We all know the importance of gaining top visibility to a
specific target audience on the major search engines. After all,
you really need qualified traffic or those who are actually
searching for goods and services that you are offering. While
most of the time, we teach folks about the importance of doing
good keyword research and/or behavioral research to ensure they
are attracting an "ideal" target audience, there is
another more natural aspect that I'd like to just touch on
here.
Writing for search engine robots is not
enough:
Many search engine optimizers are empowered
through training, with the ability to write for search engine
robots and have crafted their skills to score exceptionally well
for top relevancy. It surely is essential but there is another
element that we need to reflect on besides just writing for
search engine robots (as important as that is). I am referring
to the importance of compelling your visitor to respond right
now once they have landed on the Web page as a result of finding
you in the top results. Just what is the exact reason that your
target audience will make a buying decision? Why will they
decide to buy or not to buy? What do they need to read within
your copy that will get them to act right now?
There
are only so many reasons why your visitors buy:
When I first
started my business, I use to love to ask questions like....Can you explain why I
should buy from you? Invariably the client can often point out a number of
important reasons why you might buy from him instead of the guy down the
street. What you want to do is try asking a series of questions to help
profile the client's target audience. After all, this is the most
important group to try and understand....the "target audience".
At our live SEO
Mastery Workshop, we teach people powerful ways that they
can research their target audiences behavior. But let's start by
arming you with a few basic questions that should help you think
about your writing style and communications.
Online
or offline, most human beings have certain mindsets which can
trigger buying. The
challenge however, is we often behave a certain way without ever
giving an ounce of thought to the REAL REASON why we buy.
If we understand the real reason that that visitors respond, we
can suddenly write much more effectively for the human brain as
well as the search engine robots.
Let's
start by listing a 5 simple reasons that will trigger buying
decisions:
- People will buy to save money
- People will also buy to make money
- People will buy something if it saves them time
- People will buy
a product or service if it makes life easier
- People will buy something if it improves their safety
Okay, now in each of these 5 examples, ask yourself the
following questions:
- If people will buy to save money -
then ask yourself...
if your product or
service saves them any money? (This is a trigger)
- If people buy to make money
then ask yourself...
does your product or service offer your audience any
opportunities to earn?
- If people buy to save time
then ask yourself...
....how might this apply to what you offer?
- If people buy
to make life easier
then ask yourself...
are you able to name some improved conveniences?
- If people buy to improve safety,
then ask yourself...
does your product improve security or make people
feel safer?
You can see how having an understanding WHY people
buy, can actually change the way you present your content. These
types of questions will often help you with writing much more
compelling copy because you are writing with a focus that
includes a reason to respond now.
But wait!...
Are these the only reasons why people buy? Absolutely
not!
Start by creating a list of your own "triggers" or
things that caused you to "make up your mind" to
buy.
The more you explore your target audience's mindset, the more
fascinating this can become. Of course we have not even touched
on a fraction of the many "triggers" that are at work
in people's minds when they are reading Web pages.
If you want some more buying triggers to consider, I'll
give you a few more.
- People will buy to for specific brands (usually it has to
do with prestige)
- People will buy to educate themselves
- People will buy to improve their health
- People will buy to settle their fears
- People will buy to have some fun
- People will buy to satisfy their curiosity
- People will buy to streamline their processes
- People will buy to prove they are right about some issue
- People will buy to improve their image or appearance
- People will buy to improve their quality of life
- People will buy to uniquely set themselves apart from the
crowd
What other reasons can you think of that will compel your
target audience to buy now?
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John Alexander is Co-Director of Training for
Search Engine
Workshops. Together with his partner Robin Nobles, he
teaches stress free formulas for obtaining top visibility on
major search engines to workshop students from all around the
world. John operates a Web site for professional search engine
optimizers, Beyond-SEO.
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