few common threads…

• More money.
• More upmarket clients.
• Gaining confidence in quoting/holding the line.
• Selling skills.
• Marketing.

We also took time to write a vision for our businesses and an elevator pitch.

Andy teaching freelance copywriters how to run a more profitable business.

An overriding theme that emerged very early on was “Why don’t clients place more value on my work?”

It seems to me, having observed this market for a number of years, that the answer is, “Because you don’t.” (That’s all freelancers, not the ones on the masterclass.)

Measuring its value by the number of words you write or the hours it takes you is all wrong. So is charging as little as, say, £125 for a sales letter.

My advice? Start pegging the value of what you do to something that matters to the client, like revenue delta (change). A company hoping to win £500,000 in extra sales from a campaign they want you to write might, just, be willing to pay you properly for your expertise.

Andy with delegate Katherine Wildman.

Many thanks to Katherine Wildman for this pic and the two above.

I’ll close with this from delegate Laura Silcock…

“Andy’s freelance masterclass was absolutely brilliant and worth every penny. I came away feeling totally fired up and with heaps of practical advice and materials to help me set my business on a new, much more profitable, path. Andy’s got a really natural, friendly presenting style, so the day was thoroughly enjoyable, but he made sure we stayed on track and addressed all of our burning issues. The post-course hotline is a very welcome bonus and one that I’ll definitely be using. Andy really knows his stuff – not just about copywriting, but about building a business and I’m delighted that he’s happy to share his knowledge, techniques and experience.”

Copywriter Laura Silcock

You ask 15 people “What do you think of this?” and you get … 15 different answers. eg I don’t like that font. (They mean typeface.) Could you make the logo bigger? That isn’t our corporate colour.

That’s because you asked the wrong question.

Here’s what you should say…

“Based on your experience of what leads to maximum response rates in b2b direct marketing (or e-commerce or advertising), do you think there is anything we could do to this that would lead to more sales?”

Then you would get 15 identical answers. “I don’t know.”

Then you say, “OK, thanks, I’ll approve this then.”

Most copywriters, while happy to plough on through dense thickets of body copy, will do almost anything to avoid sweating over the really hard work: the headline.

Over the years, many copywriters, myself included, have offered up rules, regulations, mnemonics and other helpful guides on the ‘best’ way to write headlines.

Here’s a summary of some of the more useful ones.

Michael Masterson

The ‘4 U’s.

Your headline should be:

1. Useful
2. Unique
3. Ultra-specific
4. Urgent

“How to…” solves the first U.

If you can’t substitute another business name or product for yours in the headline, you have the second U down

“Save £34.97’ is more powerful than “Save money” for the third U.

Using “Now’, “Right away” or a deadline covers the fourth U.

Sean D’Souza

Ask a question in your headline. People love being asked questions and can’t help starting to think of the answer.

Get their curiosity buzzing. We’re hard-wired to solve problems. Ever see a chimp fishing for termites with a leaf mid-rib?

Focus on the problem, not the solution. “Why should you be the only one in your street with tired, sad-looking windows?” is more powerful than “Acme double glazing makes your windows sparkle”.

Brian Clark

Brian borrows from the late great Maxwell Sackheim for the classic: Do you make these [number] mistakes in your [activity].

You could say…

Do you make these 7 mistakes in your blog posts?

Do you make this fatal mistake when pricing your work?

Do you make these three wealth-destroying mistakes when picking stocks?

Headline writing IS hard. But it’s also fun. If you’re stuck for ideas, read a book, like the three guys above have done; or read a blog; or Google it; or go back to your product and dig deeper.

Didn’t have a degree in marketing. Or anything.

Did start his career in door-to-door sales.

Didn’t claim to know the rules of grammar.

Did write some of the 20th Century’s most effective advertising.

Didn’t view creativity as a goal of advertising.

Did shift millions and millions of dollars’ worth of other people’s merchandise.

Didn’t tweet, blog or poke.

Did write some brilliant books.

Makes you think.

People don’t always buy what they need, but they often buy what they want.

Here’s a personal story that illustrates my point.

When we relocated the agency to Salisbury, I quickly realised we needed a second car. One I could use to get to client meetings and training courses when the family jalopy was full of children/shopping/surfboards.

Here’s what I needed. A car that was:

1. Cheap to buy
2. Available instantly
3. Cheap to run
4. Reliable
5. Frugal on fuel
6. Easy to look after
7. Roomy enough for one or at most two people plus a suitcase or two

In other words, a two-year-old Ford Fiesta.

And here’s what I ended up buying:

A 1973 Rover v8 Coupe (derelict). Here’s how it fared on my checklist:

1. I spent a significant five-figure sum having it restored.
2. I waited almost a year to see it completed.
3. It cost me around £500 a month for the year I owned it.
4. It broke down on the coldest night of the year, and I never trusted it enough to drive it for business.
5. It did, conservatively, 18 miles per gallon.
6. It needed constant polishing if it was not to turn into rust, and regular maintenance I was neither equipped nor qualified to carry out.
7. It could carry four adults and their luggage in comfort.

But I WANTED it. In fact, it wasn’t an “it” at all. It was Babs, and I still dream about her from time to time.

So next time you’re writing copy, remember to activate the power of desire. Price and scarcity can work for you not against you.