Entries Tagged 'search engine optimisation' ↓

Junk email seems to be a part of life these days.

But just recently I have noticed a vast increase in my inbox. It’s either for Viagra, to tell me the FBI has tracked me down to pay me several million dollars I’m apparently owed, or from SEO companies who claim to be able to get my website to rank for everything.

It’s this last bunch that prompted me to write this post.

Practically every day I get an unsolicited email from an SEO company who claims to be able to get me on the front page of Google for all my keywords.

As soon as they arrive I delete them but their sheer number got me thinking. Someone somewhere is probably falling for their hyped up patter – they must be because why else would they keep sending them?

Don’t fall for the con

Most of these emails will make huge claims about their SEO effectiveness.

Some of them will claim to be able to get great results for much less than you’re paying your present SEO Company.

But they all have one thing in common – they are unsolicited.

I don’t know about you but that’s not how I run my copywriting business.  The people I email are either clients, people who have made contact with me to talk about my copywriting services, or people who have already opted in to receive my newsletter. The one thing I don’t do is randomly select email addresses and bombard them with sales emails.

These people are spammers, pure and simple, and on top of that they are most likely the type of SEOs who use black hat techniques.

Choose your SEO Company wisely

If you receive an email out of the blue from a company offering their SEO services, think very carefully before contacting them.

The best advice I can give to find a genuine SEO Company who really understands their subject and will only use white hat techniques, is do your research.

Ask other people you know and trust who they use for their SEO and what results they’ve had.  Plus good SEO Companies should be more than happy to provide you with client recommendations.

Tread carefully, don’t believe the hype and don’t act on an unsolicited email.

The last thing you want to do is fall foul of Google – make sure your SEO Company understands the techniques and abides by the rules.

So you fancy yourself as a bit of a blogger?

You’ve set your blog site up, added in all the plug-ins you need and chosen a design that is perfect for you.

Writing your posts is coming fairly easy and you’ve had the odd comment left now and then but nothing to shout about.

But you begin to notice your stats. You only seem to be attracting a few readers, not the shed loads you’d envisaged when you started out. Not only that but numbers seem to be dwindling.

What’s going on?

You’ve got a problem, that’s what’s going on. Your readership is dropping and people who do find your blog are not staying.

The problem is you’re not being effective – your posts aren’t grabbing them anymore.

Learn to become effective

Lesson 1:

First off read one of your posts.

Forget the fact that you wrote it so you’re obviously going to think it’s brilliant. Is it speaking to you?

Are you talking to the reader or at them? Using ‘you’ and ‘your’ in your posts rather than ‘I’ and ‘we’, will make a huge difference. You’re immediately involving the reader in your post. You’re building rapport, drawing them in, gaining their trust.

Lesson 2:

What does your post look like?

Is it one solid block of text, or is it broken into small paragraphs and sub headings like this one?

No one wants to read something that looks like War and Peace. For a start, very few people like reading from a screen and so, if faced with a solid screen of text, won’t bother reading it.

Using features such as:

• Headings
• Sub headings
• Bulleted lists
• Images

Will add interest to your post and make it look more welcoming.

Lesson 3:

What happens when you get to the end of your posts?

Do you ask your reader to do anything? Or do you just let them wander off?

Adding a call to action makes a huge difference. It doesn’t have to make a sale, it could ask them to sign up to your newsletter or even leave a comment. Asking them to take an action is involving them in your blog – it shows that their opinion matters to you.

Lesson 4:

This is where your subject matter comes into play.

As you’ve probably guessed I’m a copywriter so when I started this blog I made the decision that all my posts would be related to copywriting, marketing and social media.

So when someone comes back to my blog they have a fair idea of the kind of information they’ll find here. If they want to find out about website copy or SEO, they know they can search for that term or check out my archive list and they’ll find the information they need.

My blog acts like a mini directory for all things copywriting and marketing.

But if you have posts covering all manner of subjects on your blog how are people going to know what they’ll find? Find your niche and stick with it – make yourself an authority in your own field and people will flock to you for your help and advice.

Lesson 5:

This one doesn’t have anything to do with your writing; it’s more concerned with the look of your blog.

Create something that’s multi coloured and full of ads and you’ll scare people away. Make yours a memorable brand by sticking with a couple of complimentary colours. It’ll become instantly recognisable so when your readers return it will be like slipping on a pair of comfortable slippers.

Blogging is a great way to help your SEO and to make a name for yourself on the internet.

Are you blogging regularly? Do you have a unique way of attracting visitors? Share your experiences by leaving a comment – go on, I’d love to hear what you have to say.

Are you the type of person who breaks out into a cold sweat whenever you hear the term search engine optimisation?

To many it seems to be one of those mythical beasts that you can only tame if you’re armed to the teeth with an array of magical implements.

Well fear not for your knight(ess) in shining armour is here to save the day.

There are 5 very simple SEO checks you can make right now. Open up another browser window and pull up your website.

Ready?

OK, first things first. Let’s take a look at your website structure:

1. Looks aren’t everything

That’s something my mum was constantly telling me when I was growing up.

Take a look at your website – this one is especially pertinent for all owners of custom built websites. For many business owners the ‘look’ of their website is at the top of their list. It’s the part of the process that takes the biggest budget because they want theirs to be prettier than anyone else’s.

The problem with custom builds is that, sometimes, looks are at the expense of SEO, especially if you’ve been seduced by flash. Yes, it looks lovely but unless you’ve got some magic going on in the background coding it’s not going to help your search engine optimisation one jot.

Template websites – love them or loathe them – tend to be more SEO friendly from the start. If there are any web designers out there who want to disagree or comment further please do so, I’d love to hear your take on the design vs SEO debate.

Next we move on to how to get found in the first place, yup, the dreaded keyword research bit.

2. Keywords

Remember this post is all about simple SEO checks so I’m not going to delve into the realms of thorough keyword research.

Take a minute to jot down the top 3 words that you would use as a Google search to find your website.

For example I would choose copywriter, freelance copywriter and possibly Suffolk copywriter to get a geographical tag in there. Next ask a friend or colleague to do the same, in fact ask as many people as you like to do the same and eventually you’ll have a list of keywords.

You may not think that’s very scientific but it will give you keywords that real people would search under for you.

Next you do the hard bit and work out how competitive they are and which ones are the best to tackle (you’ll need to use something like Google’s free keyword research tool for this). The chart below should help you work that bit out.

It’s also a good idea, before you make any changes to your site, to search under the terms you decide on and write down your current ranking so you can watch in awe as your site rises ever higher.

That’s your keywords done, so what’s next? Well it’s back to your website.

3. All present?

If you want your site to rank for your identified keywords they need to be in your copy. That doesn’t mean cramming them into every sentence on the page. But rather weave them into the text in a couple of places.

Your headings and sub headings are always a good place to put them and in your title tags.

OK, so now you’ve got your words in your website copy, what’s next?

4. Power content

The next thing to do is write a page or blog post centred on your keywords (one for each keyword). Again that doesn’t mean stuffing, but using your keywords wisely (e.g. in a post of about 200-300 words, use your keyword 2 or 3 times).

Try and use it in your headings to give it more prominence. Once you’ve published these on your website you can then use them on your social media sites too (e.g. your Facebook page) and link back to your site using the keywords as your anchor text links.

With me so far? For the next bit you’ll need a bit of help.

5. Get votes

Every link that comes into your website acts like a vote of confidence in Google’s eyes. The more you have, the more authoritative you are.

So ask friends and colleagues to link to you (like a link exchange) using contextual anchor text links.

OK, so these 5 tips aren’t the most comprehensive SEO techniques but they can and will make a difference. So what have you go to lose? Give them a try and the come back and let me know how you get on.

The world of search engine optimisation can be confusing.

Identifying your keywords, looking at your site structure and building back links are all vital aspects if your SEO strategy is going to work.

But what can you do about your copy? Making sure it’s written by a professional SEO copywriter is obviously a step in the right direction but here’s a list of 8 quick tips you can use to optimise your web copy.

Open a second browser window and take a look at your web copy as you read – is there something you can improve?

1. Headline

As with any form of marketing, your headline must grab attention and draw your reader in. It must sell you, your company and your products and services.

A weak headline will result in people navigating away from your site to one that offers them what they’re looking for.

2. First impressions

Assuming your headline has caught their attention it’s vital that the rest of your website does. Do the first few lines of text live up to their expectations? Do the images you use compliment or detract from your copy?

To work, all the elements of your web page have to compliment each other and work together.

3. WIIFM?

This is the question that sits firmly in the forefront of your reader’s mind – what’s in it for me?

Make sure you tell them the benefits of your product/service straight away. That’s not the features here we’re talking about what it is that your product/service will do for them – save them time, save them money, make them more attractive, make them healthier etc. Something that they will value (that’s why it’s so important you know who your customers are and what they want).

4. Easy on the eye

This is where readability comes in. People don’t generally like reading from a screen so you must ensure your information is accessible and readable. To help you reader skim your content for the most relevant points use headings and sub headings, break the text up with bulleted lists and use images to help get your message across.

Above all keep Bryan Eisenberg’s 5 R’s of Search Engine Marketing in your mind:

• Relevance (make sure your copy is relevant to your market)
• Reputation (great content will build your reputation and encourage links)
• Remarkable (only truly great copy will build your reputation)
• Readability (use the right HTML, tags, headlines, bullets, sub headings, font size etc.)
• Reach (don’t cast your net too wide)

5. We

How many times does ‘we’ appear on your website?

A website full of ‘we’ comes across as being very self-centred. The reader doesn’t care about you; they care about what you’re going to do for them.

Go through your copy and change your ‘we’ for ‘you’ to shift the focus firmly on your customer.

6. Voice

The tone of voice you use is very important. The information you provide has to be accessible so avoid jargon. Also to make it more readable avoid using the passive voice. Be active and involve your reader in your text.

7. Other wording

The wording on your website isn’t just confined to your body text. There are also ALT tags, captions, banner text etc.  Are the words here really adding value?

8. Hypertext

The hypertext links are the words you use to link out to other relevant information. Make sure you use your keywords within these links to get the most value from them.

That is a quick and simple list of things you can do on your website to help attract visitors and boost your conversion rate. How many are you missing on your website?

There is one formula that is ingrained in the minds of many internet marketers and internet businesses out there:

The regular addition of fresh content will undoubtedly help your search engine optimisation strategy, generate more traffic and therefore potential business.

But just adding content for the sake of it could do more harm than good.

If you write or commission a copywriter to create a vast number of SEO rich articles for your website are you really adding value?

“But I’m driving traffic!” I hear you cry.

You many well be but what’s in it for those people when they find your article?

• What value will it add?
• What’s your call to action?
• Is it really all that relevant?

If your content doesn’t offer the reader anything or ask anything of them, what’s the point?

Adding fresh content to your website is a good thing.

Making sure it’s search engine optimised is great.

But you also have to ensure it’s relevant, adds value and asks something of your reader. If you don’t they’ll skim read and head off to another website because you haven’t used that content to draw them into your website, get interested about your product or buy.

So the moral of this post is – add content, make it relevant and make sure there’s a call to action/lead into your main website.