When was the last time you looked at your website with an objective eye? I mean, really, really, looked at your site. Not just to see if you have your latest product featured on the home page, or a lack of typos in your blog posts, but instead a top-to-bottom, consumer-centric perspective overview. Is your site telling your brand story in a way that builds lasting human connections? Has it got brief, compelling copy that catches a consumer’s attention in the few seconds they grant you before heading elsewhere? Moreover, are you too intimately involved to know the difference?

If you paused for a moment on any of those questions, it might be time for a copy audit.

While a professional copy audit is worth its weight in gold, here are some simple do-it-yourself steps you can take immediately to put you on the path to having website copy that actually converts.

CHECK YOUR FIRST IMPRESSION

Let’s never forget the first truth of the internet: you only have a matter of seconds (5-7 to be exact) to make an impact. Think about what a potential customer sees on your site when they first land there. Is it blatantly clear from first glance who you are and what you can do for them? Have you done everything you can to make sure they know they are in the right place, while encouraging them to continue scrolling through the site or, better still, take action? Sometimes we are too close to our own content to know if we have nailed this or not, so my advice is to get a friend to take a look and see if they understand who you are and what you do within the first 10 (let’s be generous!) seconds of viewing your site.

KEEP IT SIMPLE

Did you know that one of the toughest aspects of website copywriting is being able to communicate a message that speaks volumes in the minimum amount of characters possible? It’s not easy. In fact, there are books focused solely on that topic, such as Roy Peter Clark’s How To Write Short. (Yes, I know… it’s ironical that there’s an entire book written on the topic of writing short!) Aside from the fact that seconds count when it comes to capturing attention online, you also need to consider that short, punchy headlines and sub copy is far more effective from a marketing perspective than long, drawn out sentences that bore and fail to leave any lasting impression.

AIM FOR CONSISTENCY

Did your website copy come together bit by bit? Did you initially write the home page copy, while Max in Marketing added a couple of blog posts, and your product descriptions were put together by the designer? You wouldn’t be alone. But you will also most likely sound like you don’t quite know who you are, or, worse still, that you have a personality disorder. In an ideal world, people should be able to recognize your voice before they even see your logo. Patchwork quilts are a work of art. Unless they apply to website copy.

DON’T UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF STORYTELLING

Think about what you are selling to your potential customers… Is it a product? A service? While that might be your literal offering, it’s not what people are buying into. No, they are buying into the experience of your brand. The feelings it evokes. And the aspirations it brings with it. Simply talk to them about your product, its features, and why it’s better than your competitors, and you are not achieving your full potential as a brand. Brand affinity comes from almost everything else. It starts with your Why -- (if you’ve not yet read Simon Sinek’s Start With Why I highly recommend it) -- and it goes on to inspirational stories of people in your space doing great things. It comes from influencers and user-generated content. In fact, it comes from everything and anything that tells the story of who you are and why people would want to be part of your tribe. Don’t miss the opportunity to tell your brand story throughout your site. (If you are unsure exactly what your brand story is and how to build out on that, let’s talk!)

BE ACTIONABLE

When someone lands on your site, is it obvious what action you want them to take? Are you purely informational (unlikely,) or is there something you would like visitors to do? This might be something obvious, such as buying your product, or perhaps you want them to download a pdf as a lead capture. Whatever your goal might be, make sure you are taking people down that path throughout your website copy and giving plenty of opportunities in different places to take this action. In other words, make it easy for them!

LOOK AS GOOD AS YOU SOUND

Ok, I know this one does not refer specifically to copy, but I’ve been working in branding long enough to know that you can have the best copy in the world and have dialed in your voice until you are unmistakably “you,” but when your visual appearance doesn’t keep up, it will be falling on deaf ears. Let’s say you have decided on a fresh, conversational voice with a slight edge and your storytelling is focused on the aspirational lifestyle around your brand. What happens then if your logo is stale and dated and your site is filled with stock imagery? It will confuse viewers, forcing them to question if you are who you claim to be. If you don’t have someone internally who can lay out a visual direction for your brand, there are plenty of great designers out there who offer this service. Plus, it really doesn’t have to cost a fortune to get some original images taken for your site, and will be worth every cent you invest on it.

Ready to go examine your website to see how conversion-happy it is? Hopefully this will give you a good starting point. If you think you might need a professional eye and some actionable insights, hit me up -- you’d be surprised at how small changes can make a big impact.

Note: While I wrote this post a while back now and am since firmly back in the freelance world, I think the points stand true so decided to keep it active!

I am writing this post from an RV, somewhere between a pristine glacier and the frigid ocean on the eastern tip of Iceland. I’m not just telling you this to make you jealous, I promise. It’s to highlight a point. I live and work in Southern California, so geographically and culturally, I am far from home. But mentally, my work travels with me. Now, before you judge the girl who can’t switch off on her travels, consider this: I work for a company that has created a culture defined by flexibility. What does that mean exactly? In our case, it means that vacation days taken are not counted — (yes, you heard that right, there is technically no limit to the amount of vacation you can take) — and there are no set office hours, with work done at home and work done on site given equal value. 

Not only is this progressive and aligned with today’s technological advancements that mean anyone can work from anywhere at any given time, but it is also the reason I finally took the plunge and accepted a full time “office” job after nearly 15 years of working as a freelance writer and marketing consultant. 

I’m not going to lie, I loved working as a freelance contractor. I felt like it gave me the best of both worlds — the ability to work with a variety of clients, turn down ones that I didn’t want to work with, pick and choose when I wanted to work (some of my best work has been done at 2am), and, most importantly for me, travel when my kids had time off school. But cracks were starting to reveal themselves beneath the surface… My income would vary dramatically from one month to the next, I could feel isolated through a lack of collaboration, and I often felt like I had more to contribute to the companies I would work with than a short term project allowed.

This seismic shift was taking place just around the time I was referred to a company that was looking for a copywriter and brand consultant. I was immediately drawn to the culture. It was dynamic, collaborative, fun, and intensely productive. The crew I was working with were utilizing their combined expertise to evaluate businesses, help them refine their model, create killer go-to-market strategies, and ultimately accelerate their success. I loved what I was seeing. I wanted IN. But I didn’t want to give up my freedom. “Oh yes, she who wants it all”right? Well, not exactly. See, my work life and my personal life have always blended into one. My laptop is a full time appendage. It travels with me on mom duties at the soccer field and on snowboarding vacations to Mammoth. It is a common feature on weekends and late at night when the house is silent. And yes, it even makes a solid appearance while road tripping in Iceland. 

So why relinquish the lifestyle I had worked so hard to claim? Well, just like the guy who thinks he will be single for the rest of his life then finally meets his perfect match at 40 years old, I realized I might just have found mine with this company that embraced a flexible work culture and believes that a happy team is a solid team. It took no time at all for me to accept an offer for a full time role, and I haven’t looked back since. 

“But how can a company be productive when its employees are off galavanting around the world and never in the office?”, I hear you say. Well, like everything in life, it’s not a straightforward answer, but for it to be successful it means understanding the following:

FLEXIBLE CULTURES NEED FLEXIBLE EMPLOYEES                                             

 Ideally this will be someone who is used to meeting the demands of work no matter when that is, with weekends, late evenings, and the occasional vacation check-in not entirely off the menu. If you are the kind of person who would prefer to clock in at 9 and out and 5 and find the prospect of dealing with some late-evening-proposal-polishing offensive, it’s probably not for you. 

 THIS IS A MUTUALLY BENEFICIAL AGREEMENT                             

Employ people who respect the culture, and realize that rather than a one way street of freedom, it is actually a mutually beneficial agreement that allows you to take your kids to soccer practice in the afternoon so long as you finish your project after dinner. 

 HIGH PERFORMING EMPLOYEES SELF-ENFORCE BY DEFAULT                 

High-performing employees simply aren’t going to be abusing a vacation policy by leaving the country every other week. They are here to do a job and they want to do it well. In fact, studies have shown that employees actually take fewer vacation days in companies that offer an unlimited vacation policy. As Patty McCord from Netflix - a leader in flexible company culture — once said, “There is also no clothing policy at Netlix, but no one has come to work naked lately.”

A FLEXIBLE WORKING CULTURE USUALLY INCREASES PRODUCTIVITY           

In today’s world of omnipresent internet connectivity and creative roles that thrive on external stimuli rather than staid office environments, a flexible working culture more likely increases productivity than threatens it. It’s hard to come up with the next big thing in advertising or be inspired to create a content campaign within the four walls of your office building. In fact, some of my best creative moments have come while swimming laps in my pool!                                                                           

The legacy company set up is, quite frankly, a threatened species. Clocking in and clocking out, two weeks paid vacation, and concentrating on time spent at desks rather than results simply has the focus all wrong. When you love what you do, you want to do it well. And when you achieve a work-life balance (and yes, that does sometimes mean working all Saturday or getting back on some projects while on vacation), the divide between the two parts of your life starts to fade.

I’m not saying there won’t be casualties. There will be those who don’t get that with freedom comes accountability and they will abuse the system. But that just becomes part of a company’s natural attrition process. My guess is that little by little, companies that embrace this philosophy will start to recognize the right personality types at the first interview. And on the flip side, they will attract an increasing number of top level candidates who work best (or will only work) in a flexible office culture.

For me, meanwhile, I will continue to respect the culture of the company that finally got me to commit and hotspot my phone to my computer from an RV in the depths of Iceland.

Did you see what I did there? I wrote a compelling headline to draw you in…Clever, huh? Well, in reality it probably didn't work, as no one really sets out to explicitly confuse their kids about anything. I think. But I seem to have done just that, and I will explain why.

We are a mutt kind of family over here. I am from England, my husband is from Finland, and our kids were born and bred in Southern California. I'm not sure what that makes my kids, but I do know that my husband speaks an interesting version of Finnglish. 

I've never really given this situation a lot of thought. Of course, I get the weekly "Where are you from in Australia?" question as I check out at Trader Joes, (to which I reply: "London", but no one really gets my joke,) but last weekend I was forced to look beyond my own identity crisis and examine the one I've unwittingly forced upon my kids.

Why now? One word: Superbowl. Whilst chatting with some American friends over dinner during my son's soccer tournament, the dreaded question spilled out. "So, Gabriel… Who will you be supporting during the Superbowl?" I peered over my bowl of Pho at my 9 year old son as he muttered something alone the lines of, "No one. I don't follow football. I don't really know the rules and stuff." Even I, the Brit on the sidelines, knew this was some kind of sacrilege to be spoken amongst the sport loving American audience. His friend's dad responded that he was going to kidnap him and bring him to America. Fair point. After 10+ years of living here, I should at least have made a small effort to introduce the biggest sport in the country to my boys. But then again, it wouldn't fit in with other fringe lifestyle choices I've made, such as always driving back from vacation on Thanksgiving "because everyone will be celebrating, so the roads will be quiet…"

Regardless, I swallowed that one and made a mental check to make a better effort at immersing my American born Euro kids into true US culture. I wasn't too worried, as I knew they identified themselves closely to their European roots and that at least that was something. That was, until the following day when watching a live premiere league soccer game (or should I say "football?", this is all getting so confusing), I made a joke about the ginger haired player on the field being Prince Harry. My son turned around to me and asked who Prince Harry was. 

And just like that, my illusions shattered around me. I realized I'd failed miserably at creating any kind of identity at all! Not American. Not English. And, let's face it, you've got to grow up in Finland to claim any of the hardy Finnish traits. So, basically, identity failure. Sure, they like marmite on toast. And I know their first beer will probably be a Bodingtons. But as far as really helping them to feel like they belong in one culture or another, I score an almost nothing.

Does this matter? Will they be better off for floating around amongst cultures without strapping their feet to the soil of one in particular? Will they themselves ever feel an identity crisis in the way I often have for moving country so frequently? Or will they decide that what they lack in American football knowledge is totally compensated with their understanding of Finnish cursing? I really can't say at this point.

But what I can say is this. If my headline got you to read as far as this, my copywriting must be right on track!

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My dog is the king. No, really, his name is Elvis, so it technically does make him a king. He's handsome, has human-like eyes, and stole my heart from the day we unexpectedly brought him home. But does he need his own Instagram account? Hell no! That would be ridiculous, especially seeing as I don't even have one for myself. Right? Well, I'm actually going to split some rather fluffy hairs on this one. Because I did create an Instagram account for Elvis. Not because I wanted to show the world how much more awesome my dog is than yours (he is, though) but because I realized that a large part of my job is helping clients develop the content and communication strategies for their brand, including their social media outreach. And, I guess I felt like something of a fraud telling them how to grow an Instagram account without even owning one myself. 

So, I did what any rational, level-headed #muthafluffa would do, and set one up. For my dog. Oh the fun we’ve had. Elvis took off. Thanks to my husband’s behind-the-lens skills, my penchant for finding humor during morning, erm, bathroom breaks, and Elvis’ own ridiculous personality, we’ve grown at a rate far faster than my own account would have done. Now, when I say “took off,” I don’t mean Kardashian status. But we did get past 1000 followers in just over a month, and it’s growing every day. More importantly - and as I learnt first hand with brand-building while helping to create www.mizulife.com behind the scenes with its co-founder (my husband) - there is nothing that you can read in a book or course or blog post that compares to actually doing something yourself. Hands-on, mistake-rich experience trumps all other kinds. And that’s what I knew I needed with Instagram.

“So, I did what any rational, level-headed #muthafluffa would do, and set up one for my dog instead.”

Now, it has created certain challenges in my life. For example, how much do I stay in character when commenting on friends’ posts? Sometimes it’s really funny to imagine what Elvis would say to them and respond like only a labradoodle on his way to internet stardom knows how. But then there’s other times that I actually want to say something sincere, and it comes out a little creepy from a dog’s mouth. 

And then there’s the very real issue of content creation. Anyone who works in today’s world of digital marketing knows how hard it is to create enough visual content for the pace at which it is consumed, and it’s something I help my clients work around on a regular basis. Well, I have a confession...Elvis’ Instagram account is no different, and because of that there will now be a serious dearth of photos of my two little boys in the 2017 family photo album that I'm going to have to fill with shots of Elvis. Sad, but true. And, as much as my family overseas love the fact we have the best, cutest, most intelligent dog in the world (sorry everyone else,) they still want to see how my boys look once in a while…but in order to keep up with his Insta-demands we only have time to take photos of the dog. But in all seriousness, I have applied similar tactics to building enough content for his account to those I recommend to clients so as to avoid the pitfall of post, post, post...nothing.

Creating enough content for a well-curated social strategy is a challenge, and one that needs to be addressed before creating editorial calendars and committing to frequency. It's not just the "What is our voice", "What is our messaging strategy?" kind of questions that need to be answered upfront, but the very real, "How are we going to accumulate enough high-quality, on-brand images (and videos) to keep up with the pace we are setting?" question too.

“Anyone who works in today’s world of digital marketing knows how hard it is to create enough visual content for the pace at which it is consumed ”

I could run through all the elements of Instagram that became more real to me once I was trying to build a following on an account I owned rather than just running accounts for companies, but really the point I am trying to emphasize here is that when working with clients, the best way to help them is to put yourself in their shoes, learn some hard lessons along the way, and talk from real-life experience as much as possible.

Maybe you’ll even get your own pet endorsement proposal like I did this week. 

Or maybe you’re just looking for an excuse to create an Instagram account for your dog because you’re slightly obsessed with him. (Just saying’.)

Either way, there's nothing to lose by getting your hands dirty in the wide and wonderful world of content once in a while.

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(And next time you're scrolling through Instagram, check out @elvisfromencinitas. He may be a little irreverent at times, but, well, he is the King so he can do what he damn wants.)