I was just sent a bunch of crap. It was a copy revision written by our SEO guys.

Persuasive copy and SEO copy are two sides of the same coin. The only time one side has more importance than the other is in a coin toss. The winners seldom care about the other side of the coin.

Search Engine Optimization is the art of getting your website noticed. In this process the key words that will help your website get found are used as many times as possible in the text of the page.  For example, if I was to write SEO copy for a plumber in Sacramento it might go something like this.

ACME Plumbing in Sacramento California has been fixing toilets, sinks, hot water heaters and clogged drains since 1986. Sacramento County communities like Citrus Heights, Galt, Orangevale, Fair Oaks, Folsom, Rancho Cordova, Del Paso Heights, Arden Park, Natomas and even Placer County communities of Roseville and Auburn have been trusting ACME Plumbing with their plumbing needs because ACME Plumbing in Sacramento has built trust in plumbing repairs like leaky faucets, clogged drains and bad toilets. ACME Plumbing is also the first choice in hot water heater replacements and on demand hot water systems.

Did you read the whole section of copy above or did you speed read it because it was a bunch of predicable crap?  I found it difficult to write so much garbage.  So I have to ask… how long would you stay on the site?  Not only is the copy full of city names and types of plumbing repair, it uses unsubstantiated claims …”built trust in plumbing repairs”… and …” the first choice in”… as connectors between the keyword focused copy. None of this is designed to persuade.

What’s the point of getting people to your site if they are not going to stay there? If you have ever looked at your web statistics and wondered what the bounce rate is- it is the percentage of people who don’t think your copy was compelling enough to visit more pages in your site.

Here is an example of persuasive copy.

Of the 100 things you would like to do today, I bet calling a plumber is not one of them. You probably were surprised by a nasty leak or a clogged sink and just want the problem to go away.
I built ACME Plumbing from the ground up over 23 years ago with you in mind. “What could I do differently than my competitors to make the customer’s experience as nice as I could?”.  That was the question I asked 23 years ago and I ask myself that same question every day. Here are some of the things we do differently:

•  We show up when we say we will or the diagnostic call is free.
• We wear shoe covers every time we step foot in your home. If we don’t, just give me a call and I will send you a $50 Visa gift card.
• We will wear a clean uniform that has a guarantee to show no plumbers cleavage. If you see some, give me a call for a $50 Visa gift card.
• No surprise pricing. The price we give you is the price you pay.
• 100% satisfaction guarantee on all work done in your home.

 

These are just some of the things we do at ACME Plumbing to make your experience better.  There are some more special care items we provide that I share elsewhere in this site. Our most appreciated guarantees are the ones we thought of after a hard lesson. The story of our Hot Shower Guarantee is hilarious… at least now it is…

If I did my job right, you should be thinking to yourself “I feel comfortable with these guys” and “where is the story on the Hot Shower Guarantee?” That is the art of persuasive copy.

The real talent is what I like to call WCO… Web Conversion Optimization. It is not about bringing people to your site, it is about converting visitors to customers. You can only convert visitors if you get them. Again, SEO and Persuasive copy are two sides of the same coin. You have to spend both sides of the coin before you walk out of the store’s doors.

If you are looking for example copy on how to do both, I am afraid you are going to be highly disappointed. It does not exist. A highly persuasive site is not going to meet the stereotypical SEO criteria. Nor will the SEO copy ever be persuasive.  But there are different measures to do both.

I would love to share them, but right now… the people that know how to do this are paid well for that knowledge. We have families to feed so we can share that over a phone call. That call could make you millions.

I hope to hear from you.