You Too Can Be Ann Landers

No matter what your business is, there are people that are going to seek advice on what they should do in regards to your business.  If you sell flowers, somebody will want advice on what will best grow in a certain location or how to keep their favorite orchid alive.  If you deal in jewelry, you are sure to have a huge number of questions that come in from guys looking for the right present.  The point is that no matter what your business deals in, there will always be somebody with something to ask you.  A company blog can serve two purposes here.

The first thing that a company blog can do is allow you to give unsolicited advice based on your experience and knowing what people are going to ask you.  If you have customers regularly calling you to ask you the same question, a blog post with the answer is an easy way to curb some of the calls with the same question.  The second thing a blog can do here is allow you to answer questions that are posed to you that aren’t the usual run of the mill questions.  Even though your answer may be suited to the particular person that asked the question doesn’t mean other people aren’t thinking the same thing and can’t gain something from your answer.  Posting your answers to unique questions is not only helpful to your customers, but a great way to keep them coming back to visit your blog, allowing you to establish a trust between you and them which will lead to more sales.

Create a Top 10 List

If you’ve ever watched David Letterman than you already know all about Top 10 Lists, but that doesn’t mean you should leave the fun of creating lists to Letterman.  Whether it’s a Top 10 list of the best summer flowers, the Top 10 things to do after you’ve had an accident, or the Top 10 home accessories, there doesn’t have to be any actual facts to support your claims, just your personal belief.  Remember, unless you’re giving out legal counsel on your blog (which I wouldn’t recommend), everything you post is simply your personal opinion and while any Top 10 list you create is certainly open to argument, which can lead to great discussions, it’s whatever you want to put on there.

A Funny Thing Happened

Comedians always claim the funniest things from their routines are what happens to them in real life.  I’ve worked in a lot of different jobs and I have some incredible stories from all of them.  It’s hard to run a business any more without coming up with the kinds of stories that you would tell other people at a cocktail party.  Whether they’re touching stories of helping a bride get flowers for her wedding at the last minute or some of the more interesting (and comical) questions you get asked on a regular basis, your blog is a great venue to show your company’s human side.

Showing your company’s human side is a great way to build rapport with your customers, but it also can take provide a good laugh or a tear to their eye, both of which will cause your company to stick in their minds when they’re looking to purchase a product or service that you happen to provide.  Who said telling stories couldn’t work for you?

Keep it Easy

No matter what you put on your company blog, the one thing you should always remember is that a blog is an informal way for you to convey information about you, your company, and your industry to your customers.  Regularly making use of your blog can help you build a loyal following of online customers that will check back to see if you’ve updated your blog, and can even be used to point links to your website and help with your rankings in Google, Yahoo, and MSN, an added bonus.  What it all comes down to is making use of your blog to write in a more relaxed format while still doing your business some good, and that’s what it’s really all about.

Longer Doesn’t Mean Better

Hey, I have an English degree, and I can spin just about any topic into 30 pages worth of content, most of it actually relevant, but that doesn’t mean that I should.  The average online reader isn’t going to make it through 10 pages, no matter how compelling and well written it might be.  Keeping articles to around 3 pages is a good way to keep your audience captive without having to short them on information.  Besides, your article should establish you as an expert, which will then in turn make them want to go to your website, not be a college lecture.

The Author’s Box

Most websites have a section to be filled in about the author.  Whether the author is real or just a pen name, this should be a quick little blurb about the author and company with a link to their website included.  Anything over 300 characters (read that characters not words) is pushing it.  Keeping it around 250 characters is a good way to ensure that your information will make it onto the page without having somebody like me have to rewrite it and chop out information that you might think is highly valuable.

Graphics and Side Bars

Graphics and Side Bars might look great on your website, but most of the websites for SEO Articles don’t support them and they’re just going to eat up space that would be better served being used to make a point within the article.  If you really want to have that graphic or side bar, put them on your website and include a link to your website within the article that points to them, that way you can get your information out there without going into the realm of 20,000 words.  If you need a graphic or side bar to make your article work you should consider changing your topic or rewriting your article so that they aren’t required for it to make sense.

20,000 Words Over the Limit

I have had this happen and I’m not sure why.  I received an article from a client that was in excess of 20,000 words. There is no excuse for this.  As I stated above, make your point in the space you need, but when you’re pushing the 20,000 word mark, you’ve essentially removed my ability to find a home for your article.  Most SEO Article websites have a 14,000 word maximum, and that’s not something you should shoot for.  As soon as you’re reaching the tens of thousands of words mark, it’s time to consider whether your topic is appropriate for the article format.  Again, keep in mind that you’ll be lucky to have somebody read 3 pages of your article, so putting together one that’s in excess of 10 pages is a waste of your time, and I’m sure that your time is far too valuable for it to be wasted.

Wrap It Up

While it’s important to keep your articles within a reasonable length, don’t let that stop you from finishing your thoughts.  Just because you’re afraid that you might go on too long doesn’t mean you should avoid bringing up an important point or, even worse, forget to close a thought that you brought up earlier.  Plan ahead, write a few drafts, and make sure that you make the points you need to without going way overboard.  And if worse  comes to worse, send it to somebody like me to edit for you.  That’s what your SEO Copywriter is here for.

Articles

The simplest way to think of an article is to pick up a copy of Newsweek and read an article talking about what to look for when house shopping. If that analogy doesn’t work for you, try thinking of an article as an Ann Landers column, only one that’s about your business with advice given by you. The biggest misconception about articles is that they’re supposed to promote a particular company or business. On the contrary, an article should give information, even advice, but it shouldn’t be promotional.

At no time should an article refer to your business in any way other than as an example of a business or group of businesses that are a good source of whatever advice you’re giving. To put that in layman’s terms: If your company sells a computer part, but you’re not the only one that does, an article would be a good way to give advice on picking out the computer part from a good company, such as yours and possibly another quality company. While you could put links to your website from the article, with the exception of the author information, your company wouldn’t be mentioned in any promotional way.

Promotion is the bane of the article. Many of the quality sites where I like to send articles to be released to the public won’t release an article if they are promotional in any way. I find myself often editing articles written by other people that start out well, giving advice on a particular topic, but then stray into how their company can help with their need and what exactly they offer. That’s a big no-no with an article. As soon as you stray into promotion you’re writing something entirely different.

Press Releases

On the other side of the coin we have the press release. Unlike articles, press releases can be, and indeed should be, promotional in nature. Any time you want to say something about your company, be it a new product or service that you’re offering, a new website, or a new location that you’ve opened for your office, a press release is what you’ll be using as a medium to let the world know what’s going on in your company. A SEO press release is a great way to build links to your website while telling readers what’s happening, it is not a time to give advice on how to pick out that shiny new truck.

An easy way to remember a press release is simply to think of every time a politician or public figure goes in front of the camera to let us know why they did what they did and how it will effect both us and them, that’s a press release. Press releases are self-promoting vehicles used to get put your company in the spotlight for a very specific reason. While articles will last longer as they have advice that can be used repeatedly, press releases are a great source of instant exposure that can help give your business an added bump.

The Debate Continues

Hopefully this will clear up some of the questions that I receive about the difference between articles and press releases. A good SEO Services Company can help you do either one, and is one of the better ways to make sure that any articles and press releases that you do put out are both beneficial to your company and follow the guidelines of their respective style.

When you have generated traffic to your site, you need to give people what they are really looking for. In particular, you must deliver genuine answers and real benefits through your site copywriting.

This is a big stumbling block for those who optimize for search engine robots to gain positioning – without taking into account their human visitors.

You know clearly focused keywording throughout your site is fundamental to successful search engine positioning. So how do you write the words on your page to accent your site theme for the search engines, and more importantly, serve your customers?

Go Belly to Belly

The answer is to write for people first, not search engines. The Web business medium incessantly vies for our attention and fragments our thoughts. It’s exhausting! Doesn’t it make sense to create a Web site that offers shelter from the online storm?

A key marketing thought to consider is that a few hundred well-satisfied customers can feed you, clothe you, and take care of you into your ripe old age.

These ‘customers for life’ can only be yours if you and your Web site are thoroughly personal service oriented. It’s a powerful way to separate yourself from your competitors who think automation is the only answer for Web success.

Here are 10 key questions to help you with this approach.

The answers you generate will inform your Web site writing.

Your Product/Service

1. For your site visitors: What are the specific results/benefits you provide the people who buy from you?…

2. Your products and services: please list two short key phrases that describe exactly what you supply…

3. What’s your single, most marketable and unique, competitive edge? This is your key Unique Selling Proposition (USP).

4. Describe your product/service in detail…

A. List 7 key features that pop out at you:

(A feature is a fact about a product or service, such as “wash cold, hang dry”, or “made in Morocco”. Features demonstrate how things are created, delivered and maintained.)

B. List 7 enormous benefits your products/services give your site visitors…

(A benefit is anything that will make someone’s life better, easier or more productive by using your product or service.)

5. Which product/service is your ‘best of the best’ – your #1 most popular, profitable or marketable offering?…

Your Site Visitor

6. Who is your perfect site visitor? Supply as much detail as you can: demographics (gender, age, employment, etc), geographics (location, country, city, etc), psychographics (culture, interests, lifestyle, etc)…

7. List 7 unique and interesting facts you really want site visitors to know about you and the products/services you provide…

8. List at least 7 of the most commonly asked questions about your products/services, as well as the answers you give…

9. List at least 7 of the most common misconceptions your site visitors have about your offerings…

10. What are the 3 specific things your target market most wants to know about or looks for in your product/service?…

The Wrap Up:

Integrating Customer and Search Engine Needs

You’ve thought long and hard, you’ve dug deep. You’ve even asked your site visitors what they want! In the process you’ve generated the raw materials you need to write your site copy.

Here’s how to use this information to please both site visitors and search engines:

A. Write for your audience – the people you most need to reach. If you are writing sales copy, we recommend the template outlined here.

B. Use the excellent Overture keyword suggestion tool. It vanished for awhile, but now it’s back again. You are researching which words people actually use when they look through a search engine to find what you offer.

C. Take the #1 word you find on Overture. Wherever it makes sense (and without becoming obnoxious), substitute this keyword for similar words and phrasing within your site writing. Ideally you should try to achieve a 3-7% ratio of your keyword to the other words on your page. To measure the density of your keywords, visit Keywordensity.com. While you are at it, use this tool to check out your competitors under this keyword. Observe where and how they’ve used this keyword in their visible text and source code.

D. Re-optimize your pages around this single keyword, then hand-register these newly written pages with the major search engines.

This is the ‘human approach’ to site optimization. It’s not at all scientific but it’s very fast. The good news is it can free up your time to move onto the other aspects of your Web business.

About this author

You’ll find THE FORMULA for crafting the income-generating Web site here: http://www.copywriting.org/go/formula Need hand’s on writing help? Don’t hesitate to contact author and writer Scott T. Smith at 406.586.4112 or on the Web at http://www.Copywriting.Net . He writes to help you sell in today’s cutthroat online marketplace. Contact Scott today.

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Because grammar rules are so precise, errors are made every day. Fragment sentences, improper punctuation—these mistakes are seen too often in writing. Some mistakes are more common than others. One of the most common grammatical mistakes is the use of a comma splice.

So what exactly is a comma splice? It happens when you try to join multiple complete thoughts (also known as independent clauses) together by solely using a comma and omitting the conjunction (and, so, but, yet, etc.).

An independent clause is a sentence that makes sense by itself. For example, “I am very tired” and “I want to take a nap” are both independent clauses because both of them make complete sense by themselves.

An example of a comma splice would be if you tried to combine both of those independent clauses by only using a comma: “I am very tired, I want to take a nap.” The use of comma splices is very common, but it is not right. Yes, most readers will understand what the writer is trying to say, but according to grammar rules, this sentence is incorrect.

So how do you fix a comma splice? Fortunately, fixing them is a very simple task, and you have two ways to correct them.

1. Separate

If you have a comma splice, the easiest way to fix it is to turn both independent clauses into two separate sentences and end each with the appropriate punctuation. If we continue using our example, we would separate both clauses into separate sentences: “I am very tired. I want to take a nap.” By simply removing the comma between the clauses and adding the appropriate punctuation, we solved the comma splice problem.

2. Use Conjunctions

While separating the clauses is one way to fix a comma splice, it can make your sentences appear very short and choppy. If you want to fix a comma splice by creating a longer sentence with a better flow, you can add a conjunction.

After the comma, place the most appropriate conjunction (and, so, but, yet, or) that will allow your sentence to make sense. Using our example, we could say: “I am very tired, and I want to take a nap”. By using a conjunction, you are combining your independent clauses into one longer sentence, giving your writing a better flow.

If you choose to add a conjunction, it is important that you choose one that makes sense. Adding the wrong conjunction will fix your comma splice, but it will also create another problem.

Luckily, comma splices are easy to find and even easier to fix. Always proofread your work and look for comma splices. If you find any, either make each clause into a separate sentence or combine both clauses into one sentence using a conjunction. No matter which way you choose to correct it, doing so will help improve your writing.

Jerry Brown edits his work using Grammarly grammar checker. Currently he is writing a summary of To Kill a Mockingbird.

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Conversely, there is no maximum number of words you can put on any one page so long as you are adding quality content. You’ll notice that some BruceClay.com pages are over 5000 words. However, before you go after a strategy of building lengthy pages, remember that you want to build depth of content in your site. It’s not about saying everything you have to say on one page. While it is possible to rank for a one page site, it is very difficult. It is much easier to establish a site wide theme, supported by depth of content and good internal linking.

Pages should be structured to address customer questions or product information as they become relevant. This can seem to be a daunting task for many people, but it’s actually quite manageable as long as you start your copywriting project off in the right direction.

Search engines want to be treated like any other visitor to your site, but while they are coming closer to the ability to mimic human judgment, they’re not there yet. Search engines can still have trouble trying to accurately define what a page is about if the content is written in anything but a clear and well-defined style.

To understand what you should be writing, you first need to understand a little bit about the history of the search engines. The first search engines were set up for the people who were using the Internet at the time. Because the population of the early Web was largely researchers, scientists and educators, the focus of search engines was to bring back pages that fit the thesis model. This model persists today in the way Web pages are written: a title, description and some keywords that help define what the focus of the paper or page is.

In order to write effective pages to support your search engine optimization goals there are a few guidelines you should keep in mind. Assuming that you have generated a solid keyword list (See Lisa Barone’s article, Five Steps to Effective SEO Keyword Research (http://www.seo-news.com/archives/2007/apr/12.html), and have assigned the words to pages, your next step should be to brainstorm the best way to represent the keywords in an informative way.

Brainstorming works best if you throw out all your filters. Don’t critique any of your ideas, just write them down. The idea is to get out everything–great ideas and garbage alike. At this stage, no idea is too stupid. You can narrow it down later.

If you are writing content for your own Web site, your first response might be to feel frustrated. What on earth are you going to write about? Everyone knows everything that you could possibly tell them and you’re not a writer anyway. But that’s just the thing, they don’t and you are.

Let’s pretend that your business is selling cowboy boots. Brainstorm everything you can think of that relates to cowboy boots, even if it’s only somewhat related. Once you have all your ideas down, pick a few of the best. For example, you’ll want to focus a section of your site on the keyword “buy cowboy boots”. Everyone, you think, knows about how to buy boots. It’s just a matter of finding the right fit and style. You don’t need to explain it to your site’s visitors. But it’s one of your keywords so you sit down and simply write all the obvious information.

You are an expert in your area. Of course you know how to check the fit of your boots and which styles will work best for which people. It’s obvious to you that your jeans should be tucked inside your boots if you’re working outside and that you should take certain steps to care for your boots. But for most people, that’s not the case. That’s why they’re coming to your site in the first place. Your expertise is a valuable resource for the development of content. Explaining something that is obvious to you is probably the best way to introduce new customers to your products.

When I write my first draft, I like to keep the keywords that I want to incorporate on the page in mind. I’ll tape them to my monitor or put them at the very top of the document. However, I don’t worry about densities or forcing them in. If it doesn’t sound natural to use the keyword, I don’t use it. The first draft is just to get the information out. Use your keywords as a guide for the content.

Once you have a first draft, take a look at the tone of your piece. Are you writing to the right audience? Is your content engaging and informative? Does your content solve a problem or help the customer make a decision? If you’re in a highly technical area where your customer isn’t likely to know enough to ask intelligent questions, have you educated them enough to feel comfortable?

Revise your draft with these ideas in mind. Knowing your audience means putting in the kinds of words that they will be looking for, the same kinds of words that will help them understand what the best choice of products will be for them. After your next draft, the best thing to do is ask someone else to read it over for you. The best person for this task is someone who fits the profile of a site visitor. Have them read it to see if it answers their questions in an easy to understand way. If not, revise the content to meet their understanding.

Once you have a final draft, incorporate your final product into the destination page and use the SEOToolSet’s KDA (http://www.seotoolset.com/tools/free_tools.html) or any other page rating tool to determine the strength of the document. Tweak it if necessary. Keep in mind what your linking strategies will be and how the content will support the Web site theme as a whole.

The final thing to remember about writing for search engines is that there is no magical formula for writing the perfect copy. It takes work and attention to detail to meet the needs of both the search engines and your human visitors. The best thing to do is start writing and go from there.

Susan Esparza (sesparza@bruceclay.com) is a senior writer at Bruce Clay, Inc. (http://www.bruceclay.com).

News Article Design: 20 Tips For Good Web Copy

Clean is better. Eye-tracking studies say so. Web copy should be bulleted, concise, easy. Photos should be informative, not decorative. White space is good. And guys like looking at George Brett’s protective cup.

You weren’t expecting that last part were you?

I wasn’t either. But this post on effective news article design proves it.

Read more of: News Article Design: 20 Tips For Good Web Copy

One of the best parts of the article is his paragraph on “niches”. it’s a short read, so, you don’t have to take much time.

Karon Thackston offers her take on what Cutts had to say in her article “The Purpose and Practice of Writing Successful SEO Articles”

Here’s the beginning of Cutts’ article:

Okay SEOs, what can you learn from my previous post about changing the default printer for Firefox on Linux? In the last week someone wrote and said “I want you to talk about SEO, and don’t give me any of that crap about good content.” I’m going to beg to differ. I wrote that post mainly because I’ve looked for this information a couple times and never found exactly what I was looking for quickly. That tells me that in this small niche, I could utterly rock the search engines. Plus once I figured out the info, it was only 10-20% more time to package it up nicely. Now this short content post can act as an evergreen draw for searchers.

Notice what I did with keywords. I carefully chose keywords for the title and the url (note that I used “change” in the url and “changing” in the title). The categories on my post (”How to” and “Linux”) give me a subtle way to mention Linux again, and include a couple extra ways that someone might do a search–lots of user type “how to (do what they want to do).” I thought about the words that a user would type in when looking for an answer to their question, and tried to include those words in the article. I also tried to think of a few word variations and included them where they made sense (file vs. files, bash and bashrc, Firefox and Mozilla, etc.). I’m targetting a long-tail concept where someone will be typing several words, so I’m probably in a space where on-page keywords are enough to rank pretty well. I don’t need anchor-text for “linux default printer” or similar phrases; in the on-page space, I’d recommend thinking more about words and variants (the “long-tail”) and thinking less about keyword density or repeating phrases.

Read the rest of: “SEO Advice: writing useful articles that readers will love.“

Recently, author Andrew Wall offered some tips on SEO content and copywriting, discussing several topics from research to tips to ROI for your content. SEOBook is the core book, but Wall makes updates to it daily. Below is one of his most recent posts:

If People Hate Your Writing, Google Hates Your Website

I recently got asked to review a couple articles to see which one was better for Google. But the problem was that it was obvious that the writer did not know much about the subject they were writing about, based their content around a keyword list, and was not structuring the content for Google.

Gathering Background Information:

You can learn enough about a topic to sound intelligent about it if you just research the topic for about 10 minutes. Go to the associated Wikipedia page, search Del.icio.us for your topic, and find a few other articles that are research oriented (like the history of, industry background from trade organizations, trends, what people are blogging about in that topic, etc etc etc).Read more of the blog entry: If People Hate Your Writing, Google Hates Your Website.