If content is king, how powerful is your web site copy?

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“Words are electric; they should be chosen for the emotional voltage they carry,” according to Ray Bard, author of “Secret Formulas of the Wizard of Ads.” This rings true regardless of the media displaying your message. Whether we’re talking about web sites or print advertising, content is king.

Bard goes on to say, “Weak and predictable words cause grand ideas to appear so dull that they fade into the darkness of oblivion. But powerful words in unusual combinations brightly illuminate the mind.”

Yes, grand ideas require powerful words. But so do simple ones.

How powerful is your web site copy? Are your words relevant to your market? Do they carry emotional voltage?

To know if your words are relevant to your market, you’ll need to do some research. This falls under search engine optimization (SEO).

Before writing the first line of copy or code for a client’s web site, I want to know the actual phrases people type into the Google search box to find a similar business. So I head over to Wordtracker with a basic list of phrases that my client and I consider appropriate.

Wordtracker answers the question, “What are people searching for on the Web?” It helps identify keywords and phrases that are relevant to your business and most likely to be used as queries by search engine visitors.

Using these phrases properly throughout each web page is the beginning of search engine optimization. But for the purposes of this article, we’re focusing on your copy’s overall relevance to your market. In other words, to the extent your site is search engine optimized, you will draw traffic from Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc., but for now we’re laser-focused on drawing that visitor in.

You’ve done your research; now what? Add electricity – emotional voltage. Speak to your audience as one person. What are his hot buttons? What is her point of pain? What problem does your product or service solve?

Throughout the process, weave in those keyword phrases you found during your initial research. Don’t just toss them in for the sake of search engines; carefully weave them in for the benefit of your visitor.

As a copywriter, I’ll admit that this explanation is a bit oversimplified. There is so much more to consider. Yet this is the beginning of the process that results in powerful copy.

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