094: The Psychology of Snippet Text Copy [Quick Tip]

Words (even if few) really do matter! Here's a quick tip on writing preview text or snippet copy that captivate the reader immediately... even if they only see the first few words on a Google search or in iTunes!

A few exciting highlights include: - How to think about engaging your reader and listener in just the first few words of your short copy. - Meta descriptions: what they are, how to update them, and ways to leverage their effectiveness keeping psychology in mind. - How to use a free plugin to improve your meta data, snippet text copy, and more!

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The Psychology of Snippet Text:

Here are the (loose) transcripts from this episode, in case you'd like to read as you listen or see the images referenced during the show:

Welcome to Copy That Pops!...I'm your host LaptopLaura.

And lately we've had some great but LONG interviews with a heavy focus on book writing. I wanted to share a short episode with you around psychology of a spot with very short writing..

And that is a 'snippet' or 'preview' text. We'll look at two examples to demonstrate...but keep this in mind for any spot where just a short bit of text is displayed….

Two examples:

• 1. Episode description in itunes for podcasts

• 2. Meta description / snippet text for blog posts
  • Install Yoast SEO plugin (free version)
  • Let's you see -- when you scroll down on a post -- a 'snippet preview' or what ppl will see when your post shows up in google search
  • You can put in a focus keyword and see an analysis of how that post is doing SEO-wise
  • Here's a screenshot of what a recent podcast episode post looked like with the Yoast plugin … this is episode 88 with Marc Mawhinney called "Profitable, Polarizing, and Proud Coaching [No Paid Advertising Required] with Marc Mawhinney"

Some good things it tells me are… [Laura reads from some of the green items in the photo below]

Some bad things I can improve are… [Laura reads some items in red and orange from the photo below]

So, before making any changes to the post, i just added a keyword of "coaching"...that's a bit too broad for great SEO, but I'm going to use it in this example because it's a keyword that showed up in the title already.

Now, it gives me even more advice for how to improve like:

The big one for our purposes on this show today is "No meta description has been specified. Search engines will display copy from the page instead."

So, right now it reads: "Story: 10 seconds left in the game…" This isn't terrible, but the keyword "coaching" doesn't appear...and maybe we don't want "Story:" to be in that...

So, let's change the meta description to

Now I'm getting more green lights showing that things are more optimized for search engines. Plus, I tried to write the meta description in a way that would attract readers to want to click on the post to read more and listen to the show.

Keep in mind both bots for search engines and humans for being enticing!

If you want to learn even MORE about SEO...keep your eye out for an upcoming, in depth episode with Andrew Steven of High Voltage SEO. Where I know 20%, he knows 100%!

We are brewing up a podcast with screenshare and tangible examples you don't want to miss!

Links to Mentions in This Podcast Episode:

• Copywriting for Podcasters
• Yoast SEO Plugin
• Marc Mawhinney Interview

Read More: Shownotes for The Psychology of Snippet Text Copy [Quick Tip]