The importance of power words for your SEO copywriting
Franco Brutti
In today's marketing world, there are many strategies and methods that both companies and freelancers can use to make their businesses much more profitable.
The payment of advertising, valuable content, direct interaction with users, and effective and personalized customer service: many of these methods are unquestionably effective.
But, for a marketing strategy to make sense and really fulfill its objective, it must also have power words. And what are power words? You may be wondering...
Well, they are nothing more than those words that seek to persuade your interlocutor or your reader, transforming a common audience into customers and then into loyal customers.
In order to achieve your objectives, it’s necessary to be convincing and generate trust. Are you ready to give your project the touch it needs to generate customers? Let's get started.
What are power words?
Power words are the ones in charge of attracting potential clients, they are defined as persuasive and emotional words since their function is to generate empathy in your readers or interlocutors.
Power words are those that make use of users' emotions in order to create a connection with your product or service. By addressing a general need, the user will feel connected to your proposal in terms of what he or she requires, making him or her ultimately purchase what you offer.
In other words, they are a fundamental part of the market, because they are words made and conceived to sell, persuade, convince, and build loyalty.
Of course, you have to take into consideration that power words must be used correctly. You may have already realized that bad use of them can generate the opposite effect to the one you want. Therefore, they must create an impact according to the objective.
Characteristics of power words
As we mentioned in the previous point, power words seek to persuade and convince. But to achieve this, words cannot be isolated from a context that gives them meaning and coherence.
For this reason, they must comply with certain characteristics that, according to the objectives, will have a greater impact and, in turn, greater effectiveness.
It must be communicative: that's right! The power word must be clear and be understood by itself in the sentence or phrase. It must reflect the product or service offered, so that users can perfectly understand its function and, therefore, want to buy it.
Use it in a meaningful way: just because it’s a power word, that doesn’t mean that it will work in all cases and with any product or service. Be careful! The word must make sense with what you offer, besides, if your objective is to sell, for example, the word must not cause rejection in your promotion.
It must be ingenious: by this, we mean that the less you are ordering the user, the better. You should try to convince and persuade through an intelligent strategy, not tell the customer what to do, as this can be taken with rejection.
It must generate emotions: as we mentioned in a previous point, if you don’t appeal to the emotions of your audience, you will have very little response. When you connect with what your reader or interlocutor thinks and feels, that is when empathy is generated and later transformed into actions.
3 Types of power words
To talk about the types of power words that exist is to never finish. And the reason is simple: all of them, in a specific context, have power in our interlocutors and readers.
That is, it depends on the context, the situation, the objectives you want to achieve, and what you want to cause in the person.
However, here are some examples of power words, which, depending on their context, can fall into a category or typology.
1. Motivational or inspirational words
These are the type of power words that seek to generate in the user some kind of motivation about something. Whether it is to lift their spirits, inspire them to do something for themselves or change aspects of their life that they do not like.
In conclusion, words that cause a positive reaction in your audience. They tend to have a very important use within digital marketing and SEO copywriting, as they help a person feel like doing an activity or cause some kind of hope in some problem that may be afflicting or worrying them.
Some examples are:
Earn.
Deserve.
Enjoy.
Try.
Achieve.
Reach.
Imagine.
Overcome.
More.
Solutions.
Improve.
2. Emotional and sensational words
The best way to summarize this type of power words is the following: they are those that awaken your feelings and emotions to the point that you identify with or sympathize with something or someone.
They are those that seek to cause joy, sadness, compassion, empathy, strangeness, and any other emotion. And the purpose of these is to allude to these emotions to persuade the person to do a certain action in particular or to raise awareness of a situation.
Some examples of this type of words are:
Imagine.
Overcome.
Pain.
Shock.
Avoid.
Deserve.
Reflection.
Admiration.
Pride.
Unpleasant
3. Transactional words
These words are those that aim to convert users into customers through the purchase or acquisition of a product or service.
They are those that will help you close deals, or give you the missing reason for your buyer persona to finally become your customer. If you own a business or store, whether digital or not, mastering this vocabulary is essential to be able to make sales.
Here are some examples:
Cheap.
Value.
Price.
Free.
Promotions.
Discounts.
Guarantee.
Win.
Get.
Variety.
Available.
Limited.
Opportunity.
Prizes.
Sweepstakes.
Power words or power phrases?
As you may have noticed, many of the power words can be repeated or can be part of several typologies depending on the context in which they are used.
And that’s because they must go together with a phrase that offers all the competent information according to the objectives. Remember that a word on its own may have real semantic meaning, however, for the purposes of SEO copywriting or digital marketing, it’s necessary to give it meaning.
That is, the power word, must, in turn, be present within a power phrase. They work together, they cannot be separate, as it would make no sense in the face of an audience.
Whether your objective is to sell, teach, inform, entertain, whatever... It’s necessary that your words and phrases work together and stand out within a text.
When is it necessary to make use of power words?
Power words are not exclusive to any business, niche, company, or project. So everyone can make use of them when necessary depending on the user's intention.
And no, you don't need to have a sales-focused project, such as an online business. Power words are useful for all kinds of situations, whether to draw attention, to make a criticism or a demand, when you want to expose a situation or to express your emotions.
In short, any social situation has a communicative character, and therefore, power words will always have a place. They are part of our communication, and they are necessary when we want to cause a reaction in our reader or interlocutor.
How to use power words?
Once you have understood the theory, it’s time to put it into practice. And for that reason, we have prepared for you a series of practical examples that can be useful in any social situation.
Of course, we mainly focused on the world of marketing and SEO copywriting, however, creativity plays a very important role here.
We will show you a case, and from it, we will create an ideal caption according to the situation or objectives.
You need to make some sales for your car parts business. There are a few parts available and you need to get rid of them... How do you sell them?
Are you in urgent need of the next line of parts?
"Place the names of the parts"
Well, your solution has arrived! We are specialists in spare parts and accessories for vehicles and we have for you what you need.
And with your purchase, you'll get a gift of "your choice" and a 10% discount on your next purchase of merchandise over $100.
Because we know what you need and we give you the choice of where to find it.
2. You are about to start your own local and national news and journalism blog. You need to attract readers and to do so, you need to make them see that your information will be informative, unbiased and totally ethical.
Tired of the "professional" media thinking they can manipulate information without you noticing?
Do you not tolerate biased, ideologically driven information? Do you feel that the media doesn’t cover cases of real importance?
It's time to change that reality!
Follow me on my blog "blog name", and find out all the news that other media are not able to cover.
I am "your name(optional)", and I am dedicated to ethical and professional independent journalism. And because of the need for truthful and current information, I have decided to start this project to keep you informed of everything that happens around us and a little more...
Avoid the manipulation of the media, and finally, achieve the power of information that you deserve.
3. You are about to start a podcast about situations of real-life people who have gone through difficult situations and how they overcame it. You need to appeal to your audience's emotional and empathetic sense.
Imagine that situation that is running through your mind and causing you great physical and emotional discomfort. You feel fear, the situation disturbs you to such an extent that it affects your daily life?
What if I told you that you can reverse this situation, that there is hope, and that you can get out of this situation through the experiences of others who went through the same as you? you are not alone!
Tune in on "place date and broadcast medium" and hear the stories of those who overcame fiction. Pain, despair, loneliness, deception, an infinity of situations that push us to the limit and we finally overcome or alleviate...
The peace you have been waiting for is finally knocking at your door! We are waiting for you...
As you can see, we have exposed 3 different situations using power words and phrases as we explained in previous points.
As it’s evident, they are hypothetical cases, although brought to reality and they can be useful in similar situations. In this way, you will have a better perspective for you to be able to make use of these words focused on your project.
Importance of power words for digital marketing and SEO copywriting
Both in the world of digital marketing and SEO positioning, power words are not only interesting and eye-catching for your audience, but also for the algorithms of digital platforms, when giving greater visualization to your content.
That’s why it’s so important that you make use of these words, also called keywords, so that your content not only converts but also positions.
A good caption on social networks, and a good use of power phrases in SEO article writing, will make it have an identifiable value for the platforms, increasing the likelihood that the content will go viral.
Translation?
Bigger customers, bigger leads, bigger audience...
We're done, now that you know much more about the importance of power words in your marketing and SEO strategies, it's time for you to put it into practice.
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