Words to the Wise

Each of us has been late. Sometimes, there’s simply nothing we can do about it. An accident has you stranded in traffic for hours. A flight gets perpetually delayed because of weather.

But, what about those times when the only one you have to blame for your tardiness is you? When you’re late, and you KNOW it’s your fault, how do you feel? Pit in your stomach? Painful guilt? Need I go on?

Being late to a meeting is one thing, but think about the dimension these feelings take on when you’re late to something you can never “catch up” on - like a funeral, a wedding, birthday party and the like. Feelings that come after being late to these events can last a lifetime.

Now, picture your life if you were perpetually early.

According to motivational speaker Doreen Stern*, AKA the Desk Docktor, “When you decide to be early, you no longer think you can fit in just one more thing. You know you can’t. So you use your time more wisely.”

Here’s a challenge from Doreen: “Tomorrow, decide to be early. Allot enough time so that everywhere you go, you plan to arrive ten mimutes early.

Go to bed a half hour earlier than you usually do.

Whenever you get someplace early or accomplish something ahead of schedule, tell yourself you’re doing a spectacular job. Stand up straight and preen. Doing so will motivate you to repeat the same feat tomorrow.”

*Doreen Stern is a dynamic speaker, a writer and an organizational coach. As the Desk Docktor, she reveals “The Secret to Turning Your Paper Mess into Success, in 20 Minutes or Less.” Stern has been profiled by the Hartford Courant and the Journal Inquirer. She has been interviewed on Public Access TV and This Hour Has 22 Widgets. Doreen is also a client of Freelance Marketing/PR/Advertising Copywriter Jason Pedley.

So, it’s the end of yet another year of planning, working, writing, editing, testing, blogging, podcasting and all the other fun things I get to do for my clients as well as for my freelance business. Looking back one year ago at this time causes me to see some very notable diferences the past year has made:

- A year ago, I didn’t have a blog. Now, I have two, and another one planned for early 2008.

- A year ago, my home office was half the size of my current office. I even have a window now.

- A year ago, the only presence I had on the web was my website. Today I have the site, the blogs, a social media press room, a social networking presence and much more.

So what happened over the past 365 days? Well, I went for it. I took action. I made the calls, sent the emails, took the chances and completed the projects.

I couldn’t have done it without the help of my loyal clients, friends, mentors and students.

To all of you, I say Happy Holidays and all the best in 2008!

Jason

Ps. If you’re reading this, and you’re not signed up to receive updates in your inbox, I encourage you to sign up so you don’t miss anything in 2008.

There is something a little unsettling when frequent visitors to your site find the same home page text during each of their visits. When your home page stays stagnant from one visit to the next, people will most likely get the impression that nobody is “minding the store.”

Try to find something that you can update on a regular basis to let visitors know that your site is up-to-date.

Some things that will catch visitors’ eyes:

- Link to your blog, news archives or recent press coverage
- Relevant and timely news feeds
- Short text with links to different products, services and promotions
- Links to new case studies, white papers, testimonials, etc
- Links to social media sites like del.icio.us, LinkedIn, etc

Depending on the nature of your business, you may not need or have all of the above, but it gives you an idea of the type of content that can easily be updated on a regular basis.

Try hard to keep the above ideas focused on the needs and interests of your site. Sure, news about your company will appeal somewhat to your visitors, but news about one of your clients, and how THEY succeeded with your help, is a lot more compelling.

In other words, keep your home page current in a way that serves the needs of your visitors - who are almost always potential customers.

Sure, you can use Pay Per Click advertising, buy banner ads and have a newsletter with a growing subscriber list.

But, if you want to try a tactic that will consistently boost the number of visitors to your site, add relevant content on a regular basis.

When you add pages with lots of text content, a number positive things happen:

1, Your visitors and subscribers will know that they can always look forward to new information when they come to your web site. In other words, they know it’s worth visiting again. This increases the value of your site.

2, Google and other major search engines will index each new page and list it on their results pages. And if you take a little trouble to research relevant keywords and optimize each new page, you can achieve some high listings.

3. If you add new content pages two to three times every week, Google and others will make note of the frequency, and spider your site more frequently.

This isn’t a way to create a sudden surge of traffic, but it’s a great way to ensure a steady growth in visitors.

Fresh content adds value to your site and increases the amount of search engine traffic you will receive.

It takes time to create the content, but it’s worth it. Think of things like press releases, case studies, white papers, blogs, interviews and bios.

The importance of good copy (words) on your website goes far beyond readability for your human visitors. While your copy should capture their Attention and Interest, and motivate their Desire and Action (think back to A.I.D.A.), web copy must also satisfy the needs of another audience - search engines. Writing copy to appeal to these two audiences can be done right if you keep a few simple points in mind:

1. If you decide to write your own copy and need to chose one audience over ther other - write for your human audience. Search engine crawlers won’t buy your product, but humans will. There are ways of getting people to find your site other than through search engines, and quite often they work better. Mailers, e-newsletters, press releases and pay-per-click advertising are all effective at generating traffic to your site.

2. Keep your copy short and to the point. Yes, use your keywords to keep the search engines happy, but don’t sacrifice clarity by mentioning your keywords 100 times or writing about several topics on one page.

3. Use long copy if you must, but do it right. There are times when your product or service will require long-form copy to sell. In this case, I always suggest professional help. Long copy can make or break you - fast. And, there are some definite things you MUST know about long-form before you try it on your own.

4. Copy is just one part of your site. It should work in harmony with your layout, meta tags, images, and links. If you don’t understand the relationship between these pieces of your website, you should leran them, or have a professional copywriter evaluate your site. You can have the most professional site design on the web and nobody will notice because they can’t read past the first sentence.

I’m currently offering web copy evaluations free of charge for the first 50 people who contact me. I’ll give you an honest analysis of your copy, why it’s good, why it’s not, what to add, what to take out and how to make it more friendly for your audiences.

I can only offer this until the end of May (2007) and only to companies in the U.S. and Canada.