All right.  Well, I'm going to get started.  My name's Ian Lurie, in case you don't know who I am.  I am the CEO and founder of Portent. Portent is a company that is now located in Smith Tower, in Washington, in Seattle, and that's where our secret lair is, it's not very secret.  We're on the 17th floor.  If you're ever here and you want to stop by, go for it.

You can tweet your questions, as I said, to portentu, or you can use the question tool in GoToMeeting. Just note that I probably won't answer questions till the very end unless I see one that comes up that seems particularly relevant. The other thing is, as always, I have a link bundle, where I put everything that I mention in the webinar.

This webinar is not particularly tool-heavy, so there shouldn't be a lot of stuff, but you can keep this link, and I'll show it again at the very end, so that you can go and see all the stuff that I talk about.  So, for the folks online who are copywriters, I am sure that you have been here, as have I, you put together some copy, and it looks absolutely beautiful and perfect, and the client looks at it, and they think it's perfect, and then you ask them how they like it, and they say that they absolutely love it, of course.

And then you take it to print, and you print 20,000 copies, or maybe even 50,000, not that I've ever had this happen before, but I have, and then you notice there's a typo, and you know, I've been through this, luckily, maybe one or two times cause after that I sort of learned my lesson, but when it happens, you know, it's definitely an Alka-Seltzer moment, right?

I mean, it's one of those moments that kind of defines you as a copywriter.  There are good ones and bad ones, this is one of the bad ones. for me there are 20, actually 21 if you include the bonus, disasters that kind of haunt me as a copywriter because they're always there, they're always waiting to happen.  I've been through every one, so this entire presentation, except for maybe a couple, are talking about Š are using personal stories, things that have happened to me in the last 25 years, so it should Š

Just so you know, I'm not poking fun at other people, I'm poking fun at myself, so just in case you've made these mistakes, and you feel like, "Oh, Ian's just making fun of me."  I'm not.  they're inevitable. They hit every single one of us.  What we can do though, is avoid or mitigate them just sometimes, so that they happen less often, and that's really our goal.

So, I'm offering you a chance here in the next hour to basically learn from my pain all the things that have happened to me that either happened because of the print world, but are still relevant, or happened online, and therefore are very relevant and things that you can't necessarily recover from once you make those mistakes.

And I've come up with three different classifications of copywriting disasters.  There are the embarrassing ones, right, which have no permanent consequences, but when it happens you're kind of thinking, "Oh, boy. I can't believe I just did that."  There's the bad ones, which may get you fired by the client or your boss or at least taken off a project, and then there's the gods preserve us or GPU incidents.  

Those are the ones where I'm simply deny that I know you because they are so bad, and spread around the Internet for so long and sort of take on a life of their own that, you know, you may want to seek out a different career.  I didn't, but I don't know, I thought about it.  So, without further ado, here we go.

The first disaster is what I call, The Great Philsophy Massacre, and that was The Great Philsophy Massacre of 1996, and it was basically a mistake that got through the net.  There's no other way to put it.  So, if you take a look at this piece that I wrote, this is the actual headline.  You know, what's wrong?  Well, I misspelled philosophy.  I said, "philsophy."  That's not right. 

The client looked at it.  I looked at it.  We proofed it.  We looked at the blue lines.  It still got past us, which was really embarrassing, and classification there is bad because you can lose the client.  In this case, I, I ate the cost, which was not fun at all at the time because I was running my business on credit cards in the back room of my house, so $5,000.00 was not trivial.  On the other hand, the client appreciated that and didn't fire me.

how do you avoid it?  Well, in this case, you could just use a bloody spellchecker.  I mean, that would have taken care of the problem here.  The tool I was using at the time, it was so long ago it didn't have a built in spellchecker.  I still could've used one, and there's a very basic technique that I learned long before Š back when you guys were all in diapers.  I'm going to sound really old while I'm talking about this.  

Long ago before computers had really sophisticated editing tools in them, read it backwards.  Just read the entire document backwards.  If you read it backwards, then you're looking at words instead of sentences, and it's much easier to pick out errors, and of course you can have someone else read it, and I know a lot of the time you're in a hurry, you're rushing, you don't necessarily want to take the time.  

Just if you have someone you know who maybe owes you a favor or two, or you just have, you know, a person sitting around, something, anything, just ask them if they can take a quick look because those errors are going to jump out at them in a second.  Whereas you, and probably your client, have been looking at this for so long that even after you do look at it three or four times, you can't recover because you send the error Š you send it to publishing with the error or you publish your website with a headline front and center on the homepage with that spelling mistake.

And yeah, you can correct it now, but in the meantime, 20 bazillion people are doing screen captures and posting them to Twitter, so like all things on the Internet, it feels very transient, but it is all permanent.  

The next disaster is the incomplete headline, this is one of my favorites, it's the best way to step on a banana peel.  This was the one that I did, there's a small problem with this one, it, it was a little painful, especially because I was a college student, and I got in a little trouble because of it.  It was in the Š our school newspaper, which I don't know why I got in trouble, there's probably only two people who read it, but I still got in trouble.

And it was about bee fertility, and it might've made more sense to write something like, "Teacher, student research bee fertility."  As opposed to, "Teacher and student in fertility experiment."  I just think somehow that might have been Š might not have gotten me in as much trouble, and yeah, that's embarrassing. It was really embarrassing. I took a lot of ribbing for the next, I don't know, three years, at college.

someone's asking me, "Why is audio muted?''  So, are folks unable to hear me all of a sudden?  You should be able to hear me.  Yeah, IÕm not sure.  If youÕre not getting audio, IÕm not sure what the, what the issue is, sorry.  but like I always say, when something goes wrong,  and you get lemons, laugh at someone else.  Always makes life feel better if you can just see someone elseÕs mistakes.

This isnÕt Š IÕm not serious here, itÕs kind of mean, but there are some real humdingers out there.  This is my favorite, and I always say, you know, IÕm a pretty open-minded guy, and if they want to go for it thatÕs fine, but it probably isnÕt what they meant, and the way you check is using this thing called the blank sheet of paper test, which wouldÕve saved me from my mistake as well.

And the Š what the test says is, if you give that headline to someone on the street on a blank sheet of paper, will they know what youÕre talking about and reach the correct conclusion about the subject about which youÕre talking?  If they donÕt, like this, thatÕs a problem, all right?  And in this case you could argue, ŅOkay, yeah, if you show this to someone on the street, theyÕre going to understand because itÕs the Supreme Court, and theyÕre trying something.Ó  Et cetera, et cetera.  But still, almost anyoneÕs going to look at this and snicker, and if theyÕre looking at this and snickering, and you can add one word and fix it, you might want to think about that.

There are times to do this intentionally, and IÕm not saying this wasnÕt, but this would be a very strange time to do it.  The other thing is that online itÕs very rare that a short, opaque headline works better than a longer very clear one.  Um, weÕve done a lot of testing of this, and, you know, the longer, fully descriptive headline, the headline that passes the blank sheet of paper test, outperforms the ones that donÕt pass that test by 30 Š 20, 30 percent in almost every case, and they outperform as far click through and search.  They outperform as far as retention on the page, and they outperform as far as return visits and sharing, so you definitely want to try to use that fully descriptive headline that passes that blank sheet of paper test.

Disaster three is search term avoidance, and I wonÕt talk much about search engines here because I donÕt necessarily think writing for keywords is that relevant at this point, but you can just hurt yourself, okay.  I, I Š weÕve worked for a few companies that design and manufacture bridesmaid dresses, and IÕll end up putting in things, you know, weÕll end up putting in things like, wedding garment or destination formal wear, or destination dress, and you look at all this and you think, ŅWell Š,Ó  

You look back on this, and you think, ŅWhy, why did I do this?  What was really Š what was the reasoning?  Why did I have to do that?Ó  Um, and the failure is, I didnÕt use my audienceÕs lexicon, thatÕs the problem, and if you donÕt use the audienceÕs lexicon, you start using language that they donÕt understand, where they donÕt necessarily know what it is that youÕre saying, and if they donÕt, itÕs not so much that thereÕs a major ranking problem here as that theyÕre going to go to someone else who they do understand.

You may have the best dress around, you may only be a millimeter from the perfect description, but if youÕre a millimeter from it, and someone else hits it on the head, who are they going to go look at?  TheyÕre going to go look at the other person, and thatÕs what you have to look out for.  ThatÕs where you get into trouble.  Sorry, IÕm having some sort of mouse control issue.  I donÕt know.

Um, seriously, itÕs not a mouse control issue, itÕs my issue.  So, how do you avoid it?  Well, the first thing is, have a brain, okay.  IÕm sorry, and I know this sounds mean, but just think.  If this is a topic that people have talked about for years and years, and theyÕve always called them bridesmaid dresses, everyone out there uses the phrase, bridesmaid dresses, and everyone out there uses the phrase bridesmaid dresses or everyone out there calls them running shoes, they donÕt call them Š they donÕt call them, uh, athletic footwear, just use the term.  All right?  

You have to use it, otherwise people donÕt find you, and if you think maybe that you have a whole different definition that your product is different so therefore should use a different phrase, great, but get them there using the phrase everyoneÕs familiar with then educate them.  Otherwise, youÕre holding this kind of existential standard that no one else cares about, and youÕre costing yourself business.

You can also use tools like WordStream, they have a free tool, but you probably also want to sign up, because you can just see what people search for.  So, here I put in wedding dresses, and letÕs say I was going to do something like wedding formalwear, you can see that wedding formalwear shows up nowhere, right.  There is no use of it here, it doesnÕt show up, so you can look at these phrases and say all right, these are the ones I want to go for, but the other ones, the side, the peripheral stuff, just doesnÕt come into the picture.  

You can also use SEMrush, same thing, right.  You can find out exactly, you know, does wedding garment actually show up?  Well, yeah, but if you compare it to wedding dress and dresses, you know, wedding garment has 90 searches per month, wedding dresses has 673,000.  Which one are you going to go for?  I mean, I hope itÕs obvious.

And also, you can just use a survey.  You can go out and use Google Consumer surveys, or you can use Survey Monkey, anything like that and just ask people.  Which one of these makes more sense, and just have them click, itÕs that easy. almost always youÕre gonna Š if you use a big enough sample itÕs going to be very, very clear which one you want to use.

Just do anything but guessing, okay.  If youÕre not familiar with the industry, donÕt just start writing and using, using the terms that one person has given you unless youÕre very, very sure that those are the terms they should use, and if you hear things from them like, um, ŅThatÕs not the correct terminology.Ó  Or, you know, ŅWe have a whole new Š weÕve redefined the space.Ó  Or, ŅWeÕve redefined the product.Ó  You need to go and take a look and verify that you are indeed using the terms that everybody else uses.

Disaster four is, Baffle Ōem with Bullshit, right.  And this one happens a lot especially when youÕre writing about a topic you donÕt understand.  I wrote this one, IÕm totally ashamed of it, I am not going to read it aloud because it gives me a headache, and itÕs embarrassing, but I dare you to figure out what this is actually talking about Ōcause frankly, IÕm not sure either.

this was, you know, 10 or 11 years ago. what happens?  Well, it drives customers away, right?  ŌCause they take one look at it, if theyÕre looking for a solution to a problem, which is usually why someone comes to your page, they look at this and they say, ŅI donÕt know if this is a solution to my problem.  I donÕt even know what this is.Ó  

you have to capture them in that first second or two when they get there.  This does not capture me in the first second or two unless maybe IÕm looking for a real challenge, which IÕm probably not if IÕm looking for an answer to my questions.  How do you avoid it?  Well, first of all, understand, knowing a word doesnÕt mean you have to use it, so extant, really cool, thereÕs a TV show coming out using that phrase, itÕs awesome, it makes me feel really special to use it, also completely, completely useless, right?

I mean, extant?  How many people know what that means, and even if you do, again, it takes that effort, and if someone else has written something thatÕs easier to read, who is your customer going to go to?  also again, apply the blank sheet of paper test, right?  If you show this phrase to someone on the street who had no idea about your product or anything else, are they going to be able to get the slightest information?  No.  No, theyÕre not.

thatÕs a really, really good indicator right there.  Right?  Even though you give them a dictionary, itÕs not going to work.  This is a little bit of an improvement.  At least when people read this, itÕs going to make sense, which is nice, and we have a couple questions coming up here, and IÕm gonna take a shot at answering them now Ōcause it looks to me like some of these are pretty relevant.

Google Trends can be helpful, yes.  You definitely want to try out Google Trends.  I like to use these other tools because Google Š I, I just Š IÕm not as trusting of Google data as I used to be.  a lot of the data they provide seems to have major accuracy or, or precision problems, but if you have a situation where you are trying to use a new term, definitely take a look, see if thereÕs a big Š if thereÕs a strong trend.

Another question from Diane, what if your bosses are enamored of super short, cutesy headlines, even for e-commerce and direct response?  How can I convince them that these elliptical two-word headlines do not work?  well Š and I love that saying by the way in the Naked Brand, clear is the new clever, I do think thatÕs a really, really good Š good one to have.

given what youÕre describing and your relationship with your bosses, I would say ask them if you can test.  Just ask them.  You know, can I put two pages out there and test the two headlines, or, you know, just ask them if you can take maybe the next three things, next three pieces of the content, next three products, whatever, live,  just using the longer headline.  or go looking around for data.  

I think we have a post on our site that talks about it, and thereÕs all sorts of other studies out there showing this, itÕs not, you know, we didnÕt just pull this out of our butts, this is something Š wow, thatÕs a very unprofessional phrase Š anyway, this is something that, you know, a lot of people have done careful research on.  

ŌCause, you know, I used to like writing clever, cool headlines too, you know, itÕs not like I came out of nowhere saying, ŅWrite long headlines.Ó  you know, I used to write for print, and I liked writing really, really cool short headlines because those headlines were shown in context, right.  You would always see that headline on a printed page.  You already had the full piece of content in your hands.  You would see the other text, the headlines, the images, all of it right there.  

Here, first of all, the headline can be taken out of context.  Second of all, youÕre on a scrolling screen, so people may not see all the information right when they land there, and third, the attention span is microscopic compared to, older Š compared to traditional media, like print.  So, you have to be very, very careful, and again, those full-length headlines, the fully descriptive headlines that pass that blank sheet of paper test are going to be better.

Same thing with short descriptions and things like that, you know, this is just not Š this is just not helpful.  Okay, itÕs just not going to help people out this much unless youÕre trying to show off your Š how many syllables you can cram into a Š into a sentence.  

So, disaster five is the Poo Sandwich.  and the poo sandwich is Š IÕm using the polite descriptor, but the poop sandwich is when you write something that at the beginning and the end has all sorts of cool information, but in the middle, thereÕs just stuff so bad that makes you want to hurl, and I Š this does not happen very often, this is a blog post I wrote a long time ago about what advertising should do. 

It had a great start a great finish, the stuff in the middle was pretty much fluff, and IÕm my own biggest critic, but I mean, really, if I even looked at the scrolls and how people read this, they read the top little bit, and then they left, or they read the top little bit, zipped right through the middle and read the end.  Whatever it was, this post did not work, and in part it did not work because Š and I knew very well I was filling this with fluff.  It was a poop sandwich.

 this one was just embarrassing, right?  ItÕs not something IÕm going to put in my portfolio, it doesnÕt function very well, so itÕs not going to do the job. if youÕre writing some longer form content thatÕs going to take care of or, or describe how a particular product works or comparing several product, you know, this can really become problematic.  Unfortunately, I got no really great alternative for this, uh, except donÕt rush.  All right?

This happened to me Ōcause I was rushing to publish, I had to get his article live, or at least I felt like I did, and often as writers we feel like publishing something is imperative or under a deadline or, or being, or being ordered to do something sooner, or we just feel like, ŅOh, yeah.  I want to get this published today before I go home.Ó  

just try not to rush wherever possible.  If you do have to take it live, and you do feel like that middle part is fluffy, can you just take it out?  Right?  Can you just have the beginning and the end?  Or can you take that middle part and just turn it into one paragraph instead of five.  Those are some easy solutions, but the best one is just wait a little bit, take some time to look at it.

Disaster six is writerÕs block.  I donÕt lack for things to say, as people probably know.  This isnÕt often a problem for me, but when it does hit,  itÕs definitely a GPU, itÕs definitely a gods preserve us because IÕm completely hosed.  I canÕt come up with anything to write once IÕve got a good case of writerÕs block going.  

some ways to mitigate it are free writing, so writing about some Š just writing randomly, donÕt write about the particular topic, just start writing on a sheet of paper and see where it takes you.  Go to Google and search on the topic, right?  Just take a look.  Or if youÕre writing about something general like marketing, you know, search headlines.  Take a look at what people are writing about.  DonÕt copy Š IÕm going to talk about that in a minute, but you can definitely get some ideas.

And then thereÕs also a tool out there called Enigma.io, and itÕs one of many tools that lets you search through, search through open data, public data sources.  IÕm not saying everything should be data-driven, but sometimes you can find some really interesting data sources that you can do really fun, creative stuff with, or sometimes itÕll just flip a switch in your brain, and youÕll have some ideas for things to write.

So, any tool like that.  Any place where informationÕs being collected, and it doesnÕt have to be relevant to your topic.  ItÕs a good place to go to get some ideas. I have gone to museums, and that has worked for me, seriously. stepping away from the desk in almost any form can help me, so just going out for a walk, going to a museum, going out for lunch, watching a TV show, reading a book, you know, any of those things can really, really help me.

Disaster number seven is stealing an idea intentionally.  And, you know, this Š how do I describe this?  ItÕs not the worst thing in the world, it happens a lot.  You know, I did it here in fact, and it wasnÕt totally intentional, it was actually kind of by accident, but I did it, and what you want to do Š and, yeah, I was desperate.  You just want to own it.  Right?  So, here I am on a webinar now saying, ŅYeah, you know what?  I totally stole this idea.Ó  And itÕs a blatant theft, and I did it Ōcause itÕs a really good idea, really good description, and I couldnÕt come up with a better one.
	
and hereÕs the people Š hereÕs the person who I found who used it.  Just note here that this particular expression actually goes back much further than that, but just acknowledging that itÕs not my original idea, and in my opinion, itÕs inevitable and itÕs probably okay if you own it.  DonÕt try to pass off some really great phrase that youÕre using as something new if you know itÕs not.

The reason for that is not just that itÕs going to make you look kind of low class, but also because it affects the other writer. I came up Š you come up with these expressions, and someone else takes them, and they start getting lifted all over the Internet, and itÕs a really strong disincentive to ever write anything useful.

So, disaster eight Š and by the way, thatÕs the Blue Angels flying over my head, so IÕll wait a second.  And once again, I canÕt see them.  ItÕs not fair. so disaster eight is out and out plagiarism, and for people who donÕt know, this is a photocopier, itÕs what we used to use to copy sheets of paper when we needed to as opposed to a scanner.  

now the last time I committed out and out plagiarism was in fourth grade, and I didnÕt even really understand it, but I took it.  I was writing a history report, and I just took a chapter from my history book and just copied it down.  Now, obviously if I was Š if I knew what I was doing I probably wouldnÕt have taken the book that the teacher uses and copied those passages, but thatÕs what I did.  I was never a very good criminal.  yes I got into trouble, and you know, I had to go back and rewrite my report like 11 times or something like that.

but thereÕs people who do it as grown-ups.  Now, I wrote a book a couple of years ago, and it sold five or six copies.  I donÕt know.  It was a best seller on the Ian Lurie best seller list.  did a blog post about it on the Portent website, and lo and behold, someone else apparently wrote the exact same thing at the exact same time.  ItÕs a miracle.  How did that happen?  ItÕs like theyÕre reading my mind, and their name is Ian Lurie, just like me.  ThatÕs amazing.  

This one is definitely a GPU, all right?  Go to jail.  This is the worst possible thing that you can do to a writer or any creator of content, and I donÕt want to hear information wants to be free, and I donÕt want to hear copying Š or imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.  I donÕt want to hear that you deserve to have this content free, because youÕre already getting it for free, right? 

Or in the case of a movie or something like that thereÕs a whole bunch of people who make a living off that content.  This is stealing.  It is theft outright, and if you see out there people are getting into trouble all the time for stealing this stuff.  And just because youÕre not doing an academic paper doesnÕt mean that you donÕt suck, all right?  Because if youÕre stealing content this way you kinda do.

in this case by the way, the guy who did the plagiarism, he used a scraper, and so the scraper automatically grabbed the content.  That does not make it okay.  All right?  If youÕre using a scraper, you should know and understand.  Yes, of course this is going to lift articles 100 percent from another source, so again, itÕs a bad thing, and I could rant for hours on this.  

It is not the sincerest form of flattery, uh, if you want to avoid it, get permission.  Right?  IÕve gotten polite e-mails saying, ŅHey, can I reprint this?Ó  And IÕll say either Š you know, ŅCan you just do a summary and link back to me?Ó  Or ŅSure, just link back to me.Ó  Or, ŅAdd value to it.  Take the article and do a critique.Ó  So, you take, like, a few sentences here and there and you say, ŅHereÕs what Ian says, you know, I kind of differ and hereÕs why.Ó  Or do a summary, or expand on it.  You know, do something to add value to it, and donÕt copy it.  All right?  DonÕt copy, you know, 90 percent of an article or 70 percent of an article.  DonÕt copy anything.
	
Someone just asked, ŅWhat is a scraper?Ó  ItÕs a good question.  ItÕs a piece of automated software that takes articles or content thatÕs published on one website and copies it somewhere else.  So, the truth is that Google is kind of a scraper. it goes and it crawls websites, copies them and places them in its index.  The more common use of the phrase scraper is these automated tools that go to websites, steal their content and republish them.

thatÕs Š you know, or in the context of plagiarism thatÕs what a scraper is.  Other kinds of scrapers do slightly different things, you know, theyÕll copy prices or specific data from another site.  Not all scrapers are bad, but all scrapers that commit plagiarism are clearly bad.  but again, I want to emphasize, a scraper is a tool, a piece of software.  People use it for lots of different reasons, including Google.  If you use it and you know itÕs going to commit plagiarism, and if youÕre using it, you know.  

ThereÕs no way you can tell me that youÕre using a scraper, and you donÕt understand what itÕs doing, um, then thatÕs Š then youÕre committing plagiarism, not the scraper, and if you come back to me and you say, ŅOh, you know, I was using this tool, and I didnÕt understand.Ó  I donÕt care.  All right?  ThatÕs like pointing a shotgun and firing it and then telling me you didnÕt understand that it was going to hurt someone.  That is ridiculous.  Not that I have any opinions, but Š

now there is secondhand plagiarism. this is slightly different, and as far as I know this has never happened to me but, you know, I have hired copywriters, so sure it couldÕve happened.  So, hereÕs an example.  This is on our homepage.  It says you know, ŅWeÕve been getting clients, future proof Internet marketing results Š,Ó and we say how long.

Miraculously a few weeks later these other guys show up, and the saying on their homepage is, ŅFor ten years blah, blah has been getting clients future proof Internet marketing results.Ó  Wow.  ThatÕs amazing.  TheyÕre brilliant.  ItÕs almost like they went to my site and stole it, which they did.  Now what probably happened here Š I doubt the owners Š that the business owner did this.  

My guess is they hired a copywriter who went and did it, and if I go through their site, I am sure I will find other sentences and things copied from my site.  TheyÕll be a little bit more careful, so instead of committing plagiarism by just lifting all the content, theyÕre going to take little bits and pieces of it and use it so that their client or their boss doesnÕt see what theyÕre doing.

Again, they may think itÕs okay.  ItÕs not okay.  And generally Š you know, most of the time when a site has been stolen from me or a copy has been stolen or the whole thing, including images has been stolen, um, folks have told me that the Š that their copywriter or someone they handled did it.  ThatÕs fine, but it can get you into big trouble anyway.

For example, I might call you out in a webinar and record it and place it on SlideShare for all time.  Now, in this case I was generous and didnÕt show their name, IÕll come back to that in a minute, but itÕs very easy to avoid.  Right?  If you hire a copywriter whoÕs writing content for you, the first few times you work with them, take the primary sayings, the primary headlines on your site, take the, uh, take a couple of sentences from paragraphs or image captions and just see exactly what Š and put it in quotes, search on it on Google, search for it on Google and see if you find other results with the same thing.

By putting it in quotes you are forcing Google to find that phrase, that exact phrase, and thatÕs what you want to see, and if you get tons and tons of duplication, well thatÕs when you know something is wrong, they may be copying the content.  The way to approach that with someone, the way to approach that is, you know, go to that particular website, to that owner and just say, ŅHey, you know, it looks to me like you may have copied this, can you take a look?Ó  And as far as the person youÕre employing, same thing.  I would go to them and say, ŅHey this is showing up in the search engines, can you explain it to me?Ó

if they say anything like, you know, I donÕt know, ŅSure, this is okay.  You know, I just wanted to take it and use this one little bit.Ó or something like that.  I would really question their integrity, I would just question, you know, youÕre hiring someone to come up with original content, and theyÕre not doing it.  

next question is, what if you use the general style of the sentence and change the content?  again, I, you know, in most cases youÕre supposed to cite or reference the place you got that content.  in my experience I havenÕt seen anyone do that and rewrite content in a way that isnÕt pretty blatant.  If you want to try it, you can.  ItÕs very hard to detect, I just question the value of doing it, um, and I question the effect itÕs going to have long-term on your career.

because youÕre still stealing an idea. now, certainly  just to clarify, I have gone to sites and read really great reports or seen great videos or something and gotten, you know, general philosophies that they were teaching me and then use what they taught me.  ThatÕs fine, right?  ŌCause theyÕre teaching you something, but thatÕs different from looking at an article and saying, ŅOh, this is good,Ó and then rewriting it and putting it on your own website.  IÕm just not a fan.

next question is, using structure as a platform.  Is it okay to use structure as a platform?  I think weÕre getting to hairsplitting here, to be honest, and I think if you have to ask me itÕs probably not okay. you know, itÕs just this is a very black and white question.  There are not shades of gray.  If you feel you are appropriating someone elseÕs idea and using it for your website, and you donÕt have permission and youÕre not going to cite them, and youÕre not going to somehow give credit and let them benefit, youÕre probably stealing the content, and IÕm sorry to say it that way, but thatÕs almost always the case.

So, disaster ten is, the Miracle of Telepathy.  I came up with this idea last week that or longer ago actually, but I was talking about it last week, called ROTI.  return on time invested.  And I thought that was awesome, this was a new term, I finally have an acronym that I came up with.  You know, people will say, ŅOh yeah, Ian, 50 years ago came up with ROTI.Ó  Yeah, no.  Not so much. 

when I did a search on Google there are 17,000 previous mentions of return on time invested.  you know, what happened there?  Well, itÕs embarrassing.  IÕm kind of a loser for having done that, in this case when you see that this many other people are using it, and you note that thereÕs no clear one person, itÕs probably okay to just say it.  

the other thing to look for is, how is it being used, and how are you using it?  So, again, if youÕre taking this term, and youÕre converting it to use for copy where other people were using it for something else, and youÕre writing your own original stuff, thatÕs probably okay.  ItÕs like talking about SEO, SEO is a phrase that someone came up with a long time ago, and in spite of one personÕs efforts to copyright it, it is out there in the, in the public.

If youÕre using it and you discover that someone else coined it, and they own it, and no one else uses it, then again you want to go back and cite them.  Just say, ŅHey, you know, this is such a great Š,Ó you know, ŅThis is the phrase Š,Ó you know.  I donÕt know.  ŅJohn DoeÕs phrase, return on time invested is a perfect description here.Ó  Or, ŅReturn on time invested and in parentheses, IÕm stealing this from John Doe.Ó  Whatever.  Make sure that they get credit.

Disaster 11, the bad comma.  this is a classic.  Lots of people like to laugh at it.   this is something I wrote for an airline years and years ago. Ņbest-in-class restroom flight attendant and food service.Ó  Um, they donÕt have restroom flight attendants.  what I meant was they had a best-in-class restroom, great flight attendants and room and food service. that reads a lot better, and classification is bad, as long as it doesnÕt get published itÕs bad. If it does get published, itÕs moving on to GPU because people are going to be really, really irritated. 

read it before you send it.  ItÕs not that hard.  Or again, go for the blank sheet of paper test.  If you showed this to someone, what would they say?  Right.  If you take out this comma, go ahead and show it to someone without the comma.  Do they burst out laughing?  Okay.  ThereÕs probably a problem.

Disaster 12, auto correction.  Everybody knows the legends around this.  the night that Osama bin Laden was killed, I wrote this tweet, and this is not what I meant.  this is the kind of  itÕs definitely bad, and it can trash entire stock markets if you have enough people following you on Twitter.  Fortunately I did not.  

I deleted the tweet and quickly replaced it with this one because frankly, it was so embarrassing I couldnÕt stand having it out there.  just read before you send, autocorrect can really be a, a harsh mistress. you really, really have to be careful with auto correction.

the unsafe structure.  This is something a lot of writers and other folks really miss when theyÕre writing and proofing.  So, readers do not enjoy a challenge.  This is not going to get read.  Its classification: bad, and itÕs just stupid, and I shouldnÕt get paid because even if this was the best prose ever written, itÕs so intimidating online, on the screen, whoÕs going to read it?  Probably no one.

So, a few basic rules to avoid it.  One, donÕt ever have a paragraph longer than six lines, right?  Here I go a little bit longer, but this is a rule of thumb.  Break it up at that point.  Um, try to never have more than three paragraphs without some form of break, a subheading, an image, something else.  And then, also, yeah, use useful images.  Put them in where they enhance the content.  DonÕt just stick in random images, but if this was a page talking about couches, sure why not.

And then the last one, the last really specific one is, try to use only 10 to 15 words per line.  As the writer, you donÕt always have control over this, right?  Because someone else has created the style sheet, but if you can, try to use 10 to 15 words per line, thereÕs been a lot of testing on this, that thatÕs a good average.

And then finally, do learn a little typography, as a copywriter, you donÕt have to know a ton, but if you can just use a tool like this golden ratio typography calculator, this will tell you, at a given font size or given width, what type size you should use, what the line height should be, all kinds of really, really useful stuff.  So, you want to definitely go and learn to use a tool like this just so you have the basic rules in mind.  

Number 14, and IÕm going to have to apologize in advance, thereÕs some pretty ugly, offensive content here, itÕs not mine, but this is a spa in my neighborhood, in West Seattle, and they have a sign out front thatÕs just as bad as this. you can just look at the picture on the right and the text thatÕs in there. thatÕs not okay unless you know that your market will appreciate it and see the humor.

For example, these guys have a branch up in Fremont, and FremontÕs a much more kind of funky neighborhood, and probably it works just fine up there.  In West Seattle, where, you know, thereÕs one church every three or four blocks, not that I mind, but there is, and you have a pretty conservative audience of people, you know, small families with children.

this is not going to go over very well when thereÕs a sign on the sidewalk that says this or when youÕre booking your appointment and youÕre on the web, so you have to be very, very conscious of your audience. think about the result you want.  If you want to shock people, then itÕs fine, and I think that, you know, the Wax On Spa probably wanted to get the response that, that they got.

you need to be aware of your cultural context.  This was a classic one for people who donÕt know, on Passover Jews are not allowed to eat bread, so offering fresh baked bread for Passover definitely means you do not understand the culture to which you are selling.  you know, itÕs just bad for business, you know, try to be as precise as possible, try to focus on the right places, make sure that you understand what is or is not going to offend and whatÕs going to just sort of tweak a little bit versus cause great offense. 

then the final one is, donÕt be an asshole.  All right.  This is just mean.  this is from Mentos.  This is just mean, and culturally Š and not so much culturally, but just offensive.  this does not need to be out there.  On the opposite end is going completely passive, so as an example, if IÕm getting paid by the word, this is great, right?  ŅWith our tires customers will ride with fewer flat tires.Ó

First of all, thatÕs awful because I put tires in there twice.  itÕs like IÕm talking to you, but IÕm looking in the other direction, right?  So, IÕm standing in front of you, but my head is turned to the side, and IÕm having a conversation with you.  ItÕs easy to avoid, right?  Just use active voice and talk to the reader.

So, ŅOur bicycle tires help you ride with fewer flats.Ó  The Ņyou,Ó means IÕm looking straight at you, not off to the side, and notice thereÕs no Ņwill,Ó thereÕs no Ņis,Ó thereÕs no Ņare.Ó  ItÕs just saying this is whatÕs going to happen for you.  Also, avoid plague words like indeed, regardless and things like that.  

Often these are words you just donÕt even need.  Sometimes theyÕre words that, theyÕre phrases that are three or four words that could do just fine as one or two.  I have an entire list of them, in the link bundle, so you can got take a look.  And by the way, I use them all the time. Indeed is one of my great, great copywriting sins.  I use it all the time.  Also, undoubtedly. 

Writing angry or drunk.  Um, never a good thing.  I wrote this piece, basically just making fun of a book by Chris Anderson, who is an author for, I think, Wired, called, Free: The Future of a Radical Price, and I didnÕt agree, I still donÕt agree, and I have some fairly rational reasons for disagreement, I just went in and just blasted him. you know, utopian tirade was one of the nicer things that I said.  this is definitely GPU.  You know, this guyÕs never going to talk to me again, and I probably have to avoid him if I ever see him at a party Ōcause he might hit me with something, but also, you know, it just it just makes you look kind of bad.

And actually, someone just posted a really good saying, which is, ŅWrite drunk, edit sober.Ó  And yeah, IÕm not sure who wrote that either, but itÕs a really good rule because then you can avoid this kind of disaster.  You know, the other thing would be, write angry, edit when youÕre not, or something like that.  

The best way to avoid it is to just walk away for a minute.  just take a breath, and I found as IÕve gotten older that itÕs much easier for me to do that, um, but if you could just put a sticky note on your monitor that says, ŅWalk away for a minute.Ó  Or, ŅTake ten.Ó  it will help you many, many times.  and it also leads to another disaster if you write angry. 

if I write something in a particular blog post where I am pointing the finger at someone and saying that theyÕre a hypocrite, which by the way is just as bad as calling them a plagiarist in my opinion, IÕm ignorant.  I didnÕt look at all the information, Ōcause it turns out, he was offering his book for free online, so I wrote this nasty thing saying, ŅWhy donÕt you give your book away for free, you loser?Ó  you know, wrote back to me, ŅWell, I am giving the book away for free, you jerk.Ó

as I kind of started to realize ignorance at 500 decibels is still ignorance.  How do you fix it?  Well, just own it right way and apologize.  just I immediately posted something, on there with a link and everything else.  It doesnÕt make up for it, but at least now I feel like, you know, I own the fact that I screwed up, and this was unfair, and at worst, at worst, that at least means when someone looks back on this years from now, they understand that I didnÕt just go out and keep bullying.  At best it means that Chris Anderson actually is looking and saying, ŅAll right.  You know what?  Ian screwed up but he admitted it, so thatÕs okay.Ó

the other thing is, donÕt just delete it.  If you just delete the nasty thing you said, remember all the scrapers I talked about?  TheyÕve already copied the article.  ItÕs already showing up everywhere, and if youÕre really visible, if youÕre in the public eye than what you said is already out there, right?  If you spread this information or talk about something where you donÕt have the facts, then you need to correct yourself publicly if you made that mistake.  as a copywriter, if youÕre working for a major brand you need to do the same thing.  if you donÕt youÕre doing a real harm to people, and youÕre not correcting the mistake.  

Disaster 18 is treating your customer as an algorithm.  I refuse to read this.  It is too embarrassing.  this is an actual product description I wrote, okay, it was a long time ago, back when search engines really did care, and yes itÕs really painful.  It doesnÕt work anymore.  All right.  Even if you think you want to do it, even if you think putting the keyword in there twice or Š and I know people are going to start asking me now, ŅWell, how many times is okay?Ó  

just write it to read really well because Google totally understands.  The bots totally understand when your keyword stuffing.  All right.  Just write it rationally, all right.  Use your audienceÕs lexicon, like I said before.  Write really well, donÕt be passive.  All those things.  Put all those things together and you can do much better than if you intentionally try to stuff keywords into something.

Disaster 19 is going all mealy mouthed.  thatÕs not usually a problem for me [laughs] but it can happen, and this is something I wrote ages ago.  Uh, I think that Š and this is just my opinion Š tablets are just a fad, um, and being politically equitable here, itÕs like IÕm being Michael Dukakis and Donald Rumsfeld all at once.  just commit, you know, itÕs not about knowing the things that we donÕt know that we know that we donÕt know.

you know, what the hell?  What am I saying here?  David Ogilvy said, ŅSwing for the fences.Ó  DonÕt write wishy-washy content.  Uh, because if you do, youÕre never going to get the homerun, and eventually you do want to.  If you write something and it doesnÕt make you smile then do it again.  Or if it doesnÕt make you grimace, do it again.

I said this, okay, out in public, and yeah, it was a really bad prediction, to say the least, but, you know, I just came out and said it.  I wasnÕt trying to cover my bases or anything else.  And what youÕll find is, if youÕre wrong, people still respect you for it because, yeah, youÕre wrong, but you went out there and you stated your view.  obviously, you know, if youÕre being insulting or nasty, thatÕs a different matter, but, you know, make your statement, make it clearly.  DonÕt force people to figure out what youÕre saying or what you stand for. 

Disaster 20 is creating the checklist, I did this for years.  I tried to give my team a checklist of exactly what you should say, how you should write.  You know, use the key phrase this many times.  I didnÕt actually say ten times.  Make it look just like this, you know, and what happens then is you do it once for one thing, and then everyone starts coming to you and saying, okay, well this wasnÕt on the checklist, can you please add it?  And theyÕll start doing that for everything, all creativity disappears, right?

And even when you get to the point where youÕre adding, be creative to your actual checklist, they canÕt do it.  So, instead, you know, mitigate.  Point at the things that you can manage.  The repeatable stuff that is part of the process of writing really, really good content.  So, you know, write down how to do the proofread, write down who should see a piece of content, you know, whose hand should it pass through?  

Write down basic techniques for ensuring that you cite all the things you should cite, but donÕt write down how to write.  DonÕt write down what the style should be unless, you know, you have very strict branding guidelines, and even then itÕs not a checklist, itÕs just something saying the kind of personality you should project.  So, checklists, generally bad.

The last disaster, and this is the bonus, um, and it again comes from difficult personal experience.  You know, going for perfect, waiting for the idea or the first sentence that just means the heavens will open, and youÕll hear trumpets, and itÕll be great.  everything IÕve never written is sitting in my brain waiting for the perfect topic or the perfect story or the perfect idea.

you know, I have at least three books in my head I would love to write someday, and the only excuse is that I just havenÕt fleshed them all out all that well.  really, thereÕs no excuse for that.  I have entire blog posts in there as well, and you know, Just get out there and write. Just start writing, and you donÕt have to show all of it to everyone, but the more you write the easier it gets to avoid the kind of mistakes that I described in this particular presentation, and thatÕs it. So, IÕll take questions now.

 ŅHow do you feel that would work in a style guide?Ó  So, things for, you know, yeah, I talked about that a little bit, but, you know, to me a style guide usually is around brand.  thereÕs certain terms you are not allowed to use, for example.  there are certain ways to talk about a product, um, thereÕs certain ways to name things.  You know, what should be capitalized and what shouldnÕt.  

then thatÕs the style guide, and then you have the process.  you have the process information, and thatÕs a whole different, uh Š excuse me, a whole different thing, and itÕs something generally the copy teamÕs going to come up with on their own, and itÕs going to be, you know, hereÕs what we need to do before we roll something out.  So, any other questions?  IÕll give everybody a minute here.  IÕm also checking Twitter really quick.  

Wow, no questions, all right.  ŅWill slides be available?Ó  Yes, the slides are available.  TheyÕre available in the link bundle, um, that I put here that you can see right now actually.  theyÕre also up on SlideShare right now, and IÕll be doing a blog post that just links to them as well.  Should be pretty easy to find, and if you canÕt, just tweet me.

ŅHow do you feel the headline topic applies to product page titles?Ó  Now, IÕm assuming you mean title tags.  when it comes to title tags, you know, the headline on the page and the title tag should be pretty closely related.  They donÕt have to be duplicates, they certainly can be, so if you have a product page that says, you know, skinny jeans, all right.  ThatÕs the product, but skinny jeans are part of a particular line, then in the title the headline might be skinny jeans, but in the title maybe itÕs, skinny jeans dash line name dash brand name.  So, the headlineÕs generally going to be at least part of the title tags, the headlineÕs going to be at least part of the title tag.  You definitely want to do something like that just for consistency sake.  

ŅHow do you pace yourself for longer articles?  I get stuck editing at the beginning.Ó  Yeah, you know what, Deborah, I do the same thing.  ItÕs not always the easiest thing to figure out.  Um, what I have started trying to do is write in sections.  then edit, and then write another section.  ThatÕs still not great, I know, but itÕs very hard to resist, and at some point IÕve just gotta go with it.

Do I have any webinars, events or materials focused on e-commerce that I can check out?  Um, a lot of e-commerce stuff out there that weÕve done.  IÕm assuming you mean, you know, writing product copy.  let me think about that.  I just did a webinar for Unbounce that talks about writing, landing page copy.  ThatÕs really, really relevant to product pages as well. so you want to take a look at those.

Also, blank sheet of paper test is really, really important, for product copywriting.  You definitely want to take a look at that and then using customer lexicon.  You know, if you follow those two rules youÕll be in reasonably good shape when you start writing, writing product copy.

 ŅAs a small business owner, what one of two things would you recommend I do content-wise?Ó  actually thereÕs a whole bunch of questions in here that are just about lack of resources or not liking to write or, or whatever else. if, if you have limited resources, you know, either you canÕt afford to pay a writer, or donÕt have the time yourself, you know, or both.  Then, you know, youÕre in kind of a spot.  

I mean, at some point, youÕre going to have to write or get someone else to write for you, and thereÕs no way around that really.  the only things I can think of are, you know, IÕll set limited goals for myself.  Like every day write 100 words, just about my own products, and sometimes those hundred words will be something, you know I can use, sometimes they wonÕt, sometimes I can string them together and they become something really useful. 

I would say that before you do anything else, before you try blogging or anything, make sure that the product or service description copy on your site is absolutely flawless.  it needs to be great, and a site with lousy product descriptions or lousy service descriptions that then has a fantastic blog will get lots of visitors, but itÕs not going to help your business, right?  ItÕs not going to go to your core business goals.

So, you know, that would be, as far as limited resources thatÕs what I would say, and also the one to two things.  I would start with that.  Start with the content you already have and improving it, then go back and start writing new stuff.  When it comes to writing new stuff, you know, you have limited resources, well thereÕs a couple of options.  

I mean, you can take a look at local colleges and writing programs for folks who work for a lot less to build their Š to build their portfolio, um, you know, besides that I would say, wait and save up because you donÕt want crappy writing, and if something seems too good to be true, like going on Fiverr and paying $5.00 for a post or a product description, it is.  YouÕre going to get terrible copy, and one thing thatÕs worse than no copy and no content is really bad content.  So, go for quality.  DonÕt worry about writing tons of stuff, write, you know, write a little bit of stuff and make it really, really good.  And IÕm sorry that thatÕs not the best, uh, the best advice, but hopefully it helps a little bit.  

what tools have I found to help motivate me as a writer?  You know, I love writing, so IÕm probably the wrong person to ask.  If you really hate writing, then as a business owner I would say speaking as a business owner, delegate.  All right.  Take on the other things, and see if you can find someone else to do the writing for you.  

if they donÕt know enough about your product or service then get them to sit down with you for 30 minutes or an hour and brainstorm some topics and do a brain dump, and they can turn that into good writing.  If theyÕre a good copywriter, they can definitely do that.

 ŅWhat lengths should I strive for in writing online content?Ó  unfortunately again, I donÕt have a great answer.  I have written things that are 250 words, actually I wrote a one-word blog post once.  IÕve also written 12,000-word posts, so you know, I would say use precisely as many words as you need.  thereÕs no maximum or minimum length from GoogleÕs standpoint.  ThereÕs no maximum or minimum length from a readerÕs standpoint.  It depends entirely on the topic.

Just remember, if you write something really long, you know, follow those words around readability and make sure that you have, you know, make sure that you have breaks in appropriate places, you donÕt have more than X number of paragraphs together, you donÕt have more than 10 to 15 words on a line.

 ŅWhatÕs the best source for royalty-free images?Ó  well, full disclosure, a friend of mine is, is the head of technology at this company, but iStockphoto I really like.  they charge for their images, but you know, the images youÕre seeing in this presentation, for the most part, come from there. 

other sources for free stuff, take a look at the Wikimedia Commons, you can get images there that are royalty-free, you just have to check and ensure that you use whatever citation method theyÕre asking for.  So, some of the images are, you know, you can reuse it, but you must provide attribution, some are you can reuse it, but you canÕt change it, and you must provide attribution or some are, you know, you can use it for non-profit purposes, and provide attribution, so take a look on Wikimedia Commons.

ŅWhere can I find the text on landing pages you just mentioned?Ó  IÕm not quite sure what you mean there.  If youÕre talking about the landing page webinar, go to Unbounce.com, and you should be able to find it there, or just go to Google and search for Ian Lurie Unbounce, and itÕs probably there.  IÕll also put a link to it in the link bundle.

LetÕs see.  ŅYou mentioned that you Š,Ó, yes.  Sorry.  Yes, Michael. I wrote a blog post and then did a webinar.  The blog post has eight tips, and then the webinar I think has ten, again I will put the links to those, right into the link bundle.  Any other questions from folks?

Just about out of time, weÕve got a couple of minutes.  If you have other questions, do please tweet them to me, I really do try to answer can also send them to me on Google Plus, on Google Plus, I think IÕm just Ian Lurie. IÕll put a link to that in the link bundle as well. Just if you have longer questions thatÕs sometimes a good place to go.


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Ian Lurie


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