Photo by sure2talk

Going to great lengths

This is of particular importance when it comes to an individual’s style. Many of us, especially if we’re not so used to writing web content, will be inclined to craft great chunks of flowery, adjective-heavy, Proustian epics, sentences far too long for a mere mortal to read on screen without suffering pounding temples and streaming eyes as the reader searches desperately in vain for a full stop that never seems to arrive, yet your online copy continues ever onwards towards the horizon.

I think you catch my drift.

Others turn from Proust to Hemingway. Clipped sentences, little ceremony. This also turns readers off. They feel they can’t penetrate the prose.

The rule of thumb amongst web-writers is that around sixteen words a sentence is appropriate. Of course, there are no hard and fast rules, but bear your reader in mind. As discussed previously, people read differently online: make life easy for them and they’ll want to spend their time exploring your sentence.

Taking the register

The creative side of writing leads many of us to using colourful turns of phrase and interestingly textured prose. Unfortunately, a lot of the time this isn’t appropriate. One of the strengths of the internet is that it can be views across the world; this gives you a fantastic opportunity to share your site with the planet. However, it also means that many of your potential visitors won’t have English as their first language. It’s really important to tailor the language you use to be as inclusive as possible. The point of your online copy isn’t to show off how vast your vocabulary is, but to communicate your message and your passion to the world. Keep it simple (unless you’re aiming your message at a technically minded audience).

Alongside the SEO considerations that ensure your copy is visible to both Search Engines and people, you want to make sure that people want to read your text and want to explore your site further because they connect with the words. Bear these general points in mind and your message should travel across the world in no time.

Interested in more articles on copywriting?

Online Copywriting Begins with your Home Page

Why Fear the Wall of Text?

A Question of Style is a post from: SEO Blog by Lead Generators

Tucan play at that game!

I’m really looking forward to working with the adventure tour operator Tucan Travel to manage their search marketing strategy. We will work closely with the multi-award winning travel group, which has been offering high-quality adventure tours to worldwide destinations since 1989, to boost their exposure and increase their marketing opportunities online.

Old Friends and New Beginnings

The guys at Tucan have been to a number of my Online Marketing Seminars, and, in the past, they’ve been able to implement our strategic approach to great effect on our own website. I get really excited when I see how delegates to my seminars are able to go away and apply what they have learned and achieve impressive SEO results so easily by themselves, and I am now grateful to be given the opportunity to take them to the next level of Online Marketing success with a more effective search marketing strategy.

To find out more about Tucan Travel or to enquire about their fantastic adventure holidays, give them a call on 0800 804 8435 or visit their website at www.tucantravel.com.

Learn the Building Blocks of SEO

Alternatively, if you would like to find out more about my Online Marketing Seminars, where I teach the fundamental skills of SEO, give me a call on 0208 878 3739 or pop me an email me at franorman@leadgenerators.co.uk. Our next seminars are in London on Wednesday, May 16, and Thursday, June 28.

Tucan Travel signs up LeadGenerators is a post from: SEO Blog by Lead Generators

This has made us realise how important client retention is and how important it is to ensure that we can give more time and more focus to each of our existing clients. Actually this is far more important than finding more clients!

Which is why we have been working hard over the past six months to introduce a new management model.

To date, we have been very successful as a design agency by relying heavily on staffing levels to cope with the demands of our clients. As we became more organised, our “production” became more efficient - which was great for both us and for our clients. This naturally resulted in us achieving better wins for our clients at a lower cost.

So, on the surface, all’s well in Toyland.

However, this maturing of LeadGenerators has exposed us to a different vulnerability: the strength and solidity of our management structure. For those who know us well, you are aware that our management team has traditionally been one or two people only, and that everything is traditionally funnelled through this small team. This is not good for anyone and certainly not sustainable for our clients.

Which is why, over the past six months we have invested heavily in finding and recruiting more managers to take charge of client projects, to organise workflow, to carry out keyword research, to develop strategy for our clients, to keep on top of tasks and progress, etc. We now have three managers working with me (making us a team of four for the very first time!) and, for the past few months, they have been slowly taking over various projects and campaigns for our clients.

I am naturally very excited by these recent developments and I anticipate that this is going to have a very positive impact on our ability to give our existing clients so much more time and focus in the future.

More! More! More! is a post from: SEO Blog by Lead Generators

Photo by spaztacular

We know as web-users ourselves that no one likes to be confronted by a huge impenetrable wall of text. People want to find information quickly and easily when they come to your site, and once you’ve hooked them in hopefully they’ll stay.

They definitely won’t hang around if they’re chased off by dense blocks of black text.

Why Bring Down the Wall?

There’s a very good reason for short paragraphs when you write online copy. We read from the screen in a different way to how we read from a book. If there isn’t enough white space on a page, our eyes start to move around the text, scanning ahead for information; this can be fatal to the successful transmission of your message.

By keeping the paragraphs and sentences short you make it much easier for readers to ‘chew’ their way through your online copy, giving them a rest as they take in the information.

Quick, Quick, Quick

Deadlines are everywhere today, we don’t need walls everywhere as well. People want to find things NOW! While your copy still needs to be fresh and sparkly, make sure you cut the fat and make lean pleasant copy that people will enjoy reading. It might be a bit of a cliché that people have short attention spans these days, but with the speed at which they can flick between websites it becomes a seductive self-fulfilling prophesy.

In fact, it’s not just a cliché that walls of text are off putting. Amongst the community of Wikipedia editors, the wall of text is a well known form of online filibustering where someone attempts to shutdown an online discussion by posting a huge dense mass of irrelevant information.

Making Life Easy for Everybody

The most important thing to remember is that walls are built to keep people out, and this is just the effect that text walls will have on your website. Throw your doors open, break up your text, use bullet points and let the world in!

Why Fear the Wall of Text? is a post from: SEO Blog by Lead Generators

We were glad to hear this week that since using eHiveCMS, Danube Express’s travel website has seen its enquiries and sales figures drastically increase. The luxury train holiday specialists have a really fantastic product, sending passengers through some of the most enticing destinations in Europe via rail, so it was great to be given the opportunity to help push their product online using our powerful CMS platform and experience in adeptly communicating products graphically.

The perfect formula

In our experience in the travel industry, we’ve found the combination of these two vital ingredients is the perfect recipe behind many a successful travel website. As is the case for many of our clients, our extremely robust CMS, coupled with efficiently and attractively communicating the product graphically, has led to a big impact on conversion rates and sales figures.

Share the eHive love!

It’s also great to see other people getting so excited about eHiveCMS, especially because we’re so passionate about it ourselves. We work really hard for our clients so it’s great when people like Danube Express get such good results.

What they say

“Thanks to LeadGenerators, we are finally looking like the prestigious train operator that we have always been, and this has helped increase our sales substantially on our travel website.”

- Howard Trinder, Managing Director for Danube Express

Like our friends at Danube Express, it looks like eHiveCMS is on-track for a great future!

Full Steam Ahead for eHiveCMS! is a post from: SEO Blog by Lead Generators