CONTENT IS KING
August 2, 2009 by · Comments
More than ever, especially in the world of social media, written content is the driving force behind one’s success on the internet. The more you have the better chance you will have at being found. For many, who although are skilled in reciting the english language but not writing it, this is a terrifying and seemingly impossible feat.
Content Writing: Make it Simple
For those of you who find it difficult to put words on paper in any sort of logical order here are a few tips to help make it easy.
Make an outline of what you want to say or the message you want to get across. Content writing is much easier when you first organize your thoughts with an outline. Start by putting the major points to discuss on paper but don’t worry about the order. Later when you have jotted all of them down begin by putting them in an order that seems logical. This will dramatically help your content writing to have flow, and to make sense.
After putting your topics in order, make bullet points under each one of the key points. Make this brief! This should only be an outline or highlights of each section. One sentence per bullet point although you may have several bullet points if that subject contains many different things to talk about. Here is an example:
Subject: How to Write Content
Style of Content Writing
- point of view (1st or third person)
- stick to one throughout
Planning your content writing
- Jot down major points to discuss
- Put in chronlogical order
- Under each heading put bullet points of key information to discuss
Writing the Content
- Write the intro paragraph (brief summary of topics for discussion)
- Using outline as a guide write content that is rich with information
Summing up the written content
- write a summary or conclusion paragraph
- should relate to your intro paragraph by summing up the points discussed
Having a guide as you write your content, helps to organize your thoughts and ensures you stay on track with your ideas and information. While it may seem like added work, it will actually save you time. Once the outline is prepared, you are more than halfway done. Try it the next time you are staring blankly at a white screen like a deer in headlights.
TIPS TO IMPROVE RANKING
June 21, 2009 by · Comments
Often times ranking can be a difficult task especially if our keyword is a competitive one. Here are some ideas to lower the competition and still get your desired result.
Now assuming all of the other page elements of SEO are present including keyword within in the content writing, links and other basic SEO factors already exist, it is time to start writing city pages. City pages are designed to focus on a smaller market share and compete within a particular city instead of your current national market you have been struggling in. Often times a business such as a doctor’s office will likely already compete locally because his clientele has to be within a certain number of miles to make them a relevant market, however for someone who either sells something on line or sells something which does not require face to face with its consumer then the market is endless. For example someone selling seo services sells nationally because most of the time all communication can be done over the phone or email. Someone selling babysitting services would only be competing locally within their city of residence for similar obvious reasons. They physically could not babysit for someone outside of certain range of distance. When we compete on a local level versus a national one, our competition is greatly reduced and for obvious reasons, much easier to achieve the desired ranking within organic search.
If you are currently competing nationally and are struggling, my advice to you is: break your market up and begin competing in smaller sections. How is this done? It is rather simple actually. Here again is where content writing proves to be king. Start writing content using your keyword with the city of designation so for example my keyword may look like this: SEO Services Phoenix or Phoenix SEO Service. Then proceed to write content using this keyword as you would normally for optimization. Your metas for the pages would be something like this: SEO Services Phoenix | Get Seo Services Phoenix…… Now so as not to also disturb you current content where you would like to still compete nationally, place these pages in the footer of your site as links. Don’t forget the opportunity here to keyword your link!!! 
Keep writing them for each city or state that you would like or until you are satisfied with the results and amount of traffic to your site. You can never do too much!!
THE SEASONS OF WEB CONTENT
June 15, 2009 by · Comments
When searching for information, via written content on the web, one must learn to create their own ideas from what they absorb and give their best effort at remaining objective to the content being read. Unlike encyclopedias or dictionaries, web content is not regulated nor weeded through for accuracy. On the internet, anyone can post anything, any time of the day. The answer to your question on the internet’s great world wide web, is, most conveniently, whatever you want it to be. You might say the internet is starving for accurate information; fact based statements on subjects that can be supported by either scientific evidence, experimental trials or some other means of credible measurement. Something we can rely on to tell us not just a viewpoint, but something concrete, sparing the “I thinks, or most likely’s or In my opinion’s.” While this type of written content becomes more scarce it naturally becomes more important in the eyes of the only “regulators’ of content currently existing - search engines, namely google. As google strives to be revered as a legitimate deliverer of quality content, it will favor those sites whose data is more of the objective nature. Content Writing that is opinionated or subjective in nature will likely fall in a category below that, regardless of SEO, keywords and other tactics once used to gain popularity in organic search. Ranking will have more to do with quality and reliability of information than it will amount of backlinks from high page rank sites.
Isn’t this what the internet needs? Maybe so, but what does this mean for SEO professionals and many others, who have clearly, or rather unclearly created what I like to call Gray Hat SEO, a hybrid nickname I coined from the popular Black Hat vs White Hat oppossing technique types. Referring to anything that is SEO related as black and white seems out of character, even humorous considering the amount of unknown associated with its very practice. I am not sure what color you get from your web investigations. I most often get grey, which appears to be the area of vast majority!
What affect will this demand for straight forward provable content have on the internet as a whole? Will it stifle the many brilliant minds that although offer mainly subjective content, have a gift of initiating action or provoking thought and ideas in groups of people? The limited intelligence of the sub human search engine will most certainly lack the ability to spare such a crop. Will they be lumped in with the other conversationlists found on every corner? Probably not, when considering their daily flow of worthwhile ideas that change to the tune of algorithims, we will most likely find them gracefully chaired when the music stops.
If you’ve done any research on the internet, you’ve likely heard oppossing data on your topic of choice no matter what the topic might be, especially if you were thorough in your research. Did you come to a conclusion about your topic? Were your questions answered most definetely? The reality is, probably not! For every yes there is almost always a no. You get the idea! And that’s really all you’ll get. It’s up to you to form your own answer. How do you see the future of web content?
PICKING KEYWORDS
April 1, 2009 by · Comments
Picking keywords used to attract search engines can be an eye opening experience. Often times the most popular words or the words having the most searches are misspelled forcing you to use a misspelled word in your content writing. For most content writers this is very frustrating but a necessary component to SEO. The next time you see a misspelled word used all over a particular website don’t be too quick to tell them their mistake. Chances are they did it on purpose
Another problem I recently came across was a lack of keywords. The topic I was marketing had some searches but nothing substantial to build a business on. Had it not been for some trend research I did I probably would have advised the client to tailor their business just a bit to include a more searchable term. So how did I choose their keyword to best describe their business yet also has enough searches to make it worthwhile? First I looked for keywords/phrases that were characteristic of someone looking for something new or looking for ideas relating to that field. Since it is a new concept it is the responsibility of the business to get people interested. Someone searching with a general phrase of “new investments” might be interested in someone selling a unique investment opportunity not yet well known for example. Sometimes the more general the keyword the more competitive it is, however not always. Usually just by changing the general phrase a little you can find a keyword with less competition and a decent amount of searches. For example instead of “new investments” you could try “new invest” or “invest new” or maybe “new opportunity invest” You would be surprised at the many different ways people phrase their searches and giving the content writer a difficult challenge when trying to use it in the text. Sometimes the keyword phrase is incorrect grammar and even more frustrating for the writer who most likely cringes at the idea of writing text with improper English. I know I do! So as you peruse various sites and notice misspellings or incorrectly phrased sentences, keep in mind that may have been on purpose or at least let’s hope so!
SMALL BUSINESS SEO PROPOSALS
March 22, 2009 by · Comments
Presenting proposals to clients for SEO projects can be a hectic and stressful process especially for the small business client whose expenditures are almost always on a tight budget. Some feel like they might be throwing money at a losing battle…their business, and at this point are unsure it being worthy of success at all. After having done an initial analysis on their competition and current web presence you conclude that with a strong back linking campaign and onsite seo/copywriting they could turn their business around and take a strong position in the search results for their keyword. Naturally you have already shared this exciting news with them but somehow at the moment when you present the proposal, it seems forgotten; the excitement lost in dollar signs. What can be done to make this proposal process less stressful for both the client and the SEO professional? Here are a few things I have come up with for a win win proposal:
Upon introduction discuss:
A) What is their budget? Or, how much do they want to spend on a marketing campaign and SEO for their website
B) Ask them questions that quantify the value they place on ranking well in search results or driving traffic to their website. Let’s face it. Getting noticed online can bring endless value to the customer in hard revenue. It is important however to help them make that connection when you are selling something intangible like services.
C) Ask them if they have ever paid for SEO services/copywriting before, and if they haven’t, get them familiar with cost immediately. That way they can do their own math along the way and thus no surprises. Many people are unfamiliar with the process, therefore unfamiliar with its cost.
D) When presenting the proposal, include the estimated final result of the services being recommended i.e, what this will do for the customer, is it better ranking in search results, driving traffic through a pay per click campaign, increase conversions, etc. That way the cost and value can offset each other yet again for the customer.
E) Make sure your pricing is clear cut and if you offer an hourly rate only, try to estimate how long each process will take or give maximums (not to exceed x amount of hours). Small business owners are much more comfortable knowing in advance how much they are spending.
F) And as always deliver what you promise in the time frames outlined. It is always better to under promise and over deliver and because SEO and online marketing are not exact sciences, don’t promise the number one spot in google’s search results, instead promise the top 3 but only if your totally confident it can be done!
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