Stravinsky and writing SEO copy
David Rosam on Feb 15 2008 at 5:55 pm | Filed under: SEO copywriting, The Power of Words
Please bear with me on this one. Most of my posts here are practical or seek to answer questions that have come up when I’m talking to clients, prospects or colleagues. This one is a little more, shall I say, theoretical - about the nature and process of writing.
Triggered by a Tweet by fellow SEO copywriter michellereno that asked what inspires (copy)writers to write. I believe she has also posted a blog entry.
I’m not sure inspiration is really at the core of my writing - see the third paragraph on this page of my personal blog.
And here’s another angle on the same thing. Some years ago, I found a quote attributed to composer Igor Stravinsky:
The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees oneself of the chains that shackle the spirit.
Although some people disagree with my interpretation, what he’s getting at seems so obvious. It’s about having a routine, a process that nails down the trivia and frees you up to produce what matters.
I believe in process for copywriting. Not only does it deliver when it needs to, but by going through briefing, research, key phrase selection, copy plan, drafts and revisions I have the process under control. I move forward in manageable stages sure that what I’m doing is correct.
The solid grounding gives me confidence to produce good copy.
Update: You can find Michelle on inspiration for writing on her blog.
Interesting read on Stravinsky’s statement. But I think that any activity is easier if there is a basic structure, you might call the mechanics laid out.
I know that when I sit down to do some work, if I have a step by step plan in front of me, I get a lot of work done. If I don’t have that, I spend way too much time trying to decide how to do something.
As far a copywriting goes, I am a beginner in the online marketing world. Copywriting is something I am learning. I have some software that I use that asks me some questions and after filling in the answers spits out a sales page. I know it’s not great, but at least it gives me a rudimenatry starting point. From there I can start to tweak it.
There is one interesting software program that I have read about. It is program written by a marketer named James Brausch. This software uses pure statistical analysis to compare your page to a large database of copy that has known scores as to how well they performed. It scores your page against the database.
The process then is tweak your page and keep running it through the software trying to beat your last score. Almost like a game.
I thought that I can use the first software to give me my initial copy and then start tweaking it with this analysis software. It seems like that might be a good system for a non professional copywriter to create some reasonably converting pages.
Does this make sense to you? Would love to here your words of wisdom.
Thanks, and again, interesting blog entry that helps frame the importance of having a structure or process to follow.
-Scott
@Scott
Glad you agree on process. I’m also glad you liked this blog entry - I hope you’ve subscribed to my RSS feed.
The software, I don’t know. I’m not in favour of going the easy route in SEO - see ‘Rosam’s SEO rules of thumb’ at http://tinyurl.com/2yglq3.
However, the software that uses statistical analysis sounds interesting, on the face of it. You don’t give any guide to which of James Brausch’s products this is - I guess it’s the $300 multivariate analysis script.
However, I’m dubious about this kind of presentation, and without trying the software - I’m not going to weigh out $300, I’m afraid - I can’t recommend it.
David