I’ve lost count of the number of times people have said to me “You were asking for that”. Curiosity may well have killed the cat but from my experience it probably does for a few writers as well. When you think about it all existentially though, it’s an odd saying really. Often I’ve found when asking for stuff as a consumer I rarely get exactly what I want. Search engine results and the dark art of SEO copywriting have a lot to do with that I expect. Sadly, as a writer and an SEO copywriter I have to admit being part of the problem. Putting yourself on the opposite end of SEO copywriting from time to time and examining your experiences as a consumer can teach you a lot about what works and what doesn’t. The experience is different for everyone but I suspect there are some things that we all have in common. Here’s just one recent “purchasing experience” for you to examine.
Peculiar tastes
I love pens and I’m a sucker for fine-liners. There’s just something about them that makes the whole experience of writing and drawing a little more tactile, sensuous or retro. I like tactile, I like sensuous and I like retro. Despite making a living by using a keyboard to write with I still love a good pen and still write with them when I get the chance. Now a good pen, when you find one, should be for life. Then the gel-filled, fine-lined experience runs dry, you get that empty feeling, your world seems meaningless and is filled only with a dusty old keyboard with a dodgy “p” key that doesn’t always work. Time to search the wondrous web for “Pen Refills”, here are two very different attempts by Google to satiate my peculiar tastes.
Sexy pens
The top result took me to a site which basically tried to appeal to my sense of being a sophisticated, sexy, mature individual. OK, I’ve reached the dizzying heights of 40, and long ago lost any allusion that I am sophisticated. I’m not much more than a big kid really – despite the fact I won’t see forty again my birthday presents usually consist of a bag of Drumstick Lollies and other delightful fizzy chews. So that’s sophisticated and mature out the window, I’m not discussing the other technique they were trying to cajole me with. Thing is, I don’t want a pen to make me look sophisticated or mature and I’m not sure it’s possible to look sexy with one – well not if you have a chewy lolly in the other hand, anyway.
We sell pen refills
This was the fourth result that came up. You may be guessing by now this was the site I bought from. No nonsense, no appealing to my ego, this company did exactly what they said on the screen. It not only sold pens, they even had the angle that these were ‘cult pens’ – as if being obsessed with fine-liners made you part of some weird, but harmless, sect. Well, we all like to belong. The site also offered me a prize draw for something shiny and modern, called an I-phone. I had to buy more pens than I wanted in order to enter, but in addition to getting the chance of winning something shiny and new that might go some way to making me look a bit younger and possibly sexy, I now get regular updates tempting me with fine-liners and other gel based excitements.
Conclusions anyone?
I was going to attempt to draw conclusions from this experience but perhaps you should be left to draw your own. One point that should be made is that as a copywriter I’m particularly difficult to sell to – with the possible exception of fizzy chews. The first of the two sites had more SEO copywriting than you could shake a pen at. It certainly appealed to the search engine but not to me. Perhaps the harder trick in SEO Copywriting is to know your human niche and appeal to them just as much as the robot you’re trying so hard to please.
Apple Copywriting provide SEO copywriting which is not afraid to be simple. Take a bite.
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