Let’s say you’re writing for a fan page dedicated to the growing, styling and maintenance of dundrearies, because, well, why wouldn’t you? Listen, it was the closest I could come to playing on the Something Something for Dummies book franchise and I thought it was clever, just humor me and let’s roll with it…

Edward Sothern's jaws giving birth to a... style?

OK, so you’re looking to grab more members – it’s the Worldwide Web after all, there has to be more than three of you on the planet, right? So, how do you draw these other tastefully be-bristled folks to you?

First, for the sake of this post anyway, ya’ gotta have a blog, which, quite honestly, I can’t imagine your dundreary site not having, as there has to be tons of new styling gels to test, monocle swap-meets, pretentious art house meetings to organize, political discussion, this thing should be buzzing. As we’ve discussed many times before, from a search engine optimization angle, this is the fresh content the engines adore, but they can’t do much for you if you aren’t using the right keywords in your writing. You need to find out how people are searching for your subject matter – what are they typing into the search engines when they want to know if sporting some extreme dundrearies can drown them? Is that even a common search? Let’s find out!

As with any good keyword hunt, I find it’s best to start with Google AdWords to sprinkle some seeds and see what sprouts up. I spotted AdWords “dundrearies” and “dundreary” and this is the best it could muster:

Hmmm, doesn't appear to be a popular search in Kansas City... or anywhere else.

Wow, that’s a little disappointing. Clearly, we’re dealing with a fairly niche lifestyle choice here, but hey, we have a better idea now of how people are searching for their information and which words carry the most strength. Starting with the keyword “dundrearies” we now have a breakdown of which of the *sigh* four words and phrases should be included the most in your future posts.

Armed with this knowledge be careful not to overdo it from here on out. A good guideline to follow is to not go over 5% keyword density in your writing because not only will the search engines start thinking you’re trying to manipulate them (they don’t like that), but your writing starts to look like crap. So, for example, lets say you’re putting together a feature on the best new pomade for styling your dundrearies into stylish curls and the word count is roughly 500 words. Multiply 500 by .05 (for my mathematically challenged brothers and sisters out there, that’s your 5%) and you come up with 25, which means you don’t want to go beyond stuffing 25 keywords into the entire piece. That’s a total by the way, I don’t mean for you to try that with each and every keyword, that could get messy.

Simply maintaining your blog gives you the opportunity to not only build on existing keywords, but if you check periodically you can also seamlessly plug in new keywords should they arise. And by doing a good job you show yourself as an authority on your subject matter, and provided you’re constantly researching and staying on top of your industry, then you really and truly are – right? Yes, imagine, the online leader in dundreary technology… dare to dream my friends.

Persuasivity: The word I just made up (ARGH!…nevermind, it’s all over the ‘net already) to describe what your writing needs to be to sell your possibly not very exciting product. No, not you lion-tamer-for-children’s-birthday-parties, not you pyrotechnics college, not you monster truck rental service; I’m talking to the vacuum cleaner sales and repair shop, data management software vendor, the cardboard box suppliers of the world.

If you’re selling a product or service that’s unique to your business then you should have no issues with cobbling together all your unique selling points and working the simplest angle: “This is the only place you can find this, the choice is obvious!” For the majority though, you likely offer something readily available, if not locally, then at least elsewhere online. In this case you need to give your product descriptions a bit of a pop, not bashing the reader over the head, not being too cutesy, but something that gives the reader all the necessary information without being too bland. I don’t think I have the space to put together a comprehensive writing class in this post, *ahem* nor would you want to sit through it, so let’s take a quick look at some of the biggest traps and simplest solutions for your product descriptions:

1. What does your cool thing do and to what awesome end does it do it?

It doesn’t get much more basic than this. Let’s say you’re selling running shoes – what is there to say about these shoes? Without getting into the hyperbolic we can safely say, “They cover your feet.” That’s a solid description, but will it shift many pair of these sweet shoes? How about we change it to, “They cover your feet in style.”

Boom, you just sold some shoes!

Explaining that a feature of your product saves time, saves money, turns a sandwich into a banquet, whatever it does, no matter how obvious you think it may be, is a nice reinforcement of what a terrific product it is.

2. Hmmm, how is your price so cheap on this item?

Especially when it comes to online sales, unless you’ve really built trust in your brand, people are skeptical of noticeable price breaks. It might not hurt to explain that you ordered too many, maybe the manufacturer had a closeout for that model and you’re passing along the savings, maybe your car dealership is too close to a baseball field/driving range – it’s worth mentioning this to ease any kind of customer concern.

3. Oh, cool, I didn’t know that.

If your particular item has any interesting background your average customer may not be aware of, throw it in. A good friend and former client of mine manufactured carbon fiber components for a wide variety of industries: everything from satellite components, to racecar bits and bobs, and hush-hush “defense contract” business. They also happen to produce barrels for paintball markers… now do you think their background might, just maybe, be a bit of a hook for the paintball market?

4. This Potatoes-In-A-Box mix reminds me of Mom…

If you’re up for it, consider latching onto your readers’ emotions. Now, watch it, you don’t want to get disingenuous with some over-the-top rhetoric about how if every household were to buy your blender, terrorism would end; maybe you want to start simple with something like, “Now you too can make margaritas like Grandma used to make with our stainless steel Blend-A-Whirl.”

Something to that effect…

5. PROOFREAD!

Oh yeah, it might not hurt to go back through once more to make sure the price you have listed is current, maybe the color, sizes, whatever it is the customer will want to know before adding to their shopping cart. Finding a listing that does contain the information they’re searching for is only a mouse click away after all.

Now, go out and write my pretties! Sell! SELL!