Let’s take my own profession as an example, and look at it from the perspective of someone who’s looking for more clients and things online marketing would be A Good Idea (it’s not a bad one, but shouldn’t be your only one).

What’s more, don’t make the mistake of saying “Oh, it’s OK for you, but I’m not a copywriter”. The principles hold true for every niche or profession I can think of. I suppose it’s possible there are some where I doesn’t apply, but I’ll be buggered if I can imagine what they might be.

So. There you are: a brand new copywriter with the bubble-wrap just off your keyboard and the ink still wet on your AWAI certificate.

What do you do?

Most don’t even bother doing any keywords research at all and instead set up an Adwords account and write some half-arsed ads with “obvious” but ultimately nonsensical keywords like:

copywriting

copywriting uk

copywriting ireland

freelance copywriting

copywriting services

What’s wrong with these?

Well a several things, actually. Here are just two:

1. They are very generic. You are really looking for people who are in the frame of mind to be buying, or at least open o information about buying whatever it is they’re looking for. Someone looking for “copywriting” might be a buyer, but they could also be just looking for information about the subject because they, too, want to do some copywriting.
2. They are likely to be very competitive. Will you ever rank on page 1 of Google for “copywriting”. Perhaps. But, as you’ll see in a moment, you might not even care whether you do or not.

After a while, umpty thousands of pounds sunk into Adwords and SEO and reading Jon’s blog posts, we realise we need to be optimising for something a little less generic. So we put our Thinking Heads on and come up with something a little more specific to the niches we’d like to work in:

web copywriting

seo content writing

web content writer

direct mail copywriting

marketing copywriting

seo content writing

email copywriting

search engine optimization copywriting

search engine optimisation copywriting

search engine copywriting

Tangentially to point #1 above (this is quite subtle and almost all SEO “experts” miss this), they are looking for things whereas if you’re a copywriter looking for clients, you want people looking for people.

So, immediately, we could improve this with:

copywriter

copywriter uk

copywriter ireland

freelance copywriter

freelance copywriter uk

uk direct response freelance copywriter

web copywriter

seo content writer

web content writer

direct mail copywriter

marketing copywriter

seo content writer

email copywriter

search engine optimization copywriter

search engine optimisation copywriter

search engine copywriter

But even those are perhaps too generic.

And even if they’re not, we can still do a lot better:

copywriter wanted

freelance copywriter wanted

freelance copywriter needed

Hire a freelance copywriter

freelance copywriter London

freelance copywriter website

hire a freelance copywriter

direct mail copywriter wanted

marketing copywriter wanted

seo content writer wanted

search engine optimization copywriter wanted

search engine optimisation copywriter wanted

email copywriter wanted

search engine copywriter wanted

Now, can you see the difference?

It’s highly likely the people searching for these terms (which are genuine ones from Google, by the way) are looking for people to do this stuff for them.

In other words, most people typing in seo content writer wanted are indeed likely to be looking for someone to write seo content for them (some will perhaps be SEO content writers looking for people placing ads for SEO content writers, but in the main you’ll find they’re buyers looking for warm bodies able to write).

Now, a common objection I can almost hear being screamed at me is the search volumes are low.

Yes indeed. And you could argue if you’re dealing with natural searches it doesn’t matter how many “wasted” leads you get because email is free and you can email as easily to a million as you can to just one.

This is true.

However, you’re missing a couple of points here.

First, these principles are equally as applicable to Adwords as they are to natural search. If you focus your keywords tightly you’ll get more focused ads, cheaper click-throughs, less competition, better conversions and hence a much better ROI.

And secondly you’re going to find it much easier to find a dinky domain name and aim your content at your readers.

I hate to use this phrase because it takes me back to my days in big-business when I worked alongside a gazillion other anonymous middle-management zombies in the City, but this really is a case of working smarter, not harder.

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