By Darren Gilbert
After all, it’s the words that have the job
of convincing people to buy your product. You certainly don’t want to overlook
them. Just ask Catherine Black. A Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) specialist
and one half of the copywriting duo that is Black Mountain, words are her
livelihood. She understands their power. She knows that if they are not good
enough, your website will be ineffective.
“Not a lot of people emphasise the content,
the copy, the words,” points out Black. “To us, that is almost the most
important thing about a website. It’s what is going to convince your users to buy
your product, your service or to contact you.” It’s also what is going to
ensure that your website stands out from everyone else’s. And isn’t that the
point of business – to be noticeable?
That sounds simple enough. And to some
extent, it is. All you need to do is come up with the right words that will
convince your target market to take action. How hard can that be? Well, let’s put
it this way: it’s one thing to say you’ll achieve something, but another to
actually follow through and realise it. With SEO, a lot of content is good. But
what is ‘good content’? Surely, great content for one person doesn’t mean the
same for another?
Black agrees. Fortunately there is a recipe
for this, one which Black Mountain follows closely. For them, creating
compelling content begins and ends with finding out who your target market is. “And
then doing research into what they are interested in,” adds Black. Only then
can you begin to create something that is worthwhile. “Essentially it’s about finding
out what content resonates with them,” points out Black. “What content are they
likely to share?”
Just asking that question should point you
down the right path. However, at the same time, you need to ensure that whatever
you create is unique and original. That in itself is difficult to achieve. One
only needs to take a look at the amount of information on the Internet to
understand that. Every idea or piece of copy that you come up with has likely
been done before. However, that doesn’t mean that you can’t come up with
content that your target market will want to share.
It just comes down to how you create (and
present) that content. And this is where Black Mountain comes up trumps. “We
start from the ground up,” says Black. “If someone comes to us and says that
they want unique content, we don’t just take their existing copy and reword it.
Instead, we first find out what they are looking for. And then we go out and
meet with their stakeholders.”
So for example, Black Mountain is currently
doing work for an insurance website. “We would meet with the actual guys who
own the product,” says Black. “In this case it is the actuaries, and find out from
them what they want to say. Everything about the product. Based on that, we
come up with fresh copy.”
The ‘we’ in that last sentence is important
because Black Mountain is the type of agency that seeks to foster personal
relationships with their clients. Black explains, “You don’t go through an
account manager. You don’t have to go through a traffic manager or put your
ticket in a job order system. When you phone, we are the guys who pick up. We
like to own the work.”
That means that instead of spending their
days managing people, they spend it doing work for clients. After all, it’s the
words that make a website, right? So why not spend your time on what counts.
Black Mountain does just that.
For more information on Black Mountain, visit www.black-mountain.co.za.