Have your benefit statements gone Waldo?

Greetings! In today’s SEO copywriting video how-to, Heather again addresses benefit statements, but from a completely different angle.

Instead of discussing how to write them, today she talks about how to use them in your Web content: namely, how to highlight your benefit statements – as opposed to burying them!

So if your conversions are hurting, it may well be because the most exciting things about your products or services have been buried six paragraphs under—way down deep at the bottom of the page. Effectively, they’re as hard to find as Waldo.

Tune in to find out how to make your benefits POP off the page with smart Web copy placement:

Are your benefits as hard to find as Waldo?

• Prospects buy based on benefits – not features!
• Your readers skim your content, so…
• …you need to make your benefits pop!

In many websites, I see businesses bury their benefit statements at the bottom of the page, perhaps intending to wrap up the message with something exciting in order to create a good, strong close.

Unfortunately, that’s a recipe for disaster because it’s not how people work.

First, people want to see the benefits of a product or service, not the features!

It is the benefit, the way in which a product or service improves a visitor’s life, that resonates with that person on an emotional level. The emotions are the first things we want to get hold of, because people make purchases out of emotion first, then use logic (features) to justify the purchase.

Second, website visitors need to see benefit statements throughout all of the copy because they don’t read web pages word-for-word.

Visitors skim web content until something “grabs” them. The more you’re able to grab them, and pull them back into the message at various points, the better your chances of guiding them to the sale.

This is why it’s so important that benefit statements really POP!  They can’t be buried at the bottom of the page. They need to be front and center, unmistakable, and used liberally.

Get your benefit statements noticed!

Here are a few ways you can use benefit statements to ramp up the pulling power of your copy:

•  Include benefit statements in your headlines and subheadlines.

As people skim web pages, these are the areas they pay attention to first, so take advantage of it. Make sure headlines and subheadlines talk benefits, not just features.

• Do you offer a guarantee? Turn tell the world about it!

While your guarantee may not be a main benefit, guarantees do carry a lot of importance for customers – so make yours known!

• Review your testimonials and case studies for golden benefit statement nuggets. Feature the best ones (social proof).

If you take the time to look over your testimonials and case studies, chances are you’ll find some golden benefit statement nuggets you might have missed otherwise. Feature the best ones on the page (they provide great social proof).

• Writing bullet point statements? Lead with the benefit.

If a feature can save people money, time, or help them in some other way, lead with that benefit then tie it to the corresponding feature.

Thanks for tuning in to this week’s SEO Copywriting video! As always if you have any questions or comments, I would love to hear from you! You can reach me by email at heather@seocopywriting.com, or on Twitter via @heatherlloyd.