There’s an old saying in sales: You don’t sell the bacon. You sell the sizzle.

In other words, people tend to buy on the basis of emotion rather than logic. The low-fat low-salt nitrate free organic bacon might be healthy, but is that really what you think about when it comes to eating bacon?

For some people, it might be. But even those people are buying on emotion. They’re not responding to the ‘low-fat low-salt nitrate free organic’ message. They’re responding to good health, a long life and a vibrant and satisfying old age.

Of course – I didn’t write this article to explain salesmanship. If you disagree with the above 2 paragraphs, there’s no point reading further. This article is for people who face a new dilemma that exists only when it comes to writing web copy.

What do you do when the needs of SEO conflict with the sales message?

You might well wish to sell the sizzle, but there’s little point if people are typing Bacon into Google. How can you write optimised content that contains plenty of sizzle? Here are my suggestions…

1. Use the opening and closing paragraphs to sell sizzle, and focus on optimising for SEO in the middle section. Use a keyword density report to ensure you get the balance right for SEO
2. Use testimonials, straplines and flyout text to add extra occurrences of your main keyword phrase if you need to boost keyword density
3. Try a 2-page approach. Only the first page needs to be optimised. Naturally you’ll want to test this to make sure the 2-page approach isn’t losing you leads (you may even find it out-performs a single sales page)
4. Create a special offer that contains its own compelling reasons to buy (e.g. special gift or discount), allowing you to seed it with keywords because it doesn’t need additional sizzle

Perhaps you have ideas of your own you’d like me to add to this list. If so, leave a comment and together we’ll build an awesome resource that everybody can put to good use.

Tags: Copywriting, online selling, SEO, sizzle