This is part of the 15-day UX Writing Challenge presented by Daily UX Writing.
Scenario: An elderly user is doing a Google search to find an easy way to buy contact lenses online.
Challenge: Write a title and meta description for a website that sells subscription contact lenses delivered to a user every 30 days — convince them to try it.
Title: 60 characters max
Meta Description: 160 characters max
Task & Goals
So this is an interesting challenge because it presents an SEO problem. Our user is using Google search (or whatever search engine) and our goal is to be among the top results on the first page of the search.
For those that don’t know what SEO is, it stands for Search Engine Optimization. Basically, it’s the use of keywords and descriptions that companies use on their websites to ensure that their pages are among the first results that users see when they search a relevant topic. This is so essential to businesses that there are high-paying roles dedicated to optimizing their search rankings.
Don’t worry, we don’t need to fully understand SEO to write an enticing copy. Let’s just assume that we’re working with experts and they asked us to include certain words or descriptions in our copy.
With that, our goal is to write an enticing title and description using keywords and phrases to ensure that our service will be ranked high in the search results to attract new and returning customers.
Concepts & Ideas
While it’s highly unlikely that you’ve never used a search engine before, you might not be familiar with its format.
Here’s what you’ll see if you search meta description:
The results show links to pages with titles, descriptions (aka meta descriptions), dates, and the URL.
Okay, but before we jump write into writing our title and meta description, let’s first talk about our service.
Our service is a monthly subscription that delivers contact lenses to subscribers. With this in mind, we’ll want to highlight:
- our product and service
- how customers will get them
- the value that our service provides
So, let’s brainstorm some words and phrases:
- contact lenses
- recurring subscription means they never run out
- no need to go out and buy your own
- avoid the hassle of choosing among thousands of different brands
After a quick Google search on contact lenses, I noticed that the first search were ads:
Since our goal was to convince the user to sign on, I figured we should write an ad copy.
Here is my copy:
Headline: First Month Free — Contact Lenses Delivered Right to You
Meta Description: With Clear Lenses, you’ll forget about the trouble of buying contact lenses. Get new ones delivered to you every month with your first month free. Sign up now!
The headline needed to be eye catching and nothing catches potential customers more than the word free. Sure, this decision is entirely dependent on our company’s decision, but for this exercise, let’s assume they said the first month is free.
In the meta description, we needed to highlight the key features of our service and how it will benefit the customer:
- forgetting the trouble of buying contacts
- new ones every month
- free for the first month to try
- delivered right to them
- a call to action to sign up now
Here’s what our Google search may look like:
Conclusion
When it comes to writing our copy and SEO, we need to be careful about the words and phrases that we’re using. The search algorithm can severely hurt the company as a whole if our users can’t find our copy or aren’t interested in it. But hopefully, as UX writers, we’ll have SEO experts by our side to help us.
How would you tackle this challenge? Let me know your thoughts in the comments. Again, I welcome any constructive feedback that you may have. Thanks for reading!
