In the first part of this series, we met Kneelsit.com, an Australian company that makes ergonomic computer chairs and was looking for a high conversion rate. After finding several problems with Kneelsit's original copy, I decided to rewrite the home page with specific goals in mind.
The Change
I felt bad for the people who had to sit in these chairs. They had back pain and other health problems, and they were desperate to find relief. I can't even imagine how it must feel to sit in pain all day, every day. I could see why they might be skeptical after hearing so many false claims about other chairs. So, I wanted site visitors to feel confident after reading the new home page copy. I also wanted them to see the difference between the Kneelsit chair and other chairs and understand the benefits this chair would offer.
Those with long-term pain were not the only ones who went to the Kneelsit site. Even though they were the main group, the audience also included people with mild back pain, people whose problems came and went or who were just tired, and people who just wanted a comfortable chair that wouldn't cause back problems in the future. The copy had to meet their needs and give them the information they were looking for as well. The Main Point, In fact, the original headline did list what was good about it.
Excellent comfort, ideal posture, easy movement, and natural balance.
But only one of these benefits spoke to the people in the audience... The best comfort. Even though posture may have been an afterthought, gentle movement and natural balance didn't resonate because they didn't know about them. In fact, these two benefits are very important, but most people don't know what they mean. Before site visitors could fully understand these two, they would need to learn more about them. There wasn't enough room in the headline for that education to happen, so those two benefits had to go.
The headline had to make people feel like they could trust it and give people who were unsure a sense of security. It also had to have a clear benefit that would get the reader's attention.
Also, I put one key phrase in the headline because it made sense to do so. The new title said: The design of an ergonomic chair is based on years of research. You can sit for hours without back pain.
The first paragraph says:
The first part of the original copy was fine because it mentioned some important benefits, but it didn't back them up. After saying that stress and pain would be relieved, it went right into a description of the chair's patent.
The new copy went in a more orderly way. It started by saying that other people (both users and professionals) liked the chair, and then it went on to explain why in the next section.
The original copy tried to teach people how important it is to keep moving and stay in balance. There's nothing wrong with trying to teach your customers something, but you need to give them enough room to do so. Because the home page didn't say much about these two benefits, visitors may have been confused or, at the very least, not very interested.
The swivel axel mechanism was the only thing that stayed the same in the new copy. It talked about how this helped make settings fit different body types and more. The customer didn't need much education to understand that this one patented feature had more than one benefit.
Instead of just putting the shipping information at the end of the copy, the new version of the home page highlighted some other benefits related to quality and style.
I looked for places to use the keyphrases for this page as I wrote. This was in no way a game of numbers. My goal was not to use the keyphrases as much as possible. From my point of view, that's not SEO writing.
If your strategy for writing copy is based solely on how many times you can use keyphrases, the copy will sound forced and silly. In fact, the keyphrases were only used four or five times on this home page. Still, some people are surprised that the home page ranks in the top 10 (and often in the top 5) for the keywords it chooses.
What Comes Out
Did it work? Did the changes lead to what we wanted to happen? Yes, they did! When asked if conversions had gotten better, the owner of Kneelsit.com said, "Our conversion rate has definitely gone up since the rewrite, probably by 35–40%."
Even if you put important information in your copy, it may not do what you wanted it to. Take the time to look around, try things out, and test. Switch out a headline. Change a sentence. Changes that seem small can often make a big difference in business conversions and other areas.
