Writing for leads: How professionals can market themselves online

Writing for leads Ian LurieFriday, February 17, 12

Engage! Converse! Write gooder! Oh, great. Here’s another jackass to tell me all the stuff I hear 30x a day, like “engage your audience”. portent.com copyright 2011 Portent, Inc. conversationmarketing.comFriday, February 17, 12

Ian’s Life, 1990-2011 Not true! I’ve spent 16 years now 150000 Hours 150000 testing, experimenting and learning what kind of writing works best online. So we’re gonna get specific. 112500 75000 50000 37500 15000 0 Law School Writing & Marketing Parenting portent.com copyright 2011 Portent, Inc. conversationmarketing.comFriday, February 17, 12

I’ve had to use this learning writing copy to sell, teach and promote stuff like the Tacoma Dome’s roof, the importance of colon cleansing, and rubber grommits. Yeah. I’m livin’ the dream. portent.com copyright 2011 Portent, Inc. conversationmarketing.comFriday, February 17, 12

Writing for conversion But I digress. I’m not going to give you platitudes. This is about writing for conversion. And make no mistake: Everyone coming to your blog post should somehow convert. I’m not talking about deception, or selling, or anything else ‘cheesy’. I’m talking about making sure readers keep reading, or subscribe, or otherwise stick around. That’s the kind of conversion you want. portent.com copyright 2011 Portent, Inc. conversationmarketing.comFriday, February 17, 12

You need to fill the top of the leads I nd/read your post ‘funnel’. That’s what the blog is for. It’s not to get folks to hire you. So your job is to get folks who read your I subscribe stuff to this point. You keep in touch I hire you portent.com copyright 2011 Portent, Inc. conversationmarketing.comFriday, February 17, 12

9 rules I’ve got 9 basic rules I use whenever I write for online consumption. Follow them and you maximize the odds that you can get readers to convert. portent.com copyright 2011 Portent, Inc. conversationmarketing.comFriday, February 17, 12

No one cares. Write accordingly. 1Friday, February 17, 12

me. mememe you. no... me. me. me. People are self-interested. On the web, they’re more distracted, less attentive and less willing to stop for a second than a preschooler who just ate a bag of M&Ms. Beg, plead, bribe. You’ll get nothing. portent.com copyright 2011 Portent, Inc. conversationmarketing.comFriday, February 17, 12

Tell people why they should read. So, you need to put whatever you’re writing in their terms. Why would they want to read your post? portent.com copyright 2011 Portent, Inc. conversationmarketing.comFriday, February 17, 12

For example: “Don’t let an uninsured loss devastate your project. Look out for these insurance policy gotchas.” If I’m a general contractor, guess what? I worry about this all the time. So this first sentence tells me why I should read this post. portent.com copyright 2011 Portent, Inc. conversationmarketing.comFriday, February 17, 12

Don’t write a white paper. Whatever you do, don’t write the staid, white paper. First, most of the readers aren’t lawyers, or accountants, or engineers, or whatever. Second, even the nerdiest of us will have a hard time not going into a coma when you start throwing white papers on a blog. portent.com copyright 2011 Portent, Inc. conversationmarketing.comFriday, February 17, 12

ect nt hit ta arc oun n- cc no -a a on a n -lawyer an on Answer this: Why should I care? Answer this question: Why should someone outside your profession care about this post? portent.com copyright 2011 Portent, Inc. conversationmarketing.comFriday, February 17, 12

Write for a blank sheet of paper. 2Friday, February 17, 12

Your headline must, when written on a blank sheet of paper, explain your post to a complete stranger. ‘nuff said. portent.com copyright 2011 Portent, Inc. conversationmarketing.comFriday, February 17, 12

Headlines get taken out of context, all over the place. Here’s the headline on a post I wrote a while back.Friday, February 17, 12

And here it is, in a search result.Friday, February 17, 12

Headlines show up in feed readers, too. My point: Any headline you write - any title for any post - must be fully descriptive. It must stand on its own, because it’s going to have to. Ignoring this rule leads to all sorts of tragedies...Friday, February 17, 12

This is from an Anderson Cooper article. What the heck was he writing about? I dunno. Come on in, the water’s ne. portent.com copyright 2011 Portent, Inc. conversationmarketing.comFriday, February 17, 12

Clickthru from headline/titles, by type Clever Descriptive 40% We’ve tested this over the years. Descriptive beats clever, every time. 30% 20% 10% 0% Search Feeds Twitter E-mailFriday, February 17, 12

Just say it. 3Friday, February 17, 12

Active voice should always be what you use. Er, yeah. Use active voice, Er, yeah. Use active voice, not passive voice. not passive voice. portent.com copyright 2011 Portent, Inc. conversationmarketing.comFriday, February 17, 12

Know the no’s. 4Friday, February 17, 12

“This will be too hard to read” “I won’t understand it” “It’ll be the same stuﬀ I read everywhere else” “It will be a waste of my time” Know the reasons people give themselves for leaving your blog post. Most important: You have to constantly reinforce that this is a fantastic use of their time. portent.com copyright 2011 Portent, Inc. conversationmarketing.comFriday, February 17, 12

Don’t write like a lawyer. (until you’re billing someone) 5Friday, February 17, 12

“Don’t write like a #$#@!@ lawyer!!!!!!” -Steven Reinhardt, 1992 Judge Reinhardt is brilliant, and super-liberal. He also called me a fascist, and told me the above. He got the latter right, at least. portent.com copyright 2011 Portent, Inc. conversationmarketing.comFriday, February 17, 12

http://www2.law.ucla.edu/volokh/legalese.htm A brilliant classmate of mine at UCLA is now a professor there. He wrote the above list. You should print it and tape it to your monitor. It’ll improve your writing in minutes. portent.com copyright 2011 Portent, Inc. conversationmarketing.comFriday, February 17, 12

Search engines don’t pay you. 6Friday, February 17, 12

Do be fully descriptive. If you’re fully descriptive in your headlines, you provide a good clue to search engines that lets them classify your post. portent.com copyright 2011 Portent, Inc. conversationmarketing.comFriday, February 17, 12

Do link like with like. If you write 3 posts on a similar topic, link them together. That’s not just for search engines - it also helps your readers. portent.com copyright 2011 Portent, Inc. conversationmarketing.comFriday, February 17, 12

Do keep tags to a minimum. If your blog or site uses tags, use no more than 3-4 tags per post. If you don’t know what tags are, don’t worry about it - you won’t have any issues, because you won’t add any tags. portent.com copyright 2011 Portent, Inc. conversationmarketing.comFriday, February 17, 12

Put on the breaks. You need to break up your writing. It’s hard to read online. People tend to scan the page, first. Make your pages scannable. 7Friday, February 17, 12

Subheadings. Speaking of subheads, use ‘em. Your blogging software lets you add a ‘level 2 heading’ or an ‘h2’. Use those as subheads. portent.com copyright 2011 Portent, Inc. conversationmarketing.comFriday, February 17, 12

Use bullets and lists. Use lists for three reasons: They help people scan the page. They make your points more obvious. And they help you organize your thoughts. Use lists for three reasons: 1. They help people scan the page. 2. They make your points more obvious. 3. They help you organize your thoughts. See the difference? portent.com copyright 2011 Portent, Inc. conversationmarketing.comFriday, February 17, 12

By grouping lists and subheadings, you can turn a massive post (this one was over 1000 words) into an easily readable page. portent.com copyright 2011 Portent, Inc. conversationmarketing.comFriday, February 17, 12

Use images wisely Images are great, but they can really screw up a blog post. 8Friday, February 17, 12

First, they can be too large. This image is 115 kilobytes. In plain language, that means it’s going to take a really long time to download to your readers’ computers. Will they wait? I doubt it. 115 kbFriday, February 17, 12

Here’s the same image, compressed to 18kb. You can use any photo editing software to get the same results. If you don’t know how to do this, have someone else do it for you, or use a service like Picnik, which is owned by Google and won’t send you viruses. 18 kbFriday, February 17, 12

Scale images using that same editing software. Don’t scale them using the height and width attributes. oy. this is very cramped.Friday, February 17, 12

Good ALT attribute: “Sheep say web 2.0” Bad ALT attribute: “What the heck?” Write a fully descriptive ALT attribute for all images. Your blogging software lets you enter a photo description and, depending on how it’s set up, an ALT attribute. Fill out those two fields and you’ll be setting a good ALT attribute.Friday, February 17, 12

Have a call to action. Finally, have a call to action. Ask folks to do what you want them to do. And that call to action doesn’t have to be ‘hire me’. It should be an action that brings them into the funnel. 9Friday, February 17, 12

Invite subscriptions/follows How about asking folks to follow you on Twitter, or subscribe to your blog using an RSS reader? portent.com copyright 2011 Portent, Inc. conversationmarketing.comFriday, February 17, 12

First, have a link that reads exactly like this: You should follow me on Twitter. This wording gets best results as far as building followers. portent.com copyright 2011 Portent, Inc. conversationmarketing.comFriday, February 17, 12

Social media = rankings If you’re wondering, ‘why bother’, well, there’s more to social media sharing than warm tingles. Social media shares help content rank higher in search results, too. And they build the kind of authority search engines and social media sites use to rank and filter content. portent.com copyright 2011 Portent, Inc. conversationmarketing.comFriday, February 17, 12

25 SEO: B+ 108 SEO: F Look at these rankings. These guys have no business being #3 for ‘law firm’. They 11 only rank there because they have far SEO: C+ more followers on Facebook. Social shares matter, a lot. 44 SEO: D- portent.com copyright 2011 Portent, Inc. conversationmarketing.comFriday, February 17, 12

Subscriptions = visibility And, of course, every subscription you get builds visibility: It’s one more user who’ll remember you, and potentially come back. portent.com copyright 2011 Portent, Inc. conversationmarketing.comFriday, February 17, 12

blog post 1 By ‘chaining’ a series of posts together you can build your authority and trust, and then get more folks willing to provide their information to get a more in-depth piece. That gets folks deeper into the blog post 2 funnel. blog post 3 e-book/whitepaper/ seminar portent.com copyright 2011 Portent, Inc. conversationmarketing.comFriday, February 17, 12

I read your post That’s how all of these tips work: They fill the top of the funnel. Then they help readers make a good decision about whether they should subscribe to your blog. If they keep in touch, they’re more I subscribe likely to hire you. There you have it: Inbound marketing, without a hard sell. You keep in touch I hire you portent.com copyright 2011 Portent, Inc. conversationmarketing.comFriday, February 17, 12

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Writing for leads: How professionals can market themselves online

by Ian Lurie

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Writing for leads: How professionals can market themselves online Presentation Transcript