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Writing For People, Succeeding On Search Engines
Heather Lloyd Martin is known today as a pioneer in SEO copywriting, but she was a writer long before the Internet boom. Before she got her start as a web copywriter, she wrote product specs, book jacket covers, brochure copy, and more. In 1995, she started working as an online copywriter full time. Soon, she was writing web copy for sites large and small, and freelancing for Entrepreneur Magazine on the side. Early in her web copywriting career, Jill Whalen hired Heather to write copy for some of her client sites. The copy had to be optimized for search engines—but Jill wanted it to read well, too. It was the first time Heather remembers a search marketer talking about combining search-engine-friendly copy with written sales techniques and conversion goals—writing for the customers and the search engines. Today, it’s an important part of the web copywriter’s job—and essential to the success of any e-commerce site. Heather soon became an expert in the subject of SEO copywriting. She found that her clients would often come to her for advice on how to write effective copy that satisfies both customers and search engines. There wasn’t much how-to literature available at the time, so Heather decided to write an e-book: Successful Search Engine Copywriting. It was the first of its kind to give comprehensive, step-by-step information on how to optimize website copy for search engines while keeping its appeal to readers. Today, Heather is the founder and president of SuccessWorks, a search-marketing consultancy with a focus on SEO copywriting and conversion strategies. Her company also includes public relations, technical services, and in-house training in search-marketing techniques. Heather is free with advice to prospective copywriters, webmasters, and marketers. She sees a lot of search-engine optimized copy online that she describes as “scary”—stuffed with repetitive keywords, with no sales message, no product benefits, and sometimes no links to product pages. She encourages writers to think about what their customers want. Usually it’s not keyword-stuffed sales copy—it’s information. And if you don’t give it them, they won’t buy—no matter how much traffic your site attracts through its search engine rankings. Heather maintains a strong voice in the search marketing community. She writes for e-commerce content sites such as ClickZ, Inc.com, Entrepreneurs Business Start-Ups, and more. She also moderates discussions and workshops for Direct Marketing Association conferences, the Annual Catalog Conference, and net.marketing. She lives in the U.S. Pacific Northwest. Useful website
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