The Evolving Copywriter’s Web Site: The Death of the Home Page?
By Tom Chandler on Jun 7, 2007 in Business of Freelancing, Copywriting
Is the Home Page dead? Are copywriters wasting their time writing them?
That’s the question posed by Matt Ambrose of the Copywriter’s Crucible (to be fair, plenty of others are asking the same thing).
The idea that every page is now potentially a landing page is generating some heavy, Russian-novel-level brooding in the marketing world, and certainly fueled an explosion in landing-page specialty firms.
In Matt’s case, the SEO benefits of his blog are paying dividends — it’s far outpacing his Web site on Google.
That Got My Attention
This topic interests me deeply; my next big self-promo project is better integrating my writing blog, marketing blog, and copywriting site (running on blog software).
It seemed like an easy job when I was only focused on the graphic/brand aspects. Then I started considering how customers might come to my sites, and where they’d go next.
That’s where it gets messy.
Matt’s wondering about simply transferring his site content to his blog site. It’s not a bad idea; blog-centric sites are a viable concept.
But what happens when your brand message and your blog don’t align?
For example, my copywriting site is pretty straightforward. Pretty serious. My blog often isn’t. And frankly, my blog isn’t very customer-focused. My Web site is.
And — guess what?
Like Matt, my blog ranks far higher than my Web site.
Sound the Alarm
In this case, the old saw about the shoemaker’s children going shoeless applies; I’ve been too busy handling work to get my own marketing house in order.
Still, it’s time to clean up the online mess I’ve created. I’ve got a couple ideas, but rather than spill them here, I’m going to document my own marketing integration process as it happens.
I’m on a quasi-vacation the second half of this week (I’m staying at a wine-country home with stunning views, gorgeous gardens and great accommodations — I’d make millions on writer’s retreats if I only I could convince the owner to hold them).
That means I won’t start until next week. Along the way, I plan to ask a few members of the copywriting blogosphere for their thoughts.
My thinking, however, begins now.
My advice to Matt? Consider a stopgap; create some quality “thought leader” content and offer it at the top of your blog sidebar — in exchange for an e-mail address (or a visit to your Web site if you don’t want to get in the e-newsletter business). Then start thinking.
Keep writing, Tom Chandler.
UPDATE: I’m working on a followup post, and just posted a related entry on my Engagement Marketing blog.
[tags]writing, copywriter, marketing, freelancing[/tags]
Hey Tom;
On my website for my book, http://www.writingwhitepapers.com, I took a look at my stats for this month.
I wanted to know what pages people enter in on the most.
I was surprised.
#1 was my feed for my blog (7 to 1 over anything else)
#2 was the blog
#8 was the home page
The difference between #1 and #8 was more than 5500 people.
I have noticed over the short year or so that I have been blogging, my blog has nearly caught up in traffic to the other sites I own.
Thanks for getting me to think.
Mike
Michael A. Stelzner | Jun 8, 2007 | Reply
Michael: Things change, but our perceptions often don’t. At least that’s the lesson I’m taking from this.
On the “know thy audience” front, my fly fishing blog has only 1/3 the number of feed readers as this blog, but almost 8x the number of daily visits.
Wholly different worlds. Thanks for posting the results of your research.
Tom Chandler | Jun 8, 2007 | Reply
Tom, I’m so glad you posted about this topic. I’ve been reading much about businesses blending website content into their blogs, or vice versa. As the live web keeps things on fire, I can’t even imagine having a static “business card” site in addition to my blog.
This approach may not work well for all businesses, but for my money, the blend is the only way to go. What sets me back is the limitation of design and structure offered by my blog software.
If you take a look at Brian Clark’s Wordpress design (just made into a WP template) it blends horizontal menu items with a 3-column layout, and that’s exactly what I’ve been asking squarespace to create for months.
If I had that kind of template available I’d have no problem making my landing page my blog.
Can you tell I’m resistant to changing blog software? Squarespace, are you listening?
What do you think, Tom?
Lisa Gates | Jun 8, 2007 | Reply
When delivering RSS feed content via email finally became both the cheapest, most effective, and hassle-free way to build a list of subscribers online — I totally abandoned every Web 1.0 static site and email newsletter effort and focused 100% on blogging.
I’ve never looked back.
As a blog marketing consultant who spent a few years in old-school web design, then spent a few years in the marketing trenches learning from opt-in email newsletter clients what works in the Economy of Attention, I have NO client whose web sites outperform blogs.
Every individual post is a potential landing page — the first doorway — for all search engine traffic.
The Home Page or “front” of a blog is more likely to be the second or third page viewed by a first-time visitor. Powerful referrals from blogrolls will hit the front page first — but at least those visitors are highly targeted — arriving from similar sites in a related niche.
The home page may not be dead yet — but it’s already been buried alive.
Slade
Spiritual Blogging | Jun 9, 2007 | Reply
Dubber | Jun 9, 2007 | Reply
My site was designed by a very smart blogger who has been around since the beginning of blogs. She, for simplicity purposes, made my landing page using my blog template.
I have a blog and shopping cart behind the landing page. I wanted my customers/readers to come to my site and decide what they needed-to read or shop.
So technically, it is a landing page, but using a blog CMS. The vehicle is not the message, it’s just another tool. My landing page wouldn’t be any different if it were created with a WYSIWIG editor.
What I need to do now is figure out a way to add a section on my landing page that shows what what the latest post is on my blog so I can ping the landing page as well. I guess I could do it manually. Ugh.
Sandra Mendoza-Daly | Jun 9, 2007 | Reply
Lots of good information. Sandra, the latest version of WordPress allows you to designate one of the static site pages as the “home” page (instead of the blog page). It’s certainly one potential way to handle a blog-centric site.
There’s no doubt a site blog will generate most of the traffic, though there are still lots of questions to be answered.
Like, what if your blog doesn’t precisely align wiht your business? How do you handle high-traffic posts that may even run counter to your messaging?
It’s an interesting series — I always thought a professional Web site should be tightly focused, yet blog entries often roam a bit.
Certainly, I’ve had a good quasi-vacation, and I’ve written down a few thoughts concerning my solution to the question.
More to come!
Tom Chandler | Jun 10, 2007 | Reply
Okay, I don’t have any arguments about the stats folks are getting for blog-style posting versus “statis” websites. The question I have, thought, is this:
If readers and visitors are coming from places other than search engines, if they are coming from referrals, etc, I’m wondering how this all fits in?
I know for me, when I’m reading blogs, I enjoy reading the blogs. But, when I’m looking for help with a particular topic, in other words, when I’m shopping for something, blogs are frustrating to me, and I can’t imagine I’m the only one.
Then, I’m looking for static, overview content about the business, what it does, and why. I don’t care, at that point, about the latest thoughts someone has had about x, y, or z. I need orientation and connection to the overall business, first.
Thoughts on this?
Mark Silver | Jun 10, 2007 | Reply
I hear where Mark is coming from. Having a blog as a homepage seems like a great idea to the blog savvy, but what about serious business minded people looking for a service and want a snapshot of your benefits? I’m finding my keyword visitors rarely stay for long as the page format doesn’t match what they are looking for - or maybe I should throw some money at it, get a flashy new header and see what happens.
It’s good to hear the new version of wordpress allows you to specify a homepage - that might at least offer a partial solution to my quandry.
Matt Ambrose | Jun 11, 2007 | Reply
Mark: Good comment.
A blog is an excellent SEO tool, and each entry functions as a potential landing page, but you’re right — it’s hardly the whole sales tool.
Does that mean you build a blog-centric Web site? Focus on a strong response mechanism that invites click-through? Or perhaps go the e-newsletter route?
Every organization is different, and every organization’s solution will be different. I’m working on mine; let us know what you figure out.
Tom Chandler | Jun 11, 2007 | Reply
Matt: The new version of Wordpress really does allow you to construct a Web site around your blog fairly easily, though you’re still limited by the look and feel of the theme.
This is one area that is ripe for rapid growth; themes that leverage blog software’s CMS abilities.
For many businesses, it makes far more sense than html sites, which can’t be updated by the average person.
Tom Chandler | Jun 11, 2007 | Reply
Tom, great commentary on a topic relevant to all businesses marketing online.
Mark’s comment rings especially true for me. Referrals are a key source of traffic and new clients for us, and while some of that does go straight to articles on the blog, the bulk of it comes through the homepage and converts from there.
Like you said, every organization’s different.
Re: Your suggestion to use the blog sidebar to drive main site traffic or opt-in subscriptions - I’m not sure if WordPress does this, but apparently w/TypePad you can “feature” a post so that it’s sticky at the top of your blog (in the content column as opposed to the sidebar).
For someone getting a lot of traffic to their blog’s main page, this could be a good alternative (or complement) to using the sidebar, since the main column typically gets the lion’s share of screen space.
Justin Premick | Jun 11, 2007 | Reply
Mark Silver | Jun 11, 2007 | Reply
Tom Chandler | Jun 11, 2007 | Reply
This evolving idea of using blogging platform to build out fully functioning websites appears to be gaining interest from different perspectives; in the beginning of my blogging experience (all the way back in 2004…my, my) I thought to myself, I’ll bet in 5 years nobody will be talking about blogs or blogging - it will just be the way we do business on the Web. All website will be blogs and blogs will be websites. I can see this happening more everyday. It doesn’t really matter, as long as what you have works to publish content, get traffic, connect with the people you care about and want to do business with, and your business grows. Blogging software does a great job of all of it.
Patsi Krakoff, The Blog Squad | Jun 13, 2007 | Reply
Patsi: Just today I interviewed a top WordPress theme designer, and he thought that calling WordPress “blog” software was just plain dumb.
It’s far more powerful, and there’s certainly no reason not to build a site on the stuff.
I agree with you about the future; I’m already advising some clients that calling their blog a “blog” might not be the best idea given all the expectations and perceptions that come with the term.
Tom Chandler | Jun 13, 2007 | Reply
Tom et al,
Wordpress lets you do more that designate a page as a home page… you can create any number of normal pages that are not blog pages. Simply go into the Write tab, click Pages (you start by default on Posts) and create a new page.
You can create different templates for top level pages, category pages etc and assign the template to each page along with parenting (whether a page has a parent or not).
Alongside this you can create a normal blog page that acts just like a standalone blog site. I’ve created several sites like this and it leaves people with a very easy way to manage the more static content.
As for traffic differentials, yes, a blog will get traffic - but you have to look beyond the raw visitor numbers to issues of engagement and conversion. A blog page might bet 5x the traffic of a static web page… but if the reason is the variety of topics on the blog then some/many/most of those visitors aren’t qualified traffic - they’re not potential customers. One way to address this is simply to have a professional site where you blog about professional topics. The look and feel, branding and navigation should all tie into your services or product. Create another site to hold your personal blog. Crosslink if you want to - look at redmonk.com for an example of this.
rick gregory | Jun 17, 2007 | Reply