nick usborne's blog

Further confirmation that you should seriously upgrade your online copywriting skills.

Numerous studies and surveys this year have shown that marketing budgets are moving away from print, radio and broadcast – and into online media.

In an article published by MediaPost this morning, the figures reported are confirming the same trend.

Here is a portion of that article:

“A regional survey of 8,500 senior advertising, marketing and media executives by Round2 Communications found that 72% predict they will increase their spending on digital media in the coming year. Justifying this apportionment, 33.9% said ROI for new media is "somewhat" better than traditional, and 28.2% said new media's ROI is "significantly" better.

Along with the good news for digital media, the survey (which focused on executives from companies headquartered in the Western U.S.) delivered some bad news for traditional: 86% of the respondents say they expect their spending on traditional media -- including broadcast TV and radio and print newspapers and magazines -- to remain even (45.7%) or decline (40.3%) in 2010.”

If you are a freelance writer or copywriter, you need to take notice of these figures. You can’t expect offline media alone to support the growth of your business over the next few years.

Sure, there will always be a demand for print and broadcast copywriters. But the demand is shrinking fast, and the competition will heat up.

If you haven’t done so already, you need to develop your online copywriting skills. And I don’t just mean you should learn about writing single page sales letters online. The real demand right now is for skilled copywriters who understand the full complexity of online media and can write any kind of web page, in addition to email and e-newsletters.

The faster that marketing budgets move online, the greater the opportunity for freelancers who can offer a full range of online copywriting skills.

As far as I know, my online copywriting course is currently the only course of its kind, providing professional-grade instruction on all aspects of writing and copywriting for the web.

Learn more about my course, Copywriting 2.0...

If you use testimonials, should you worry about the new FTC guidelines?

I received an email yesterday, with following question:

"Your son's website business and abilities seem to be just about what I need, and I very well might be taking him up on his services sometime soon.

Just wondering, though, doesn't he need to be concerned about the FCC ruling I'm hearing so much about online?  And if not, why not?"

My son’s website is called MidnightDonkey and he has some testimonials from happy customers featured in the right column of his home page.

Should he be concerned about the FTC guidelines, which come into effect tomorrow, December 1st?

I don’t think so.

From what I understand so far, the FTC is not worried about testimonials of this kind.

What they will be targeting is testimonials like any of the following:

“I lost 30lbs in 30 days!”

“I made a million dollars in 30 days!”

“I beat cancer in my sleep!”

When they are being half-way honest, companies typically take the very best results their products or services have achieved, and highlight that best result in a testimonial. What the FTC guideline requires is that these companies also declare the typical result achieved. It is no longer enough just to say that “results may vary” or something like that.

This guideline, which is a good one in so far as it will hopefully cut back on some of the more outrageous and misleading claims in advertising, is currently causing many marketers some headaches.

For instance, I sell some products of my own. I can no longer use a testimonial which talks about how someone took my course and then started making a six-figure income within six months – unless I also declare what the TYPICAL results are. The trouble is, I have no way of measuring or knowing what the typical results are. I just don’t have access to those figures. All I know is what people choose to tell me.

My situation is shared by thousands of legitimate marketers, both online and offline.

Anyway, returning to the original question – I don’t think testimonials that simply praise the quality of someone’s services are going to be a concern for the FTC.

And certainly in the short-term, the FTC will be using its resources to target the big fish who are genuinely and deliberately misleading their readers.

Do websites do better than blogs in achieving high rankings in search engine results?

This is a question under discussion in a private forum I belong to.

The thrust of the thread was suggesting that you are more likely to find websites on page one of the search results, and less likely to find blogs.

I felt compelled to contribute the following (slighly edited since posting)...

I think the fact that Google search results deliver theme-based websites more often than blogs has very little to do with the platform, and everything to do with the quality and content of the website or blog.

As every webmaster knows, success depends a great deal on staying the course. The tortoise beats the hare. And as every successful webmaster will tell you, you have to get over the hump and keep adding more and more content.

To succeed, you have to be stubborn, hold the faith and keep writing and improving.

I think the reason why so many blogs fail to do well is that blogging platforms attract people who are impulsive and want a fast result. They want an inexpensive, easy to use platform that allows them to get started right now. They don’t want to do the hard work.

Blogging services attract people who want the easy button.

Those same people would likely also fail if they wrote a theme-based website.

It’s not the platform, it’s the people.

Let me give you an example.

Check out SingleServeCoffee.com. It’s a blog, built on a rather old and unsophisticated custom platform.

The subject is single serve coffee. It was started by a fellow call Jay Brewer a few years go. His site is number one for dozens of very profitable keywords. In fact, he did so well with this blog, he created a work-from-home company called Blogpire.com. He now publishes ten or more theme-based blogs, all on the same, rather clunky platform. Does it work? It works well enough for him to have several remote employees and pay their salaries.

His secret? The same as ours. He works hard and never gives up.

Another way to check out the fact that blogs are perfectly capable of dominating page one of the search results is to explore some specific topic areas. Go to Google and search for “technology gadgets” or “high tech gadgets”. The blogs win hands down. Not because they are blogs, but because they are really good blogs and better than the competing websites.

I could go on and on. (And often do.)

But I’ll just restate my main point. There is nothing about a good website that gives it an advantage over a good blog when it comes to search results. The Google algorithm doesn’t care whether it is looking at a website or a blog. It doesn’t give one platform more gold stars than the other.

The differentiating element is not the platform. It’s the people or person behind the platform.

Not Me Mondays: Dr. Ralph Wilson.

I have known Ralph for over ten years now. He was perhaps the first person to thoroughly explore the needs of small business online. It may be hard to imagine in today’s world of instant gurus and miracle marketing solutions, but back in the mid-nineties very few people were thinking about how small business could succeed online.

Ralph jumped right in there. And he has been delivering help and advice to small business online ever since. That kind of continuity is very rare...sticking with one vision and one purpose for a decade and a half.

In fact, this year is the 15th anniversary of his website, Web Marketing Today.

When you go to his site, you won’t find a fifteen-year old site. By that, I mean the information there is not in the least “old”. There is a vast amount of useful and current information there, tons of articles, Ralph’s own books and publications, and a terrific collection of videos with other industry experts.

If you want to know more about marketing your business online, and are tired of listening to young gurus with surf boards and fast cars, you’ll find that Ralph delivers the kind of solid, proven advice you really need.

Here are three of his time-proven tips. They may not be hip or leading edge, but I know from my own experience that he is hitting the nail on the head every time.

1. Get a professionally designed website. Your site needs to present the best possible face to the world. It's the 'store front' of your business today. A good website builds credibility and trust. Use a content management system so that you can change and add content to the site yourself.

2. Make sure the site content is optimized for search engines. If people can't find you then you are missing out on lots of business. Many web designers still do not offer SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Title tags are the most important factor and the content on the page has to align with your title tags.

3. Start an email newsletter or a blog that people can sign up for by email. Use this vehicle to stay in touch with people and build a relationship with them. Use an email newsletter service -- they are not expensive and make it very easy to do yourself.

Learn more at Web Marketing Today.

Not Me Mondays: Michel Fortin

I’m going to give something a try. Each Monday, for a while at least, I’m going to write about a fellow writer, copywriter, coach or marketer. I’ll stick to the people I know and respect.

Why? For a couple of reasons. One, to give back a little. I think I do OK giving back to people who read my writing and purchase my products. But I don’t do so well when it comes to recognizing my own colleagues and peers.

Also, I hope to serve as a filter. If you read me because you trust me...then consider these Monday posts as a thumbs-up for other people you may want to deal with.

There will be no particular rhyme or reason in the order in which I write these posts. So don’t read anything into my choice for this first post in the series, Michel Fortin.

True, he is a fellow Canadian, and he lives only a few hours from my own home, although we have never met face to face.

And, like me, he is a long-time copywriter.

I have a few years on him when it comes to copywriting, and experience as an online copywriter. But he has achieved a lot more than me in the area of delivering products and services to other copywriters and online marketers.

While there are a ton of people who produce a veritable flood of courses and programs, I have picked Michel for one particular reason.

Like me, he believes you can sell hard without resorting to hype, deception and manipulation.

That’s a big issue for me in marketing online, and always has been.

But Michel, and his wife Sylvie, are way ahead when it comes to articulating and sharing that message.

I also respect the fact that when you go to his site, it isn’t all about selling his own products and services. He takes the time both to state his position on various issues, and give away a ton of useful information.

You’ll find Michel at MichelFortin.com

How many keywords should you optimize for across your website?

I was asked that question recently by someone who had been told he should optimize his website for no more than 14 keywords in total.

Horrible, terrible advice.

Maybe I might optimize the homepage and second level pages for a total of 14 keywords or phrases. But what about the other pages on your site? What about those hundreds of third and fourth level pages?

Hopefully you do a good job of optimizing your home page and major category pages. But the dozens or hundreds of pages beneath those categories all offer wonderful opportunities to attract new search traffic.

Every page on your site should be optimized, and those third level pages give you the chance cast a wider net by addressing the long tail of minor keywords.

As an example, let’s look at the first five days of this month for my site CoffeeDetective.com.

My top 14 keywords accounted for 25.3% of my traffic.

The rest of my traffic, 74.7%, arrived via all the other keywords for which the major search engines found a relevant page on my site.

Guess how many keywords people used to find my site during those first five days of the month alone.

2,513.

14 keywords won’t cut it. You need a bigger net than that.

U.S. Companies are moving $65 Billion advertising dollars online.

Not Millions, but Billions.

To put that into context, listen to what Anthea Stratigos of Outsell Inc. said in a recent interview in Forbes Magazine. "To scale that, compare the total U.S. TV and cable advertising revenue for 2009, which is about $66 billion. The marketing dollars companies now spend on their own sites is equivalent to all TV ad revenue for the year."

Pause and think about that. $65 BILLION  that is no longer going to be spent on traditional media, but is going to be spent on online advertising and company websites.

How will that money be used? Anthea predicts, “Page content, Web analytics, search engine optimization and site design. Most of them have invested in social networking platforms to create direct dialogues with their consumers.”

So here is my question for you.

Do you plan to invest your career as a copywriter on writing for traditional media, or for online media?

Do you plan to build your future as a traditional copywriter or an online copywriter?

Keep in mind that the figure of $65 Billion is not a projection for the next five or ten years. It’s the amount of marketing and advertising money moving from TV and print to the web THIS year.

For some time I have been advocating that copywriters urgently need to upgrade their skills and get into the business of being an online copywriter.

For those who haven’t believed me, maybe you’ll believe all those billions of dollars.

If you are ready to take the plunge and take your share of that $65 Billion shift, be sure to check out my online copywriting course.

Don’t sell your prized possessions to make a few extra dollars. Use them as a theme for a website and make a LOT of extra dollars.

I was just reading an article about how some people are selling their most prized possessions just to make ends meet.

One person sold his vintage muscle car, someone else sold a collection of violins and another person sold his autograph collection.

A comment under the article made the point that these are all just “things”. But our most prized “things” have deep meaning for us.

I couldn’t help imagining these people taking an alternative course, writing a website about muscle cars, a website about musical instruments and a website about collecting autographs.

It would be ridiculous for me to try to reach these people, and absurd for me to think that everyone would jump at the idea of building their own money-making website.

But when people talk about their prized possessions, passions and hobbies I immediately think in terms of how great those would be as topics for websites.

Don’t sell the things you love...use that passion and knowledge to create a site that makes you enough money to keep those things, and buy more of them.

More about my How to Write Your Own Money-Making Websites program...

Being on Twitter while launching a new product is a wonderful thing.

I have a confession to make. When I first started using Twitter I did so in the knowledge that it might come in handy to have the ears and eyes of a few extra people when I launched my program, How to Write Your Own Money-Making Websites.

In other words, my original purpose on Twitter was simply to build a list of followers, catch their attention and let them know when I launched my program.

I have done exactly that, although I don’t know how many extra sales might have resulted from my involvement on Twitter.

However, I have discovered a few things along the way:

- Being active on Twitter has been a wonderful way for me to get back on touch with a lot of colleagues from way back, and meet a lot of new people too.

- I learn something new every day from the people I follow on Twitter.

- Being on Twitter transformed the “product launch” experience.

Let me expand on that last point.

From the day my program was launched, I started receiving Tweets from people who decided to buy it. Then I would hear from people who had just received their package in the mail. Then I began hearing from people who had dug in and got started.

For me, that is a wonderful feeling.

Usually when I write and publish something, I might receive the occasional email about it. But with this program I feel myself a whole lot closer to the people who buy it, simply because of the immediacy of Twitter.

Because I am accessible, right now, people can send me a Tweet about the decision to buy the program or even ask me questions when they get started on it.

Of course, this kind of immediacy and transparency wouldn’t work quite so well if I were fooling people into buying a third-rate product. But I am happy with what I wrote and am loving the fact that I hear from people who purchased it.

So while my original intention with Twitter was completely self-serving, my actual experience has been a whole lot richer and more rewarding than I ever anticipated.

A cunning way to identify an under-served niche for your money-making website.

One of the challenges facing anyone who wants to generate revenues through a themed information site is to find the right topic.

Most of us, quite rightly, start with topics about which we are familiar.

But there are other factors to consider. One of these is the number of competing sites you will be up against.

It can be tough getting on page one of Google search results when your primary search term is competing with at least ten very high quality sites which are optimized for the exact same term.

It is possible to compete head-to-head with established, quality websites, but it is easier to find a topic or niche that fills a gap. In other words, slide in where there isn’t too much competition.

The traditional way to go about finding these gaps is to use tools like Wordtracker, and find keywords and phrases that are in high demand, but for which there is a limited supply of quality site pages.

But here’s another way to find a niche that isn’t being well-served.

Recently I started the research on a new site for myself and when I typed the obvious and primary keyword into Google I immediately noticed something...

Three out of ten of the results on the first page were for websites from the UK. In other words, website.co.uk. One other was an Australian site.

I noticed this because I live in Canada, and when I do a global search with Google I generally get website.com. Unless you tell it otherwise, Google will favor the country in which you live when delivering results.

The fact that 40% of the results were from other continents me told me that Google was having trouble finding quality information sites on my topic here in North America.

Of the remaining six listings, five were for retailers and aggregators, like Amazon.com.

In other words, for this single keyword, Google could find only one North American website that was truly an information site.

As soon as I saw that, I smelled a big GAP. I like big gaps. So now I know the topic for my next money-making website.

Learn more about my program, How to Write Your Own Money-Making Websites...