This is a guest post by Tiffany Thompson, affectionately known as “bloominglater.” She is an aspiring writer and musician who hails from Southeastern Virginia. She’s the author of helpyourselfblog.com and is a self-improvement junkie. She enjoys graphic design, vampire flicks, her iPhone, and the color orange. If you like this post, visit her at helpyourselfblog.com or follow her on Twitter.

The Myth of the Marketing

When I first started out as a Marketing Manager for a 500 person organization, I realized something very, very early: everyone’s a gosh darn marketer.

Okay, that’s the PG version of EAGDM; I’ll let you use your imagination to figure out what I really call it. But whatever we call it, one thing that marketing professionals, copywriters and graphic designers always come head to head with is EAGDM. Simply, in almost every organization, from the front line employee to the CEO, someone else “knows” precisely what marketing strategy will work and is more than glad to share it with you.

Nevermind that you have two English degrees and an MBA in Marketing.

Nevermind that you have over ten years experience copywriting in the industry in which you work.

Nevermind that Seth Godin is your best friend and you have had the opportunity to learn at his feet.

Nevermind all that.

The real reason that your last marketing promotion didn’t work was because you didn’t use that talking, Ferrari-driving dog in your last commercial. The talking dog ALWAYS works! Come on. Everybody knows that!

In all seriousness, in my years of experience as a marketer and copywriter, I have found that marketing is something that most people take for granted. It seems like common sense. Sometimes it is, but sometimes a marketer has to use what she has learned to get the right message across. So, here is my best advice if you hire someone to handle your marketing or copywriting: do your homework and choose the right professional, be specific by identifying your needs and expectations, and give your copywriter your very best ideas on how you envision the outcome. Once you have set clear intentions about what you expect, relax. Take a deep breath, take a step back, and let your copywriter do what she’s good at.

Choose the Right Professional

If you had a rotting tooth, would you hire a plumber to fix it? Your answer is probably the same as mine: heck no! The same idea can be applied to deciding whether or not to hire someone to complete a creative task, like copywriting. If one of the core competencies of your business is writing, maybe you don’t need a copywriter to craft your web copy. If, on the other hand, your core competency is accounting, you might want a little help. The idea is not that an accountant can’t write well. On the contrary, the accountant could probably do a fine job. But would you want the copywriter handling the accounting? Probably not. Why? Because we presume that being an accountant requires an extraordinary level of expertise. I would argue that writing good marketing copy does as well.

Be Specific by Identifying Your Needs

When you sit down to discuss your project with someone you trust, be very clear about your goals and your expectations for the project. First of all, what type of marketing do you need? Do you need promotional copy, or are you interested in producing an informative piece? Do you want a letter or a postcard? Having an idea of what you need before you meet with your copywriter or marketer will make the process a lot smoother.

Another important item of discussion is the contract. What are the fees? How many revisions will be produced? How will you communicate feedback to the writer? Nailing these things down before the project starts will prevent a lot of heartburn for you later.

Give Your Very Best Ideas

Now, this is the time to tell your copywriter extraordinaire that flying monkeys, talking donkeys, and the E-trade Baby would be good ideas for your campaign. If you need to, write down all of the great ideas that you have about how the campaign might look if only you had the time or the inclination to do it yourself. But this is really important—don’t expect that the copywriter will use any of your ideas. Your only job is to give them freely. Remember, you’re paying her to do the work.

Was this post helpful? Feel free to follow Tiffany on Twitter!

So, there was supposed to be a teleclass today. And a guest blog, which will probably happen tomorrow once I get my head back into things. In breaking news, there is no teleclass today, because I was up until 5:30 in the morning helping with hospital emergency stuff and I can’t really do much until it all resolves itself later today hopefully. In the spirit of Havi Brooks, I’m trying to see the positive. The good news is, everyone here is okay, and that the emergency really addressed an ongoing issue that can now be dealt with. While things don’t always come to a head in the best way or at the best time, it still represents forward progress.

I’m a big proponent of the theory that if you just work hard enough you can control all the things in your life, no matter how crazy it gets. This week has been a reminder that most of the time, that isn’t true. Sometimes we need that: after all, we’re all only human, right? This week, I have had a computer crash, spent seven hours in an ER and then twenty-four hours dealing with the aftermath of it, and still have three deadlines on Friday so I can finish paying my bills for this month. I’m also convinced that mentally dealing with the first two things is the way to madness, so I’m trying to focus on the third.

This isn’t a sympathy post or anything, just a simple sorry for having to cancel. Next week we’ll do the final class in the series and focus on the loose ends of marketing and writing. Again, if you’ve got any questions or things that you’d like revisited, you’ve now got an extra week to let me know. Thanks to everyone who has been really supportive yesterday and this week in general: starting Cottage Copy has let me meet you guys, and you’ve really changed my life for the better. The guest post should go up tomorrow, and everything after that should hopefully go back to normal.

Yesterday, my beloved netbook died. I got lucky and saw the crash coming, and have basically spent the last 24 hours frantically trying to salvage all the business stuff on it. The good news is that with lots of work I have: my client files are safe, my business files are safe, and my pagefour files are safe. This is a major victory. However, I’m pretty sure my computer is done for, so I’m in that mourning stage for an electronic that you really love. My problem is now this: do I buy the same model of netbook that I loved, or spend a couple months saving and upgrade to a macbook pro of some sort? Leave a comment if you have an opinion or some advice: I could really use it right now!

In addition, the teleclass is tomorrow, and will cover all of the little parts of marketing writing that we don’t usually think about. I’m going to talk about twitter bios and other things like that, but if there is something that you would like covered, or a question that I didn’t get to yet in the series, please shoot me an email so I know to add to my plans.

I am now off to drink lots of coffee, mourn my computer, and catch up on all the client work that didn’t happen yesterday.

Everyone knows a great tag line can make or break your website. Unfortunately, this means that when you’re writing a tag line for your small business, you’re not only up against copywriters like me, but a bunch of other people who know that tag lines really do matter. In addition, tag lines are one of the places where a lot of people go wrong early on, and it sets the tone for their entire site. Here are four quick tips to read before you start creating your new tag line: if you start the process with some basic knowledge, it makes the whole thing a lot less stressful.

You Don’t Have To Reinvent the Wheel
This is honestly where lots of people get hung up, even copywriters like me. This is the one instance where I will tell you to try and forget about being unique and different and out of the box: for tag lines, those goals really just jam up the whole process. Honestly, there are only so many words out there, and when you cut the pool down to strong tag line words, it gets even smaller.

You see the same words used over and over again in tag lines for a reason: they are strong, they make an impact, and they tend to flow well. There is no shame in using these words, and if you can come up with a tag line that puts them together in a way that is coherent and makes the right statement, you should be proud of yourself. Save the out of the box stuff for the body of your website.

Think In Three Word Phrases
What do many great tag lines have in common? Three word phrases. If you don’t believe me, think about Nike and McDonald’s. Now, not every great tag line is three words, but it is certainly a nice simple framework to think about. Done right, it can also be an incredibly clear and powerful framework to build a tag line with. If you’re having trouble writing anything down, just draw out three blank spaces on the page and see what happens: you’ll be amazed at the results.

Your Tag Line Is Your Philosophy, Not Your Business
Your tag line should reflect your core philosophy. Most of the time, this isn’t related to what you do. Your potential consumers can figure out what you do from either the name of your company, or the first sentence of your website copy. Don’t waste time on it in your tag line. Instead, use it as a place to make a strong statement about your identity and what you value. Your tag line is the first step to establishing your brand: make it count.

Google Your Exact Phrase To Make Sure It Is Unique
Most of the time, it won’t be. At which point you’ll have to draw out your blanks again and start over. Welcome to the life of a copywriter (I’m mostly joking, I promise). It is very difficult to find a totally unique combination of words, in part because there are seventy billion businesses out there that also all have tag lines with words that are marketing friendly and would also like to sell things. However, starting over is always better than having a copycat tag line.

Per usual, if this all seems like too much work, or gives you a headache just thinking about it, consider hiring an expert.

Today we’re going to talk about how to use the famine part of the freelancing cycle to inspire you to new business heights. This topic hits really close to home because I’ve been experiencing it pretty heavily lately. I’d love to blame snowmageddon, but if I’m honest with myself it’s probably more than that. I’m not a business school grad, and while I’m a fantastic copywriter and I’m great at marketing for other people, I’m not always so good at marketing myself.
There are lots of articles out on the internet about what to do to ride out the nasty feast and famine cycle when you run a small business. The problem is this: many of these articles assume that you’re already established, that you have significant savings, and that you have 20 years of experience. This isn’t me, and I’m willing to bet that it doesn’t describe many of you either.

When I started Cottage Copy, I had five years of experience with professional writing, no business experience, no savings (my old job barely paid enough to make basic bills), and zero contacts. I knew that I had exactly two small paychecks worth of money to make my business turn a profit, or I was done. I did it, but even though I’m making more than I was at my old job, it’s not always smooth sailing for me money-wise.

Many articles tell you to simply calm down and ride out the famine cycle: for some of us, that isn’t possible. We are still starting to save, but don’t have enough to make a difference. We have bills coming up and no cushion. For many small startups, this is the harsh reality. Cottage Copy is wildly successful for the time it’s been in existence, but it’s also a three month old business. There’s still a long way to go before I have six months worth of savings to ride this stuff out.

With all of this as a background, I’m going to give you some ways that I deal with the famine cycle. In my mind, it can defeat you or you can turn it around and use your fear and panic to get inspired to take some dramatic actions that you wouldn’t normally consider. Sometimes the negative emotions that the cycle brings out can lead you out of your comfort zone and make you take some actions that are high risk, but also highly lucrative.

During your next famine cycle, sit down and try these tactics to turn your desperation into inspired action.

Cold Email the Big Client:
This is a huge personal fear of mine, and I’ll be honest and admit that I only consider doing this when things get scary. After all, the idea of emailing someone out of the blue and telling them that you’d love to work for them is pretty terrifying to freelancers, especially if you’re just starting out. You could get laughed at, or rejected. Even worse, you could simply be ignored. The truth is, there are tons of companies that seem out of reach that could really use your services. We can all probably name at least five large companies that we love, but also also deficient in some areas. We can all also probably identify how we could help get rid of those deficiencies. Now, I’m not saying that you should go pitch yourself to Bill Gates if you’re just starting out, but some places that you find intimidating are also probably looking for your kind of service.

Next time you are scared about having no business and having no backup, try emailing that company you’d really love to work for. Most companies are willing to overlook the more traditional methods of employee evaluation when hiring freelancers: if you can prove that you can do the job well, obtain the desired results, and do it for a reasonable price, you’ve got a great chance of being hired by almost anybody.

Redo Your Website:
So many things fall by the wayside when we’re busy. Websites get stale, information becomes outdated, and we get behind on our blogs. Use your time to get your website in fantastic shape so it’s a showpiece for all the clients you’re trying to attract. Redo your testimonials page, reinvent your sales copy, or just fix all of your outdated information that may be turning off clients.

Get In Touch With Previous Clients:
Running a freelance business is sort of like dating: you want to be busy, but not too busy for the next person who asks. Many freelancers are accustomed to positioning themselves as busy successful people, even though they aren’t 100% of the time. There is no shame in politely asking around for business from old clients. If you’re really stuck with no work, try emailing some old clients who you have a good relationship with. More often than not, they will be thrilled to throw some work your way, and move forward on a project that they’ve also been stalled on! There is zero shame in admitting that you aren’t always booked three months in advance, even if it sometimes feels awkward. Many people will appreciate the opportunity, and so will your bank account.

Create A New Product:
When you’re going through a dry spell, it can feel like you’ve tapped out your market. Sometimes a fresh product can be exactly what you need to get going again. A new product launch doesn’t have to be earthshattering: sometimes it can be as simple as turning a combination of services into a new package, or coming up with a small service that serves as an introduction to what you do. Most of the time, these products don’t take a whole lot of work or marketing, but can really give your business a new life. By the time you’re back into the feast part of the cycle, you’ll be ahead and have another source of potential income.

These tips should give you some ways to reinvigorate your business during the down times, even if you don’t have much of a backup plan. Above all, don’t panic if you can help it. A bad week doesn’t mean the end of your business, and while it can make things uncomfortable for awhile (especially if you don’t have a savings cushion) you will be a more experienced business owner as a result.

This week, the Wednesday round up post has been moved to Friday, because Wednesday was well…Wednesday. There was snowmageddon, there were teleclasses to plan for, and there were meetings to be had. Today’s cool and interesting weekly news:

Thing One: Another guest post of mine is up! Head over to Karen’s blog to check it out, and read more about Sir Didy the unofficial business secretary and our chance meeting six months ago. While you’re there, stay and check out Karen’s blog, since it’s not only informative but funny.

Thing Two: Men With Pens has a great article today on how to charge what you’re worth. It’s aimed at writers, but is a worthwhile read for anyone freelancing, no matter the field. I suspect that you’ll be surprised at some of the advice: among other things, the article advocates charging at least $100 an hour.

Thing Three: Amy and I are in the demo phase of a new joint product that may actually lead to a fairly large partnership. That’s all I’m going to say for now (so Amy doesn’t come along and chide me in the comments!) but it’s incredibly exciting and I expect that lots of you will be interested in both products in development. As usual, stayed tuned for more news once we get through the demo phase and get some feedback and figure out how much time this will all take.

Thing Four: I am starting a newsletter! I have some ideas of what it would contain, but I’m also looking for suggestions at the kinds of things that you would be interested in getting in your email box from me. Leave a comment or a suggestion, please! I really want feedback so this can be useful to as many people as possible.

As usual, feel free to comment or email, and sign up for the contest!

Holly here. It’s time for the semi-traditional Thursday guest post: today we’re showcasing other people’s guilty pleasures! I’m a huge fan of Karen’s personal blog (it’s one of the six I make a point of reading daily), so I’m thrilled that she decided to fill in for me today. I’m thinking of turning Thursdays into a regular guest blog spot, so if you’re interested in being featured be sure to send a post in by email! I’ll see you guys later at the teleclass.

What Howard Stern Can Teach You About Marketing

By Karen Friesecke

I was first introduced to Howard Stern in the mid 90s when a Toronto radio station Q107 picked him up for their morning show. My impression of Howard was poor, at best. Stories of him being a rude person and a misogynist kept me away for the first few months. My brother and I worked together in the family business and he tuned in one morning. That was the day I became a rabid Howard fan.

I’ve been a member of Stern Nation ever since. I’m not what you would call a “superfan”, but I’m pretty darn close. Even when Q107 dropped his contract, I would fiddle endlessly with my radio antenna to pick him up from a New York State radio station to get my daily Howard fix. When he went over to Sirius Satellite Radio, I drove over two hours to New York State to buy an American receiver since it took the Canadian branch of Sirius almost a year to put him on their program list.
So what does Howard Stern have to do with blogging? Just like a blogger, Howard has to craft creative content daily to keep his fan base interested. These are some of Howard’s strategies that I apply to my blog post writing.

Be Honest

What appeals to me the most about Howard is his honesty. He speaks openly and honestly about the goings on in his life and freely shares his opinions, whether popular or not. He is even more interesting now that he is on satellite radio since he can now truly say what he wants.

Being honest with your readers is probably the most important writing technique to implement on your blog. If you pretend that you are someone that you are not, your readers will quickly see through the facade and abandon your blog. I pride myself on my honesty, swearing and all. It’s me being me and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Have A Great Team

Where would Howard be without Robin, Fred, Artie and Baba Booie? Alone they are nothing, but together they are a force to be reckoned with.

The same applies to blogging. Make friends with bloggers in your niche, collaborate on guest posts and projects. There is nothing more important than having friends in the blogosphere: it isn’t called social media for nothing. You can comment on each other’s posts, twitter each other’s articles to your followers and brainstorm ideas.
Making friends is cool and caring is sharing.

Be Funny

Stern’s all about the jokes, tasteless or not. Most everything that he does on his show involves humour in some way. Nobody wants to read a downer blog post, daily life is crappy enough and I don’t need to be reminded of that. Humor makes you real and humor makes you likable.

Be playful, have fun, try to engage your readers with humorous stories, it makes for a better reading experience.

Have Interesting Guests On Your Show

Howard is the master interviewer of all time and he always has relevant, interesting guests on his show. Whether it’s members of the Wack Pack or the movie star with the newest hot movie, he always has cool guests. So try to get other niche related bloggers to guest post on your site. A fresh voice on your blog every once in a while will surprise your readers and introduce them to another blog they might like. Another voice on your blog will offer your readers a different perspective on the topic that you are blogging about. The same applies to you. Guest post as often as you can, as it will expose your blog to other readers and increase your blog traffic.

Speak To The Common (Wo)man

I don’t mean this in a dumbing down or negative kind of way. You don’t hear Howard using fancy thesaurus-like language when he is talking on his show. He speaks to his listeners like he is having a casual conversation with them. Like they are his friends. It makes his listeners feel like they’re part of the gang and they identify with
him in a positive way.

The same applies to your blog readers. Write to your readers like they are your friends, like you’re telling them a story. Keep it simple, let your writing flow in an easy to follow fashion. Getting hung up on trying to showing off your vocabulary skills can come off as obnoxious and snobby. A conversational style of writing is friendly and invites your readers to maybe read a little more.

So that’s all I have to say about that! Now get blogging, bitches!

Karen Friesecke is the owner and designer behind DoggieStylish, a company that sells fun and unique dog collars. She also runs the wonderful BloggieStylish blog.

I have a deep dark confession to make. I kind of love The Bachelor. I know it’s silly, I know it’s fake, and I know it’s shallow, but that only makes me love it more. Every Monday, I sit down and bask in the silliness. Until two weeks ago, when Amy suggested that I write this post. I kind of blew it off: after all, what can a silly tv show teach you about marketing? Bizarrely, as soon as I blew it off, I had some legitimate ideas. The thing is this: The Bachelor, and other reality tv shows are really a great example of stealth marketing. On the show, each of the women has to demonstrate how they are different and better than the other women, all while not appearing to market themselves heavily. After all, on The Bachelor, as in life, only one person can get the job or the prize.

1. Speak the Right Language.

In Friday’s post, I talked about not using lofty language and scaring off your clients. Well, as you can probably imagine, lofty language isn’t generally an issue on The Bachelor, and grammar is usually pretty spotty as well. However, all the contestants, and the bachelor himself make sure to speak a language that they can all understand. While the repetitive use of phrases can get annoying, all the participants talk about “Being here for the right reasons” or “the journey”. Annoying, yes, but also smart communication. The women in particular pay careful attention to how the bachelor responds to these phrases, and change their presentation based on his reaction.

So, how does this apply to you? When you’re writing your website, think about how you’d woo your ideal client. What phrases are meaningful to them? What phrases do they hate? When you write your website, think not just about the information, but the presentation of it. After all, you want to be the last one standing with the rose in the end too.

2. Don’t Be Afraid To Leverage Your Value.

Late in this season, one of the female contestants on the show was faced with the choice to go home, or stay on the show and lose her job. Impressively, she went to the bachelor and asked him what her chances were of remaining until the very end. This was a brilliant strategy, as all of the sudden she had a value that the other contestants didn’t.

When you’re put in a difficult selling situation (and we all are occasionally) make sure that you survive by asserting your value rather than backing down. Unless you decide you don’t want the job (or the guy), as the contestant did.

3. Don’t Be A Hypocrite.

One woman early on in the season made a drastic mistake: she came in to the show and asked not to be kissed unless she was the final one, and then proceeded to tease the poor bachelor to death. He very rightly kicked her to the curb mid-date a few weeks in. It wasn’t her rules he had a problem with, it was the fact that her behavior demonstrated that it was clearly a manipulative stunt.

When you market, make sure that what you say and what you do match up. There’s nothing wrong with selling your products and services: it only becomes bad when you try and hide it and go about it dishonestly. Be honest, be upfront, and don’t play games.

4. Make it look good.

If you’ve ever seen the show, you will know that hideously ugly dresses are a Bachelor rose ceremony staple. They stylists seem to have an amazing ability to take perfectly attractive women and turn them into muppets. It’s the inside that matters, but sometimes you’ve got to make yourself (or your business) look great to get to the level where you can show your inner beauty off.

You may have the greatest business in the world, but make sure that your website and your marketing materials reflect that. It doesn’t have to be fancy, but it should be clean, good looking, and presentable. Make sure that you proofread your copy and match your colors, and put a good face on your business.

5. Be Positive.

The woman who looks to be the final one for this season was the most hated woman in the entire house. And it didn’t matter one bit to the Bachelor, because she stayed positive and focused on the issue at hand: their relationship. As a result, all the other women came out looking terrible, and seem to have shot themselves in the foot.

When you’re marketing or landing a client, focus on what you do differently, and what you do better. Don’t focus on what your competitors don’t do, or do worse than you. Market to your niche, and focus on your relationship with your ideal customer. After all, they’re the one that matters.

Jump in with a comment if you have any other ideas, and if you’re in the mood for more games, go enter my contest!

I’ve been talking a lot about a big new product launch on Twitter and other places, and here it is! Today I’ll be talking about the new “Spring Cleaning” package, and why you not only need one, but how to win one!

So what is it anyway?

If you’ve ever wanted to have your website copy reviewed by a professional, this is an easy way to do it. For a flat fee, I will go through your website or blog and give you an extensive list of suggestions to improve it. Now, this won’t be a lot of  junky suggestions. Each session will include tons of practical and easy changes that will be focused on making your site work for you and your business.  As a copywriter, I like to see positive results, and my feedback will be heavily results oriented.

Who is this package good for?

Any business or person who makes money through either a blog or a website. Some great ways to use this package could be:

• Is your blog a ghost town? Use this package to get concrete suggestions to monetize your writing and build an active community.
• Are people clicking away from your website? Get suggestions on how to create new content and tweak your existing content to get visitors all the way to that sales button.
• Struggling with how to market yourself? Many people have problems figuring out their unique sales proposition, or articulating what their value is. This package can be an easy way to learn how to attract your ideal customer and market to them effectively.
• People who want fast feedback: turnaround time is only 48 hours!

How it works:

If you want to buy one:

Go to my sales page and click the ugly e-junkie button. I will then send you an email thanking you, with a request for your website and your preferred feedback method. Feedback can come in two forms: a very lengthy email, or a 20 minute phone call. The method is up to you! Within 48 hours, I will have made my notes and either emailed you or set up a time for our phone meeting.

To enter the contest:
Just tweet @copygeniusgirl with “I want to win a #ccSpringCleaning package because _________. http://bit.ly/cFgCHF” Get weird and creative with it!

Alternatively, if  you are not a Twitter person, you can email me with a paragraph about why you’d like a Spring Cleaning package at holly [at] cottage copy.com.

So, it’s no secret that I look at a hell of a lot of websites as part of my job. It’s also no secret that there are a lot of terrible websites out there. Now, a really bad website is sort of like the definition of obscenity. Most of us can’t list what goes into a terrible website, but we definitely know it when we see it. However, a lot of the mistakes I see are really small mistakes. Quite frankly, they’re mistakes that I’m guilty of as well. There are a lot of really fantastic websites out there that are shooting themselves in the foot unintentionally: by having the wrong focus, by using the wrong language, and by worrying about style rather than usage. Today I’m going to go over the top five mistakes that I see consistently (and sometimes make myself), so you can avoid them too.

1. Don’t Describe Yourself As “Low-Cost”.

We all know not to describe ourselves as cheap. After all, that brings up uncomfortable connotations as well as making us look like we’re a low quality business. A huge number of businesses (including me for a few months!) use “low-cost” as a way to avoid the associations with being cheap, while still enticing customers to buy. Well, the problem is that most people truly believe that you get what you pay for: in that situation, describing yourself either as low-cost or cheap is a bad idea. When it really comes down to it, customers want to know if you are a good investment and if you’ll do it right the first time. When you redo your website copy the next time, try focusing on value, and position yourself or your products as a long term investment. If you need to mention cost (because sometimes we can’t avoid it), focus on being reasonable rather than cheap, and tout the benefits that you provide.

2. Say What You Do On Your Homepage.

I know that this seems like a no-brainer, but if you asked I could easily point you to fifteen sites online that have this issue (which I won’t do, even if you ask, because I’m nice that way). You can have the most stylish copy in the universe, the coolest graphics, and the most unique selling proposition in the world: if people don’t know what you do, they will admire the look of your site and keep clicking.

This is especially important if you run a unique or complicated services based business. You may be really familiar with what you do, but that doesn’t mean anyone else has heard of it, let alone understands why they should pay for it. Communication always comes before style: say what you do loudly and proudly, even if that makes your copy plainer.

3. Don’t Oversell On Your Rates Page or Your Store.

Imagine going to a store and reading a great ad for a product, and then taking it up to the cash register where they feed you another sales pitch. You’d wonder what was wrong with it, right? If you have a ton of hard sell copy on your rates page, that’s exactly how your potential clients feel. Many business owners write really lengthy sales page copy that advertises features and benefits and all kinds of things; obviously, you want to demonstrate why you are great and why people should pay you money to continue your path to world domination. However, this is not the place to beat them over the head with it.

Look at your sales/rates page, and try and cut it down to your products or services and the immediate features and benefits. If you have sales copy beyond this, it doesn’t mean that it’s bad or that you’ve wasted a lot of time and effort. Try to find other places on your site where that content can naturally migrate to and become more effective. Remember, people want to buy things, and if they’re on your sales page, you’re 50% there.

4. Don’t Use Lofty Language.

I say this as someone who has been reading Shakespeare and Jane Austen since she was twelve, so it is with some trepidation that I give this advice. In many cases (such as potentially the previous sentence), your language use is scaring off your customers. I’m not advocating that you become Dr. Seuss, but you do have to write for a crowd that probably hasn’t read the Oxford English Dictionary. If you think someone would have to look up a word, don’t use it. If you can rephrase a technical term to aid comprehension, do it. Your audience will thank you, and you’ll seem like a a friendly and down to earth business. Assume that your readers are smart, but don’t hold them to impossible standards of language.

5. Write Like A Human.

There is a lot of stuff out there about finding your writing voice, which I am a big fan of. However, as you’re thinking about that writing voice, please make sure it resembles some sort of mammal rather than that of an android. So many funny, cool, and fascinating people have completely dull websites. The worst part is that the reason that we find this writing voice thing so hard is that we grow up with the idea that professionals dress, act, and sound a certain way. The reality is, most professionals don’t sound like this at all, and that’s probably a good thing.

People want to know that you’re professional, but they also want to know that you’re a person. Feel free to go crazy and be counter-cultural, or write about your love of baseball or tantric yoga on your blog occasionally. People will appreciate your personality, as long as it doesn’t overwhelm your company or your product. Most importantly, make sure your website copy sounds like you, not like the version of you your 7th grade English teacher would really love if you presented to the internet.

Finally, if all of this sounds like far too much work, or gives you a headache just contemplating it, try hiring a professional. Leave a comment and tell me about a big website mistake that you see online, and how to fix it!

P. S. A very flattering mention and link to me on Marketing Maven blog! Go check it out and show Wendy some love.