Writing Like Your Customer

I just participated in an online "webinar" (that's web seminar to the uninitiated) by sponsored by Marketing Profs on writing killer content for the web, presented by Gerry McGovern, an expert in writing for the web. 

He has lots of good stuff to say, most of which you can dig out of the marketing profs site content.  But one thing stuck with me.  Gerry recommends that you write how your audience searches.  For example, when you go to an airline website, you may see writing about "low fares".  But what people really want is cheap flights. 

How do I know that?  I went to the overture search suggestion tool, and found out that in the month of December, 4,063 people searched the term "low fares" but 1,480,440 searched the term "cheap flights".  But that doesn't say it all.  According to WordTracker, not only does cheap flights have more searches, but it also has less competition - fewer websites are using "cheap flights" as a key word. 

So, when you are planning your website and choosing keywords, think like your customer, write like your customer -- even if you think "cheap fares" sounds bad, your customer won't. 

Comments

[Lionel Matecha]

I totally agree with your thoughts on writing content and key words for how a website audience uses online search. Why take a chance on missing a large part of the audience when tools like Overture are readily available?

[Lionel Matecha]

I totally agree with your thoughts on writing content and key words for how a website audience uses online search. Why take a chance on missing a large part of the audience when tools like Overture are readily available?

[manjiko]

I agree this post