LOREM IPSUM; CONTENT GOES HERE (OR DOES IT?)

Designers have had a torrid love affair with Lorem Ipsum for ages. Actually a lot longer than you could possibly imagine. With roots in classical Latin literature, Lorem Ipsum has been the print industry’s standard dummy text since the 16th century, popularized in the 1960s. It has become the de facto placeholder text in web design, too, used in place of meaningful content during the design phase.

“Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.”

Huh?

Lorem Ipsum has come a long way since then. Now there are Lorem Ipsum generators that allow designers to be truly creative:

Cupcake Ipsum

“Cupcake ipsum dolor sit. Amet I love liquorice jujubes pudding croissant I love pudding. Apple pie macaroon toffee jujubes pie tart cookie applicake caramels. Halvah macaroon I love lollipop. Wypas I love pudding brownie cheesecake tart jelly-o. Bear claw cookie chocolate bar jujubes toffee.”

 

Zombie Ipsum

“Zombie ipsum reversus ab viral inferno, nam rick grimes malum cerebro. De carne lumbering animata corpora quaeritis. Summus brains sit , morbo vel maleficia? De apocalypsi gorger omero undead survivor dictum mauris. Hi mindless mortuis soulless creaturas, imo evil stalking monstra adventus resi dentevil vultus comedat cerebella viventium.”

 

Huh?

So creative, you designers. Lorem Ipsum any writer would love to drop their little words into. But hey, today (whether you like it or not) content (yeah, that “word” stuff again) is rearing its proud head, leading the way for weary word worriers to come out of hiding. Writers who don’t think content should be pigeonholed into whatever space you deem it to live. Those other creatives, probably just as creative as you, who have an intimate relationship with the power of content. Of telling compelling stories people want to hear. Stories, sometimes short, the you’d like them to be. But stories sometimes bigger than the Lorem Ipsum your designs left them with. If you thought of content as useful, helpful, engaging and relatable…if you understood how the right content could connect to people in ways that earned their trust and loyalty which would ultimately lead to greater engagement and profit. would that change your attitude about Lorem Ipsum? Let’s talk about that.

SEO SPEEDWAGON

Slurp, SERPS. Search Engine Results Pages. Getting there” In a word, keywords. Without question, SEO is one of the yummiest topics in content today. Also more complex and changing than Kim or Chloe K’s hair. There’s the tech side, sophisticated algorisms lost in supposed logic, trying to figure out what works. You probably have someone on staff tackling those conundrums. You most likely also have an SEO guru (at least that’s what their resume read) figuring out keywords. Or then there’s always good ol’ Google helping you search for the right keywords to help you shoot up to the top of Google. The problem is that you just might come up with elephantine lists of suggestions that would overstuff any content. OK, so you whittle down to what you believe is a more manageable list of keywords. Then what? What is the keyword rule of thumb? Is two too little? Three too much? Five right on the money? Short-Tail fall short? Mid-Tail a mover? Long-Tail too long?  It’s like the Goldilocks of marketing. When in doubt, just toss them all in. It’s enough to give any writer a case of Copy Tourette Syndrome (CTS). I think I just invented something here. The thing is, no one has actually ever been able to say “these keywords are “jusssst right” with any authority. But before you get into an SEO frenzy that no amount of goat yoga could ease, here’s the key thing to remember; it’s all about writing for humans. You can call them customers, but they are living, breathing, curious, wanting, needing individuals. And if you don’t get ‘em, you’ll never get them. Or their business. Keywords might get them to your site, but with content that’s less than substantial and exceedingly lackluster, they’ll be history in a nanosecond. Nexxxxxttt….

So choose your keywords wisely, and work with a writer who can deliver Google goosebumps.

It’ll pay.

JUST DOING WHAT’S HUMAN

We laugh. We love. We leave. We worry. We yearn. We envy. We need. We think we need. We’re human and we’re amazing. We’ve got hearts that aren’t just there to keep us pumping through life. Those hearts breathe emotional life into everything we think and do. We’re wired with vats of different emotions. Why is it so many advertisers and marketers don’t get it? They talk at us, not to us. They tell us why we desperately need their products or services. Why we should love and cherish their brands above all else. Wouldn’t be a bit surprised if they started a movement called #buymebuymetrymebuymejustbecause assuming it would be a surefire way to get us to whip open our wallets (physical or digital) and spend, spend, spend. Whaaa? Do they really even have a clue? Do they really care about what we like? What we actually want and need that will make our lives easier or more exciting? Truly connecting with someone (aka “target”) means listening. Talking to them in a language they understand. Where they don’t need a translator. Or get a headache from the blah blah blah…aaarrgh… If you truly want to connect with your customers (once you finally figure out who they are) and write content that connects to them on a gut level, you have to reach out and….whoa…I feel an award-winning classic line coming on (one which I worked on with AT&T for many years), you have to Reach Out and Touch Someone. Maybe content needs a little more of that today.