Karon Thackston

By Karon Thackston

Just for a moment, pretend you're a fly on the wall in my office. I'm on the phone with a prospective client and things are going well. We're talking about their target audience and they seem to have all the right answers. I am confident that these people "get it." Then the conversation takes a sharp left turn.
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I've been SEO'ing websites long before the 21st century began. Sometimes I feel I've been touting the same SEO processes and procedures for the past 10 years. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Sometimes choosing which company to buy from is about like deciding which brand of canned peas is the best. To make matters worse, the copy on most websites doesn't offer any help. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

20% Off All Karon Thackston Marketing Books! Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Today we have another guest article from SEO copywriter and trainer Karon Thackston. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Have you ever noticed that ecommerce sites have their own set of challenges when it comes to search engine optimization (SEO)? If you're a small ecommerce site owner, I'm sure you have. One reason is that copy plays such a vital role in the optimization process. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

To many people, the idea of guest blogging is fresh and new and very "Web 2.0." Personally, I find the discussion to be a rather déjà vu–like experience. In fact, one participant on my blog responded to a post about articles by asking how I would contrast guest blogging with article marketing. He wanted to know how I chose between placing my articles on directories and writing an exclusive blog post. The short answer is: I don't. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Karon Thackston and I were discussing copy length the other day (yeah, we're total geeks when it comes to that stuff) and decided to share our conversation via a podcast. You can click to it and listen from Karon's copywriting workshop page. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Karon Thackston’s 5th edition of her famous copywriting course is hot off the presses! If you bought your copy of the course more than 30 days ago you can purchase an upgrade to the 5th edition for only $29!  Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Karon Thackston is nearly done with the 2009 edition of her highly acclaimed copywriting course. It's jam-packed with new information and she will be increasing the price accordingly. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

As president of the Karon Thackston fan club <grin> I'm pleased to present another guest article from her about avoiding a common copywriting pitfall. I also wanted to let you know that she has agreed to teach our half-day copywriting workshop on April 2, 2009. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

It's funny how we, as website owners, don't always think like our visitors. A course of action that might seem perfectly obvious to us may stop our visitors right in the middle of their buying process. Take, for instance, e-commerce–type copy. Do you realize that what happens after your customers read your copy could make or break your sale? I'm not talking about shopping cart abandonment. I'm talking about good communication that keeps the buying cycle moving forward. Let me give you a real-world example.
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So, I'm a total toad! In the last newsletter, I mistakenly sent Karon's special discount offer on the latest version of her "Writing With Keywords" book only to the "text-only" newsletter subscribers and not to the HTML ones...duh. Since the HTML readers make up more than 2/3 of the readers, Karon has agreed to extend the offer through this week. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

The question is a rather odd one: "What's your conversion rate?" The correct response would be another question: "Which conversion rate?" What most people are really asking is how many sales have you made? But the sales process – in almost all cases – takes more than one step. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Karon Thackston has a great article on her blog that I highly recommend. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

If you know where to look, you can easily find clues about what people are feeling. Once you discover that, making the connection is simple. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Let me enlighten you about something you might not have considered. Ultimate conversions from pay-per-click (PPC) ads come from a process, not a single event. Oftentimes, online marketers focus on the effects of PPC copywriting and the clickthrough rate it achieves. That clickthrough rate is thought of as the end-all, be-all for the campaign. But the overall goal of PPC copywriting is not to get people to click. Clicking a PPC ad is merely step one. The ultimate goal is to get visitors to take action once they reach your site. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Karon Thackston has just finished her new ebook on how to write successful PPC ads. It’s so new, in fact, that it hasn’t even been announced to the general public! Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

We have an information site which sells nothing. Our site consists of about 140 articles. I have authored several, and I'm wondering about submitting a couple of my articles to certain type of sites which claim to boost links to your site. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

In Part 1 of this series, I introduced you to Announce It!, an online candy-bar-wrapper manufacturer that was seeking professional help with their search engine copywriting. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

The old cliché is wrong. All our lives we’ve heard, “It’s not what you say, but how you say it.” That may occasionally be true, but for the most part it’s what you say AND how you say it. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

There has been a debate about the use of keywords for years. Many SEO copywriters will tell you that using keyphrases in their entirety is the best practice for getting high rankings. Others insist it really doesn’t matter — that as long as all the individual words within the phrase are used, your copy will do its job. Before we get into whether keyphrases are best used in their entirety or as individual words, let’s sidestep for just a minute to talk about the inner workings of information-retrieval systems (aka search engines). Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

My understanding is, if you have Meta tags with keywords and descriptions, this should also be reflected in your actual page content. But what if you have an ecommerce site and a homepage that displays mostly products and very short descriptions, and a menu with category names, etc.? Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

In Part 1 of this series, we discovered that explaining the value your products offer is only one part of the copywriting process. Creating a visual image is another. While Wholesalers USA knew their target customers better than most companies do, they needed help with two areas: optimizing their copy for the search engines and incorporating visual imagery. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

There’s no doubt. Wholesalers USA knows their customers. They’ve spent the time digging through log files to analyze site stats. They’ve spoken with customers on the phone and emailed with them. They’ve used client feedback to develop new products that have taken off like a rocket. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

My SEO’s Good. Now Should I Work On Conversions? Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

I found out quite by chance. I noticed a research brief in my inbox entitled, “Bad Web Experience Impacts Brick and Mortar Shopping.” Being primarily focused on Internet business, I really didn’t pay it much attention. But then I noticed it made reference to a customer’s online experience, too, so I read on. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

You have one, whether you know it or not. Everybody does. There is something unique about your business; you just have to discover what it is. And therein lies the problem. Most business owners and managers don’t understand how to create a truly unique selling proposition (USP). There are specific criteria to consider in order to get your message across clearly and succinctly. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Karon's back today to show us the results from the Julie's Jewels copywriting makeover that she wrote about last time. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Time for a pop quiz! Name three products that sell better when a facts-based approach to copy is taken. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

It's one of the best pieces of copywriting advice I've ever been given. "As often as possible, start your paragraphs with sentences that hook readers and drive them deeper into the copy." Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

The length of search phrases continues to grow. Back when the Internet was just an upstart, single keywords were the only thing you needed. But in recent years we've seen the number of words used in search phrases triple and quadruple. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

In cases where a client is smarter than you are about SEO, insists on saturating his keyword pages (10 per 200-word page) at 5% (which includes the keyword phrase in two header lines), and currently (without keyword saturation) consistently hits in the top 20 on his Google searches. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

If anyone is looking to buy a new laptop, Karon has started a thread at the forum to try to figure out the best brands to buy. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

I hope you enjoy this brand-new article from Karon...it's hot off the presses! - Jill Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>