If you’re like me, you work hard strategizing what quality content will educate and inform your target audience on certain topics while promoting your expertise. You might have written an article yourself or paid a professional copywriter to write something fantastic, right? It’s time consuming and costly to create quality content. I feel your frustration. It’s high maintenance to track down these people who need content to make some cash on the side with advertising.

Who are these Copy Thieves?

You can try Yahoo, MSN, or Google and conduct a search using your article title. Then visit each site to make sure you are properly credited for your content.

Google Alerts (www.google.com/alerts) – Type in the title of your article with quotes for an exact match, then enter your email address to be alerted with relevant Google search results based on your search terms.

Copyscape (www.copyscape.com) – Insert your URL and their service scans the web for similar copy.

How to Fight Back Online Plagiarists

I would like to point to two great resources on this topic:

SubHub Publish For Profits article, “Stop Thief How You Can Fight Back Against Online Plagiarism”

Lorelle on Wordpress article, “What Do You Do When Someone Steals Your Content”

Read the full post: “Are You Like Me?” by Bob Bly. Start with a powerful question supported by a list of what “you believe you have in common” is very effective with your readers “because people like, feel comfortable with, and respond to people who are like them.”

Do you already use questions, like the one above, in your consulting practices? When you’re consulting, you’re anticipating your potential client’s questions. Simply apply your Question and Answers (Q&A) or Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) to your copywriting and continue the dialogue. Don’t forget to honestly empathize with your customers. It’s an effective way to bond with your readers.

So let’s brainstorm some examples using empathy in your copy with this simple exercise:

1. Write down the FAQs potential clients ask you.

2. Craft your answers carefully.

3. Now edit your answers to show empathy.

How Do You Show Empathy?

• How about telling a story?
Did you experience something similar to what your audience has experienced? Did you take action on something that your audience also would have experienced? Start with, “Has this ever happened to you?” Phrases like, “We’ve all been there.”

• Use facts, credible sources and statistics.
Show your similarities to strike a chord of familiarity (local news, for example).

• Use the “I’ve been in your shoes” approach
We live in s skeptical society, so be careful of saying “I know how you’re feeling” without truly having any idea of your client’s situation. Your audience is smart and can read your copy and feel patronizing tone.

• Start by quoting your previous clients’ problems

• Was there any research you did that helps empathize with your audience?

Above all, start to listen, listen, listen to your customers by giving them a way to respond and contact you.

Worried about being penalized by search engines for “content mirroring” when it comes to syndicating your articles online?

Reader Asks Maya: “Finally, I have several articles written but haven’t posted them to any article directories to gain some exposure for my expertise. Is it true that your website could be labeled for content mirroring by search engines and penalized for duplicate content?”

GoogleWebmasterCentral.Blogspot.com says, “Syndicate carefully: If you syndicate your content on other sites, make sure they include a link back to the original article on each syndicated article.”

According to Stephan Spencer over at PracticalEcommerce.com, “Google’s supposed ‘duplicate content penalty’ seems to be on everybody’s minds these days.” Of course, Stephan’s post is focused on duplicate content found in many ecommerce websites but I believe his point-of-view very much relates to writers of articles.

Stephan isn’t the only one that recommends edits the copy (in his case, for products on ecommerce sites), but experts like Jeff Herring, TheArticleGuy.com says “The solution is to just tweak the article on your site a bit. Change the intro or conclusion, mix around the order of the tips, add/subtract some words, etc. You want the two versions of the article to be about 20% different from each other. At the same time, don’t freak out about this, because it is only a very small portion of what google looks for. So just make sure the two articles are about 20% different and forget about it, so you can concentrate on writing, posting and marketing more articles.”

I asked IdeaMarketers.com their take on this issue. Marnie Pehrson had the following response on the subject, “It’s my understanding from what I’ve read on the subject that the issue of duplicate content mainly comes into play when you have the same article on 10+ sites. The extras get dumped into Google’s supplemental index and it only looks at the ones on the most reputable sites that have had the article for the longest time. The duplicates are in essence ignored so you’re wasting your time submitting the exact same article to more than 10-12 sites (from a search engine perspective). This isn’t to say that if you have your article prominently placed on several high traffic sites that you won’t benefit from the sheer number of visitors who visit those sites and read your article. In other words, search engines aren’t the only game in town for producing traffic to one’s site. But bottom line… when we’re talking about search engines, the advice given above about making it somewhat different is good if you intend to submit the article to several article directories and have it on your site.”

Company: Ricarda Design
Business Type: Residential Interior Design
Website: RicardaInteriorDesign.com

Background:
Ricarda Lopez, RicardaInteriorDesign.com asked for help in creating her online marketing presence with a website that best represents her interior design company. As their tagline “Because your home is worth some attention” summarizes, Ricarda offers professional interior design advice to San Diego and Chula Vista, California residents and home office entrepreneurs who may simply need the appropriate shopping list to finalize their home design project, help to rearrange awkward furniture layout or a cluttered space to designing custom furniture and cabinetry.

Services Provided:
We did a complete web design (look & feel) from scratch. We also wrote several pages of copy… sprinkled with targeted keywords throughout the site and resourceful 3rd party outbound linking, to help help position her as “Chula Vista, California’s Furniture and Space Interior Design Advisor.”

We always have marketing in mind for our clients. With the goal of building brand awareness and traffic to her website, we created a landing page targeted to home office entrepreneurs who are instructed to download their copy of the “Five Home Office Design Tips” sheet. Also created the call-to-action “Discuss Your Project With Us” on every page of her site.

To humanize the website, we added Ricarda’s Home Office picture gallery and professional photo.

Client Praises:
"Great Job! Thank You, for your patience and valuable advice. I enjoyed the collaboration of ideas and the process of creating a website that represents my design firm. It’s great working with someone who is organized and focused. Maya creates with a focus on marketing. Design Insomnia exceeded my expectations in that I didn’t expect to receive the level of marketing given. I will most definitely recommend your services to everyone I know."

Ricarda Lopez, BFA
Interior Designer, Allied Member ASID
Ricarda Design

James D. Brausch, copywriter, enjoyed “Phrases That Sell” and I believe him because of its similarities to “More Words That Sell” by Richard Bayan.

Read book reviews for the Phrases That Sell book

Thank you Jessica Hagy of Indexed for the inspiration.

Thank you Jessica Hagy of Indexed for the inspiration.

Recently, fellow copywriter - Bob Bly posted this question on his blog. Short answer: I’m an advocate that Design Matters and Copy Matters in marketing. Therefore, Typos Matter!

As commented on Bly’s blog, “I tend to be lenient when seeing typos on blogs because blog authors may get inspiration for a quick blog post and write off the cuff.” But with any other marketing material, it’s a no-no! Being a fan of linguistics and the impact of words for conveying a message, riddle me this:

Have you ever received a postcard or sales letter with a typo? Sure you have! What type of dialogue pops in your head about that company when you saw their typo?

• How unprofessional!
• That’s embarrassing.
• How lazy they couldn’t use a spellchecker…
• Are they stupid?

Can it hurt sales? Not necessarily, but do you want to leave a bad impression?

Client: Leadership Breakthrough, Inc. (formerly Dessert HR Solutions)

Background: “Dessert HR Solutions – Simple Ideas, Breakthrough Results” changed their name to “Leadership Breakthrough, Inc.” and describes their services as coaching, training and development for the VPs, directors, high performers, executives and top sales teams.

After conducting some interviews, the following taglines were created stressing particular advantages of each:

• Leadership Breakthrough, Inc.
  It’s not all business. It’s personal too!
  (Advantage: promotes the inheret drama and personality about the company)
   
• Leadership Breakthrough, Inc.
  Helping you discover yourself.
  (Advantage: states a benefit of the company’s services)
   
• Leadership Breakthrough, Inc.
  Yes, you can do better.
  (Advantage: a though-provoking action statement)
   
• Leadership Breakthrough, Inc.
  Here to give you a fresh start.
  (Advantage: speaks to their client’s problem and the company’s solution)
   
• Leadership Breakthrough, Inc.
  Take the path and open the door.
  (Advantage: commands people to take action)
   
• Leadership Breakthrough, Inc.
  Be honest with yourself and more doors will open.
  (Advantage: simply states a truth)
   
• Leadership Breakthrough, Inc.
  Your hard work deserves a few more open doors.
  (Advantage: describes why the company is there for their clients)
   
• Leadership Breakthrough, Inc.
  Open your mind and more doors will open.
  (Advantage: states the benefit of the company’s services)
   

After the client’s brainstorming sessions with us along with their collegues, they came up with the following slogan:

• Leadership Breakthrough, Inc.
  The Door to Success

Which also inspired the logo design we created for them: