Freelance Copywriting, marketing and social media tips

Have you noticed a dip in your social life since Facebook came to town?

Once upon a time, if you wanted to catch up with friends to find out what they’d been up to, you’d arrange to meet up for coffee, lunch or a drink after work. You’d be on the phone regularly, chatting about the latest gossip.

Today, there’s been a shift in this type if socialising. Now, you can keep fairly well informed about what’s going on by checking your Facebook timeline. All your friends’ latest news is there so you know what’s going on, who’s been where and what they’ve been up to.

You’ve probably found there’s less need to be on the phone or going for a coffee because anything you would have spoken about has already been read.

What’s that got to do with making your business stand out?

Well, the rise of social media has lessened the need for face-to-face contact and good old-fashioned conversation.

How many websites have you seen recently that only allow contact my email or contact form? Some even just have a list of FAQs and only once you’ve trawled those (and their forums) are you given the option to email your question.

Why email? Why not offer a phone number so you can talk to a real person?

If you want to make your business stand out, make it accessible.

Yes, we want to talk to you

I get so frustrated by the number of companies that hide behind their website that I no longer use those that don’t publish a phone number (wherever possible).

Why don’t you want your customers to be able to get in touch with you?

What have you got to hide?

It’s not enough just to say “complete our contact form” or “send us an email” – I’ve tried that and, on numerous occasions, my email or contact request has fallen on deaf ears and I’ve never heard back from anyone.

If you want to be seen as being different, welcome your customers with open arms. Proudly display your email, phone number and postal address to let it be known that you are there to help them.

Forget flashy websites, customer service is where it’s at

A slick, flashy website may look the bee’s knees, but if there’s no substance behind it you won’t have customers knocking down your door.

Even if you have Twitter and Facebook, some customers are still going to want to talk to you.

Good old-fashioned customer service will always be a winner. It doesn’t matter how well manned your social channels are, every now and then customers will want to speak to a real person.

So, if you want a sure-fire way to make your business stand out make sure you are open for business by showing your:

• Phone number
• Email address
• Postal address

Don’t hide them away and make your customers jump through hoops to try and find them, make sure they’re all clearly listed on your contact page.

Author: Sally Ormond, UK Copywriter at Briar Copywriting Ltd.

You’ve probably read umpteen articles that bang on about black and white hat search engine optimisation techniques.

Understand them?

Do you know what’s good and what’s not?

There is a lot of confusing material out there so here’s a quick run down of what’s good (i.e. white hat) and what’s bad (i.e. black hat) in the world of SEO.

Let’s start with the bad stuff.

Black Hat

Black hat is all the stuff that Google hates that if used will generate a heft penalty.

1. Bad content

This encompasses anything that’s written for the search engines and keyword stuffed or automatically generated content that is meaningless drivel produced by various software programmes. Don’t use either.

2. Links

Never buy, sell, exchange or dabble in automated link building activities. Links should always be earned through creating high quality content.

3. Hidden links and text

Text hidden behind images, white text on a white background, tiny fonts and hidden links (i.e. linking a hyphen rather than a word) will lead you into trouble.

4. Scraping

This is republishing articles from other sites without permission and pretending they’re your own.

5. Redirects

In the past people would create text-heavy web pages that were crammed with keyword-stuffed content written for the search engines. When clicked on, they redirected the user elsewhere.

White Hat

White hat is all about optimising your website for your audience. These activities are aimed at improving user experience and not manipulating the search results.

1. Content

It must be relevant, useful and written naturally. Plus, it produced regularly so there’s always something fresh on your website (e.g. by adding a blog).

2. Links (internal)

These are links to other content within your website. They are designed to enhance your reader’s experience by taking them to other relevant information within your website.

Only use a couple or so within your content so you don’t bombard your reader and make sure you use relevant anchor text.

3. Link earning

Every website that links to yours is like a vote. The more votes you get, the higher you rank. But these links must be natural and earned.

4. Navigation

At the top of your website (or down one side) will be your navigation helping your readers find their way around your website. These should incorporate your keywords.

5. Tags and titles

META descriptions and keywords are no longer important, but your title tags are. The tag you use should accurately describe your page whilst using your keywords (but without stuffing).

6. META description

Yes, I know I said this was no longer important and from an SEO point of view their not. But they come into their own for the user when your website is listed in the search results. It is this description that will help the user make a decision about which website to look at.

7. Images

The search engines can’t read images, but they can read the Alt tag that goes with them. Make sure your tags are meaningful and relevant.

8. Anchor text

This is the word or phrase you use to link out to another page of your website. It should utilise your keywords, but naturally, built within a phrase.

To make sure you don’t go wrong simply make sure that everything you do is for your reader and not the search engines.

There’s a whole world of difference between writing to pass on information and writing to sell.

When your emphasis is on information, whether a report, fictional story or newspaper article, your title gives a summary of what you’re writing about so the reader can weigh up whether they want to read it or not.

That’s not how sales writing works.

You don’t want the reader to take a look at your title and decide whether they want to read or not – you want them to read on.

Granted, you can’t force them to read, but you can encourage them.

How to write sales titles

In the world of sales writing your title is there to tease; it should evoke curiosity, it should fascinate, create controversy or urgency and hint at a mystery that can only be solved by reading on.

If your title tells them everything they need to know straight away, they’ll make a snap judgement on whether they need to read on or not without getting all the facts.

By teasing them and giving them a hint, you’re drawing them in to the copy where they get the full picture and your persuasive words can work their magic because it’s the body of your copy that will do the selling.

Using the power of sub headings

Sub headings help you structure your copy. They act as signposts to your reader, helping them pin point information, but they can also make great teaser-titles.

Let’s say you wanted to write a post about setting up a small business. You’d probably give it a title along the lines of “How to start a small business” or “First steps to setting up a business” or something like that.

But say you had 5 tips to offer budding entrepreneurs. Within your article you’ll probably reference them in a sub heading – “5 tips to getting started”. But why not use that as your headline?

“Follow These 5 Tips and Turn Your Hobby into a Business Success”

Intrigued?

What to know more?

So will your readers.

Remember, your title is there to tempt the reader whereas the body of your writing is there to sell.

Author: Sally Ormond, Copywriter, cyclist and mum.

With over 30 million visitors a day, YouTube is the second largest search engine. That’s why it makes sense to house your videos on the platform.

Millions of businesses are making the most of YouTube’s popularity by using it as a repository for their videos that they can then embed within their own website.

Not only do they benefit from YouTube’s search capabilities, but they can also use it to create a channel to which people can subscribe.

It sounds great, but its popularity also has drawbacks – namely competition for rankings and the need for an SEO strategy.

As with all content marketing strategies, every video you put out must be of a high quality and contain content that’s targeted to your audience. Then it comes down to good old-fashioned hard work to optimise your videos for maximum impact.

How to improve your YouTube rankings

1. Keywords

You can’t get away from them. Whatever form your online marketing takes, keywords will always have a part to play.

This isn’t a free ticket to keyword-stuff your videos, far from it, but it is important to make sure you use words that relate to your video’s content. A great tool to use for this is YouTube’s own keyword tool.

2. Video title

Just as with your articles and blog posts, your video title will have a big impact on your click rate.

Make sure it’s short, attention grabbing and uses one or two of your keywords. But you only have 120 characters to play with, so you may have to get creative (just so long as the title is relevant to the video’s content).

3. Description

Sadly, Google can’t watch your video so the only way it will know what it’s about is through your description. Again, use your keywords (sparingly) and, if it’s a long video, add a transcription to give your SEO a boost.

4. Tags

Video tags serve the same purpose as those you use for blog posts. They help YouTube understand what you’re video is about and, by using keywords (plus locations, categories etc.) they will boost it’s search-ability.

5. Links

Links back to your video are as important as links to your website. In the same way as they help your Google rankings, links back to your video will help its YouTube rankings.

6. Thumbnail

Not as obvious is attractiveness of your video’s thumbnail.

Find an image that will appeal to your audience to try and attract clicks.

How does YouTube ranking videos?

It’s also worth taking note of the factors that YouTube takes into account when it comes to rankings its videos:

• How many views the video has
• How long users spend watching the video
• How many appearances it’s made on a user’s playlist
• How many positive ratings and comments it’s received
• How many subscribers your YouTube channel has
• How many times the video’s been added as a favourite or to a playlist
• How many times the video has been embedded on the web

Popularity appears to be a recurring factor, therefore it’s worth adding another factor to help you improve your rankings – social sharing. Getting your videos out on social media regularly will boost your audience and have a positive impact on your rankings.

Author: Sally Ormond, copywriter at Briar Copywriting Ltd and cyclist (not at the same time).

“Unoptimised SEO? Have you lost the plot?”

At times I think I have, but in this case, no, there really is such a thing as unoptimised SEO and it’s something you should be doing.

You’ve probably seen loads of posts announcing the death of SEO following the numerous Google algorithm changes, but I can confirm that SEO is alive and well, just not necessarily in the same form as it was.

SEO is alive; it’s just different

In the ‘bad old days’ SEO practices were focused on Google and manipulating its rankings.

Before you get on your high horse and say it wasn’t, it was. It was all about link building, link exchanging, manipulating page rank and keyword stuffing. The actual user or reader took a back seat.

Now, SEO is all about the reader and not focused on Google. Over optimisation, using the techniques above, lead to hefty penalties, so now you have to focus on unoptimisation.

But how do you do that?

Traditionally, SEO fell into 2 categories:

• On site SEO – this is controlled by you, so it’s HTML coding, meta tags, keyword density, keyword placement etc.
• Off site SEO – this relates to link building, link popularity and link authority

You can do as much on site SEO as you like (so long as it’s not hiding links, keyword repetition or duplicate content), but the off page stuff is a no-no.

Why?

Because off site SEO is seen as manipulating the search results, therefore the SEO industry is now redefining itself.

How to do unoptimised SEO

The easiest way to explain the technique is to tell you to focus all your efforts on your audience.

Create helpful, relevant content that’s easy to understand on a website that’s coded correctly with appropriate tags.

Then, rather than link building, you need to concentrate on link earning by sharing your knowledge, creating original material, being active on social media and offering your audience helpful content.

But it’s not enough to just churn out content you must also measure its effectiveness through:

• Shares
• Traffic generation
• Conversion rate
• Return on investment

The chances are, as Google continues to try to improve user experience, SEO techniques will change again, so it pays to keep up to date with what’s happening in the industry.

Today, your audience is everything. Your website and business is nothing without them, so it’s time to change your online marketing and SEO strategy to reflect that.