Copywriting Makeover: Increase Traffic without Increasing Paid Search Expenses

If you’re an active vacationer, strolling through an amusement park or taking museum and art gallery tours isn’t your idea of a thrill.  You’re always on the lookout for new adventures.  This is the target audience of a small business in Maine called Summer Feet.

Owner Norman Patry (aka, Big Toe) wanted to improve the key pages of his bicycle tours’ website in order to improve the effectiveness of the copy and search rankings.  Because pay-per-click (PPC) ads for vacation-related keyphrases are always expensive, achieving high organic (free) rankings was vital to his success, especially in light of the current economic downturn in the U.S.

With an eye toward expenses, Norman chose to move forward with professional SEO copywriting, knowing that this one-time expense could potentially increase traffic to his pages without increasing his PPC costs.

The Challenges

The Home page of the Summer Feet site was well written, but read more like an About Us page than a Home page.  The information given discussed the history of the company and the reason for the name Summer Feet.  Only a few sentences at the bottom of the page actually described what the company offered.

The headline on the page focused entirely on search engine keyphrases rather than in capturing the readers’ attention and encouraging them to go deeper into the page.  In addition, we wanted the pages we were rewriting to rank high with the engines.  That meant inserting strategically placed keyphrases without allowing them to muddle up the copy.

The Solution

Our goals were to develop copy that let action-oriented vacationers know that Summer Feet offered unique bicycle adventures through some of the most beautiful areas of the world.

Starting with the Home page, we began to craft emotionally centered copy and headlines that painted a visual image of what thrill seekers could expect.  We also aimed to drive traffic deeper into the site, so visitors could view the national and international destinations available from Summer Feet.

Making the benefits of choosing Summer Feet obvious to visitors was our final goal.  We wanted anyone who landed on this site to recognize that no other bicycle tour company offered as much for such a reasonable price.

The Rewrite

Because the headline is the first section of copy a site visitor sees, it is the most important element on the page.  Likewise, Google and other engines lend added weight to keyphrases that are included in headlines, meaning it is vital to maintain balance when writing.

The previous headline focused strictly on the engines.  It simply read:

Maine Bicycle Tours and Nova Scotia and New Zealand Bike Tours

Yes, that did get several keyphrases across, but it completely left the site visitor out of the equation.  From this sentence, someone unfamiliar with Summer Feet would have no idea how they are different and/or better than the competition.  This headline also lacked in emotion.

The new headline highlighted one of the most unique aspects of Summer Feet tours: the up-close look you get at each destination.  Rather than merely biking through and glancing at the scenery as you ride, vacationers made scheduled stops to see the sights up close, eat the local cuisine and explore on their own before rejoining the group.  This headline reads:

Discover Another Side of Canada, New Zealand & Maine…

Bike Tours from Summer Feet Offer You an Up-Close Look

The copy goes on to engage the reader by asking questions, creating an emotional connection and then explaining the many benefits of booking with Summer Feet.

The Results

With a total of six pages written, Summer Feet landed on the first page of Google for practically all their chosen keyphrases.  At the time of this writing (five months following the upload of the new copy), Summer Feet had this to report:

“We saw a 20% increase in visits due to organic listings and a 16% increase in the number of catalog requests generated from non-paid search terms.  We also had significant increases in page views (traffic) of up to 45% on two of our most important pages without any increase in our PPC spending.”

With several newly written tour-specific pages, Summer Feet now also had some excellent pages to send its PPC leads.  For instance, if a PPC ad promoted a three-day Maine bike tour, those who clicked the ad would be sent to a page specific to the bike tour they were interested in.  This would also lend itself to improving visitor experience and conversions.

Due to economic slumps, travel-related scares and world events, most vacation-related sites can see drastic drops in traffic and sales (as much as 40% by some estimates, depending on the circumstances).  This new copy, however, provided a tremendous benefit to Summer Feet.  Even during trying times, they’ll be set to showcase their truly unique getaways and entice visitors to choose value and distinction for their next vacation.

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